his profession, has been since as grossly as ridiculously accused of
having been bought by the English government to hasten the end of
Zumalacarregui, if ever his services enabled him to do so; and it is
still said, and believed by many, that the death of the general was
owing to poison put into the bandages with which Mr Burgess first
dressed the wound. In a country like Spain, where there is much
ignorance and deep prejudice, it does not suffice to laugh to scorn
accusations of any sort: it is better to meet them seriously, and
disprove them by a fact. _Mr Burgess never dressed Zumalacarregui's
leg at all._ He spoke no Spanish, and while he was endeavouring to
make himself understood and to learn what had happened, Grediaga
arrived and put on the first application.
On being asked whither he should be carried, Zumalacarregui
immediately said to Cegama, a town three days' journey off, situated
in a solitary neighbourhood, and entirely unprovided with any thing
like comfort, medicines, or professional assistance. The surprise of
all was manifest, but the general was too accustomed to be obeyed not
to be so in this instance. He was placed upon an old sofa from which
the legs were sawed, and which was carried by eight guides of Navarre,
with twenty-four others as a reserve. Neither he nor the chief of his
staff and secretary, Zaratiegui, had a single peseta in their pockets,
and he received from Mendigana, the paymaster-general, twenty ounces
of gold, as a part of the pay that was due to him.
The reason which induced Zumalacarregui to go to Cegama, was indeed a
strange one, and a fatal one. It was one he never expressed, but which
prompted this revelation from the very instant that he received his
wound. There lived in this district a quack of the very lowest
capacity, of the name of Petriquillo--a man entirely unimbued with the
slightest tincture of medical science, but whose chance cures of
gunshot wounds during the time of the Army of the Faith in 1822, had
astonished and taken possession of the mind of Zumalacarregui. He even
refused to allow the ball to be extracted at a moment when the
operation presented no danger, and his only anxiety was to put himself
into the hands of this ignorant adventurer.
When the party arrived at Durango, Don Carlos sent word that he would
next morning pay a visit to his wounded chief; the frame of mind of
the latter may be collected from an exclamation he made on the road,
heard by all, and commented on by many--"Truly this is a happy day for
the court of the king!"
As announced, Don Carlos came, and the following remarkable
conversation took place:--"Well, Thomas, how could'st thou do so
foolish a thing as to get wounded?" (The Spanish royal family always
use the second person singular.) "Sir, I exposed myself, because it
was my duty to do so--besides, I have lived long enough, _and I am
firmly convinced that we shall all have to die in your majesty's
service_." "Well, but where do'st thou intend going?" "To Cegama,
sir." "No, don't go there, it is a long way off: stay here, I'll have
thee taken care of." "Sir, I have said I would go to Cegama, and to
Cegama will I go: your majesty knows me well enough to be convinced
that what I say, I do." "Oh yes! Thomas, that is certain--well, go
with God, and take care of thyself."
After this interview, Zumalacarregui instantly set off, as if it was a
relief to him to get out of the atmosphere of the court. Between
Durango and Bergara he was met by the quack Petriquillo and the cura
Zabala. Besides the above-mentioned Grediaga, Don Carlos had desired
two other nominal physicians, Gelos and Voloqui, to accompany the
general; but these two men were, in fact, as ignorant, and as rash,
and as opinionated as Petriquillo himself. Petriquillo took off the
dressing from the wound; he made two men rub the patient for four
hours from the hip to the ankle, with an unctuous substance known only
to himself. He then put on a bandage dipped in some medicament of his
own composition. Zumalacarregui suffered extremely during the night.
Next morning a violent fever manifested itself. Mr Burgess, frightened
at this treatment, returned to Bilbao, and Zumalacarregui continued
his journey, arriving at Cegama on the evening of the 17th.
The surgeon Grediaga still continued, not his services, but his
useless advice. As the fever increased, he recommended quiet, diet,
and blood-letting. Petriquillo objected to venesection or leeches; he
administered food in large quantities, to support the general's
strength, and kept the room full of company to keep up the general's
spirits.
Five days passed in this way with this treatment, or rather absence of
treatment, only diversified by various attempts to extract the ball,
though the leg, by the progress of the fever, and the continued
application of the knife and probe, was swollen to twice its size, and
was in a state of the highest exacerbation.
In the middle of the night of the 23d, a great idea struck Gelos and
Petriquillo, the former was sleeping in the same room with Grediaga,
and, fearful lest the latter should prevent its accomplishment, rose
stealthily at one o'clock in the morning, proceeded with Petriquillo
to the room of the general, and they there together _did_ extract the
ball.
At daylight, the joy in the house was extreme; the ball was passed
through the hands of every inhabitant in Cegama, and was then
dispatched in a box to Don Carlos. Petriquillo and Gelos announced,
that in fifteen days the general would be at the head of his army
before Bilbao.
At six o'clock, Zumalacarregui began to complain of insupportable
thirst, and of pains all through the body; shortly afterwards, general
shiverings came on, with convulsions at times. During an interval
between these, he received the last consolations of religion; for
though far from being a bigot, or even a devotee, Zumalacarregui
respected, and practised reverentially, the religion of his country.
At eleven o'clock in the morning of the 24th of June 1835, he expired.
On examining the body, it was found that two cuts had been made
completely through the calf of the leg in order to get at the ball:
Their length was about three inches, and their depth was as great as
it could be; for they reached the bone. The whole of the integuments
had been divided by Petriquillo, and the sheets of the bed were one
mass of blood.
About three hours before the general's death, Petriquillo, unseen,
went into the stable, saddled his mule, and departed.
As the dead chief never possessed the uniform of a general, his body
was laid out in borrowed garments belonging to the attorney of the
place. It was dressed in a black coat and black pantaloons, with a
white waistcoat, and over the shoulder was put the riband of the fifth
class of St Ferdinand, without the star, for he never had one.
Zumalacarregui had troubled himself little about external decorations;
and his ordinary dress, a black sheep-skin jacket, red overalls, and a
flat scarlet boyna, or cap of the country, which he thought
sufficiently good for his body when living, was deemed unworthy of him
when he became dust. It was an apt type of what had preceded, and what
was to follow: the rude neglected warrior during life--the Duke, the
_King's friend_, the grandee of Spain after death.
One word about the cruelty of Zumalacarregui. He _was_ cruel, and what
is about to be said is a reason, but it is not put forth as either an
excuse or a justification. His cruelty proceeded from no innate or
idiosyncratic ferocity. In a less cruel atmosphere he would have
breathed a milder spirit. There is an indifference to life in all
Spaniards, which, on one side, prompts great deeds, and, on the other,
readily ripens into inhumanity. They care little about their own
lives, and speedily learn to care still less about the lives of
others. In this melancholy warfare there was cruelty on all sides;
and, from the execution of Santos Ladron, there followed a series of
bloody atonements, each producing each, which strewed the highways
with as many bodies as had fallen in the field.
Though the temptation of straying into any thing like a biography has
been studiously avoided, there is one anecdote so curious, and not
only so explanatory of what has just been said, but so illustrative of
the character of both the man and the country, that it will hardly be
deemed out of place.
A young grandee of Spain, the Count of Via-Manuel, had been taken
prisoner. Zumalacarregui was anxious to save his life, though the
circumstance of his rank seemed to make his death the more certain, as
being a fitter expiation for many executions which had lately taken
place on the Christino side. Zumalacarregui addressed a letter to
Rodil, the commander-in-chief of that army, saying that he was anxious
to exchange his prisoner for a subaltern officer, and some soldiers
that had been lately seized sick in a farm-house, and that he awaited
the answer. The distance between the armies was short, and, some hours
after, Via-Manuel requested permission to see the general and learn
his fate. Zumalacarregui received him in the room when he was just
going to dinner, and, in that oriental style so interwoven in the
whole web of Spanish customs, offered him a part of the repast that
was before him. In ordinary times, this is but a courteous form, and
it is rarely accepted; but Via-Manuel, thinking perhaps of the Arab's
salt in this Moorish compliment, accepted the invitation, and sat down
at the table. They eat, and at the end of dinner an orderly entered
and gave a letter to the general. It was from Rodil, and contained
only these words--"The rebels were shot this morning." Zumalacarregui,
without saying a word, handed the paper to Via-Manuel, rose from
table, and went out of the room. The unfortunate count was that night
placed, according to custom, in the chapel of the village, and was
shot next morning.
This happened in Lecumberri, which was entered shortly afterwards by
the troops of the Queen. On leaving it the following day, two Carlist
officers were pinioned and shot through the back, on the very spot
where Via-Manuel fell. Such was the frightful mode of reciprocal
expiation carried on on both sides; but the writer of this notice has,
at least, among those painful recollections, the consolation of
reflecting, that in this, as in other instances more fortunate, he did
all in his power to save the victims.
This little sketch has swelled beyond its intended bulk, but when
those who love Spain have passed the Pyrenees, it is difficult not to
linger there, even on paper. Amid dangers and difficulties, and even
the horrors of civil war, Spain has an attraction which it would be as
difficult to explain to those who do not feel it, as to describe the
sound of a trumpet to a deaf man. To those who have passed their early
years there, Spain is like the shining decoration in a play, which
still continues haunting the slumbers of the child that has seen one
for the first time.
After the death of Zumalacarregui, Don Carlos took command of the
army, with Moreno for chief of his staff, but the latter exercised all
real authority. The Pretender was utterly deficient of every thing
like military talent, and from the day of Zumalacarregui's death, his
cause was not only hopeless, but felt to be so by the queen's party,
who shortly regained the large portion of occupied territory which
they had recently lost.
Zumalacarregui, from the 1st May 1835 to the 11th of June of that
year, had made upwards of three thousand soldiers and a hundred
officers prisoners. He left for all inheritance to his wife and
daughters something less than forty pounds and four horses.
NEW SCOTTISH PLAYS AND POEMS.[53]
We suspect that in this railway age poetry is at a greater discount
than ever. The reason is obvious. Not only the public, who are the
readers, but even the poets themselves, have been largely infected by
the current mania of speculation. Had the possession of capital been
requisite for a participation in any of the thousand defunct schemes
which have caused so unprecedented an emigration to the breezy shores
of Boulogne, our poetical friends might have claimed for their
vocation the credit of a rare morality. But unfortunately, the
national gaming-table was open to men of every class. Peer and
peasant, count and costermonger, millionaire and bankrupt, were alike
entitled to figure as allottees, or even as committee-men, for the
simple subscription of their signatures; and amidst the rush and
squeeze of the crowd, who thronged towards the portal of Plutus, we
were less surprised than pained to observe some of the most venerated
votaries of Apollo. We shall not affect to disguise the purpose for
which we were there ourselves. But much may be permitted to the
prosaic writer which is forbidden to the canonized bard. Ours is a pen
of all work--equally ready to concoct a prospectus, or to expose a
literary charlatan. We are intensely fond of lucre, and expect, some
day or another, to be in possession of the moiety of a plum. We have
therefore no vain scruples regarding the sanctity of our calling, but
carry our genius like a hooded falcon upon our wrist, ready to let it
fly at any manner of game which may arise. We, however, deny in
absolute terms the right of a poet to any such general license. He has
no business whatever to trespass one foot beyond the limits his own
domain. He ought to be thoroughly ignorant of the existence of bulls
and bears, stags and ducks, and the rest of the zoology of the
Exchange. Consols should be to him a mystery more impenetrable than
the Sibylline verses, and the state of the stocks as unaccountable as
the policy of Sir Robert Peel. The mischief, however, is done, and we
fear it is irremediable. The example of the Poet-Laureate may indeed
serve as a kind of excuse for the minor professors of the art. His
well-known attempt to _bear_ the Kendal and Windermere line, by a
series of ferocious sonnets, is still fresh in the memory of the
public, and we trust the veteran has, long ere this, realized a
handsome profit. We ourselves made a little money out of the Perth and
Inverness, by means of an indignant tirade against the desecration of
the Pass of Killiecrankie; and we should, to a certainty, have made
more, had not the Parliamentary Committee been weak enough to believe
us, and, in consequence, to reject the bill. Yet it may be long before
the literary market can recover its healthy tone--ere sonnets once
more resume their ancient ascendency, and circulate from hand to hand
in the character of intellectual scrip.
We suspect that very few of the poets backed out of the scrape in
time. Their sanguine and enthusiastic temperament led them to hold, at
all risks and hazards; and they did not, as a body, take warning from
the symptoms of a declining market. An amiable friend of ours who
belongs to the Young England party, and who has issued a couple of
duodecimos in laudation of Bishop Bonner, found himself at the period
of the crash in possession of two thousand Caithness and Land's End
scrip, utterly unsaleable at any discount, though a fortnight before
they were quoted at fifteen premium. He meditates, as we are
informed, a speedy retirement to the penal solitudes of La Trappe, as
there now seems to be little hope that Louis Philippe will provide a
proper refuge for chivalrous misfortune by resuscitating the Order of
Malta. The weaver-poet of Camlachie has gone into the Gazette in
consequence of an unfortunate speculation in Caledonians. His lyre is
as silent as his shuttle; and we fear that in his hours of despondency
he is becoming by far too much addicted to drink. A clever young
dramatist confessed to us some time ago that he found himself utterly
"goosed;" and the last hope of the school of Byron has been forced to
deny himself the luxury of inverted collars, as his uncompromising
laundress peremptorily refused to accept of payment in characteristic
Cemetery shares.
In the gross, this state of things seems deplorable enough; and yet,
when we analyse it, there is still some room for comfort. Never, since
we first had the honour of wielding the critical lash--for the Crutch
is a sacred instrument--in the broad amphitheatre of letters, do we
recollect a year less fertile in the product of verse than the
present. Our young friends are not possessed with the same supreme and
sublime contempt of gold which formed so disinterested a feature of
the poets of the by-gone age. They have become corrupted by the
manufacturing and utilitarian tenets of the day; and--we shudder to
record it--divers of them are violent free-traders. They have all
fallen into the snare of the man Broker; and at the very outset of
life, in the heyday and spring of their existence, they can count both
sides of a shilling with the acuteness of a born Pennsylvanian. Hence
it is, we presume, that they have attained to a knowledge of the
fact--long ago notorious among the Trade--that poetry will not pay.
They look upon genius through the glasses of Adam Smith, weigh the
probability of an adequate demand before they venture on the
production of a supply, and cut short the inchoate canto upon
principles of Political Economy. In a few years, we fear, poetry will
be no longer extant, save for the commercial purposes of the
advertisements of Messrs Moses and Hyam; unless, indeed, some Welsh or
Highland railway company should take the matter up, and double their
dividends by bribing a first-rate poet to produce another _Lady of the
Lake_. Hence the sparseness of our library table, which renders our
old vocation comparatively a sinecure, and leaves us, without the
necessity of immolation, to the undisturbed enjoyment of our chair.
We might indeed, were we savagely inclined, discover some Volscians
worth our fluttering in the ranks of Young England, or the more sombre
group of poetical Oxonian divines. But we look with a kindly eye upon
the eccentricities of the one school, and we listen to the drowsy
strains of the other with no more active demonstration of disapproval
than a yawn. We have high hope of George Sydney Smythe, Lord John
Manners, and others, who have already produced some things of evident
promise--not mere beaten tinsel, such as the resuscitated Cockneys are
again beginning to vend in the literary market--but verses of true and
genuine originality. Could we but ensure them against the vitiating
effects of politics, it were a light hazard to predict for either of
the above gentlemen a far higher reputation than has been achieved by
the united efforts of the whole canorous crew which constituted the
Melbourne administration. We must indeed except Mr Macaulay, a better
poet than a politician, but--the brilliant ballad-writer being
removed--what soul could have been contented to fatten upon the spongy
lyrics of a Spring Rice, or the intolerable tragedies of a Russell!
What food to sweeten the tedium of a solitary imprisonment for life!
As for the Oxford school, we fairly confess that its votaries are
beyond our comprehension. Amiable they are, no doubt, although ascetic
in principle; but they are likewise insufferably tedious. We have
attempted at various times, and during different states of the
barometer, to make ourselves master of the compositions of Mr Williams
and his principal followers. We failed. After skimming over a page or
two of mellifluous blank verse, we began to experience a strange
sensation, as if a bee were humming through the room. At each
evolution of the imaginary insect, our eyes felt heavier and heavier.
We made a strong effort to rally ourselves at the description of a
crystalline stream, meandering, as we rather think, somewhere through
the confines of Paradise; but the hue of the water gradually changed.
It became dark and treacly, purled with a somniferous sound, as though
the channel had been filled with living laudanum; and in three minutes
more we were unconscious of the existence of the income-tax, and as
relieved from the load of worldly cares as though we had joined
company with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
Surely we have a right to expect something better from Oxford than
this. The old nurse of learning must bestir herself once more,
forswear morphia, and teach her pupils to strike a manlier chord, else
men will cease to believe in the ancient magic of her name. What we
want is, power, energy, pathos--not mere vapid sentiment, so
diligently distilled that scarce a flavour of the original material is
left to enable us to discover its origin. If poetry be a copy or a
reflex of life, let it show out lifelike and true; if it be the
representation of a dream, at all events let us have the vision, as in
the mirror of Agrippa, well defined, though around its edges rest the
clouds of impenetrable mystery. Above all things, let us have meaning,
not vague allegorical phrases--power if not passion--sense if not
sublimity. If the classics cannot teach us these, let us go back to
the earlier ballads, and see how our fathers wrote without the aid of
metaphysical jargon.
Our present purpose is to deal with Scottish writers, and fortunately
we have material at hand. Last month we were in London, engaged in
divers matters connected with the state of the nation and our own
private emolument, which latter pursuit we as seldom as possible
neglect. The cares of a railway witness, in which capacity we had the
honour to act, are but few. A bountiful table was spread for us, not
in the wilderness, but in an excellent hotel in St James's; breakfast,
luncheon, dinner, and supper, followed one another with praiseworthy
regularity; the matutinal soda-water was only succeeded by the iced
hock and champagne of the vespers, and a beneficent Fairy of seventeen
stone, in the guise of a Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, was courteous
enough not only to defray the whole of the attending expenses, but to
furnish us with certain sums of gold, which we disseminated at our own
proper pleasure. In return for the attentions of our legal Barmecide,
we submitted to ensconce ourselves for a couple of days in a hot room
somewhere about the Cloisters, in the course of which sederunt we held
an animated conversation with several gentlemen in wigs, for the
edification--as we were given to understand--of five other gentlemen
in hats, who sat yawning behind a green table. We take this
opportunity of tendering our acknowledgments to the eminent and
raucous Queen's Counsel who was kind enough to conduct our
cross-examination, and who so delicately insinuated his doubts as to
the veracity and candour of our replies. As his knowledge of the
localities about Braemar--the district then under question--was about
equal to his cognizance of the natural history of Kamschatka, we felt
the compliment deeply; and should we ever have the pleasure of
encountering our beetle-browed acquaintance during a vacation ramble
on the skirts of Schehallion, we pledge ourselves that he shall carry
back with him to Lincoln's Inn some lasting tokens of our regard. In
the mean time we sincerely hope he has recovered from that distressing
fit of huskiness which rendered his immediate vicinity by no means a
seat of comfort to his solicitor.