The second Turkish empire was founded by the Seljouks in the eleventh

century. Its power grew up on the political decline of the caliphate of

Bagdat and of the Byzantine empire. The dominions of the caliphs had

been dismembered, and Bagdat itself had been plundered by Turkish

mamlouks, before it was conquered by Togrulbeg with his Seljouks. The

Byzantine empire, which, by the creation of a systematic and legal

administration, had reinvigorated the expiring energies of the eastern

Roman empire, had declined into a pure despotism, and the rulers of

Constantinople were rapidly devouring the wealth and diminishing the

numbers of their subjects by financial oppression. The exploits of

Togrulbeg, Alp Arslan, and Malek Shah, may be read in the pages of

Gibbon, which have secured them fame wherever English literature is

known. Many traces of their handiwork are visible at the

present,—monuments of what is called their glory. When they entered the

countries between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian, the Black Sea, and the

Mediterranean, they found them filled with cities, which, though

declined in splendour and wealth by the loss of their municipal

administrations, in consequence of the rapacious centralisation of the

Roman, Byzantine, and Mohammedan empires, were nevertheless still well

inhabited, and surrounded by a numerous agricultural population. But

with the coming of the Seljouks, “the verdure fled the bloody sod.” They

were a nomade people, and their armies were composed of nomadic tribes,

who drew their supplies from the flocks and herds which moved with them.

The inhabitants of cities were their enemies unless they became their

tributaries; and in order to preserve a garrison in the countries they

conquered, it was necessary for them to exterminate the cultivators of

the soil in the richest and most central plains of their dominions. An

encampment of tents could only be secure from surprise by being

surrounded to the extent of a day’s journey by untilled pastures.

Similar desolation has been effected in agricultural countries for

ignobler objects. In England the traveller may still see the effects of

an arbitrary act of devastation, perpetrated about the same period, by

William the Conquerer, in the New Forest; and in wandering through Asia

Minor many of our readers have probably passed over districts as fertile

as the plains of Poland and Moldavia, on which wheat never grows, but

which the page of history informs us were inhabited by an industrious

agricultural population, until the towns were destroyed, and the

population exterminated, by Kutulmish the lieutenant of Alp Arslan, and

Suleiman his son, the lieutenant of Malek Shah. The Seljouk empire was

soon divided into the three secondary kingdoms of Roum or Iconium, of

Syria, and of Persia. It was subdued and rent into fragments by the

successors of Genghis Khan, and in the fourteenth century the Othoman

empire arose amidst its dismembered provinces.

Othman, the eponymous hero of the Othoman empire, entered the Seljouk

empire of Roum with his father, who was the chieftain of a small tribe

consisting of four hundred families. In the year 1289 he was appointed

governor of the town of Karady-hissar by Aladdin III., the last Seljouk

Sultan of Iconium. The market held on Friday at Karady-hissar was a

trading mart of great local importance. A judge sat in the centre of the

people to decide every question that arose without delay, and without

appeal. Othman frequently occupied the judicial seat. It happened that,

as he was presiding, an important dispute was brought before him for

decision, in which a Christian of Belokoma in the Greek empire

complained of the injustice of a Seljouk noble of Kermian. Othman

decided in favour of the Christian, and the equity of the sentence

extended his fame, and gave additional importance to his government.

Years rolled on. Many emirs established themselves as independent

princes, and have given their names to several provinces in Asia. Sultan

Aladdin III. died in the year 1307, and Othman secured to himself a

position as independent as any of the Seljouk emirs. Just before his

death, he conquered Brusa from the Greeks, and laid the foundation-stone

of the Othoman empire.

This new Turkish empire is remarkable for its rapid progress and firm

consolidation, but still more so for the singular fact that it never

reposed on a national basis. The four hundred families who accompanied

Othman’s father into the Seljouk empire never became the nucleus even of

an Othoman tribe. The Othoman empire threatened Europe with conquest;

the Othoman armies were long invincible; the Othoman administration was

superior to every contemporary government on the European continent;

but, during the period of Othoman greatness and power, there was no such

thing as an Othoman nation. Of the forty-eight grand-viziers who

conducted the administration from the taking of Constantinople to the

death of Sultan Achmet I. in 1617, only three or four were of Othoman or

Seljouk families, while more than thirty were either renegades or

children of Christian parents brought up in the Mohammedan religion. The

other born Mussulmans were not even of Turkish race. Few absolute

monarchies have preserved their pristine vigour with the same unimpaired

energy as the Othoman, and none have passed triumphantly through greater

disasters. Few national governments, indeed, could have survived the

fearful ordeal of the defeat at Angora, and the conquest of Asia Minor

by Timor. Neither Timor nor any of his contemporaries supposed that it

was possible to re-constitute the Othoman government; and, indeed, the

ease with which it regained its power over the Greek Christians and the

Seljouk emirs, is a singular political phenomenon.

This vitality was due to the institutions implanted in the government as

the very breath of its life, by Orkhan the son of Othman, the greatest

legislator of modern times. As a lawgiver, Orkhan was something between

a Lycurgus and a Loyola. At all events, he puts the modern

constitution-makers of Europe to shame. They strive to improve the

rotten fabric of their political institutions by patching the old

despotic garment of Roman law with the new cloth of representative

institutions, forgetting that the rabid appetite of centralisation

swallows the old garment and the new patches far more easily than the

boa-constrictor can swallow a blanket. The institutions of Orkhan were

superior to the Code Napoleon and its progeny, in as far as they were

framed on the exigencies of the time, and modelled on the demands of a

progressive state of society—not borrowed from an extinct people in a

different social and political condition.

We have no space to enumerate Orkhan’s institutions. It is sufficient

for our purpose to notice the keystone of the fabric which raised a

small band of emigrants from Mesopotamia, before three generations had

elapsed, into the founders of one of the great empires of the earth. A

tribute of Christian children, imposed by Orkhan on the people he

conquered, was the basis, the cement, and the keystone of the Othoman

empire. Never before were the laws of humanity and the principles of

justice so systematically violated for so long a period with such

success. The Othoman empire really dates from the year 1329, for it was

in that year that Orkhan assumed the power of coining money, placed his

name in the public prayers, and promulgated his laws. From that time he

was regarded as the founder and the legislator of a new state, and not

as the ruler of a Seljouk emirat. Orkhan made his household the nucleus

of his empire. The strength of his dominions was, by his legislation and

policy, concentrated within his palace walls. Under his roof was united

a college, conducted with all the order and talent of a college of

Jesuits, and a range of barrack-rooms, in which a discipline prevailed

as severe as that of Lycurgus.

The history of the institution of the tribute children, and the

formation of the corps of janissaries, is this: The Mohammedan law

authorises—and, indeed, commands—every Mussulman to educate unbelieving

children who have fallen into his power as orphans, in the Mohammedan

faith. As the military usages of the Seljouk empire gave the Sultan a

fifth of all the spoil taken in war, Orkhan soon became possessed of a

numerous household of Christian slaves, whom he might have sold like the

other Seljouk emirs, and hired mercenary troops with the produce, or

filled his palace with concubines and poets, and devoted himself to the

pursuit of pleasure and fame. Orkhan sought instruments to gratify his

ambition, and to extend the dominion of the Koran. His wars as the ally

of the rebel emperor and hypocritical historian Cantacuzenus, furnished

him with a large supply of slaves from the Greek empire. The base

ambition and rapacity of the rival emperors of Constantinople, induced

them to allow Orkhan to insert a clause in his treaties, authorising him

to transport Christian captives to Asia through the Greek territory. But

it was difficult, by means of war, to secure a constant supply of

healthy and intelligent children of the tender age required for their

conversion, since the Mohammedan law strictly prohibits the forced

conversion of prisoners who have attained the age of twelve. Orkhan’s

great object, however, was to obtain a constant and regular addition to

the young neophytes in his household. Either from his own impulse, or at

the suggestion of his brother, Aladdin, who acted as his prime minister,

or of his relation, Kara Khalil, who was his most intimate counsellor,

he at last resolved to impose a fixed tribute of children on every

Christian district he conquered. The measure was highly approved by all

pious Mussulmans, and, strange to say, it met with little opposition

from the Greek Christians. The empire of Constantinople had been so long

the scene of civil war, and its provinces were so desolated by the

fiscal oppression of the imperial administration, that famine prevailed

among the Greek population in Asia and Europe for several years; and

many parents saw no mode of saving their children from starvation but by

sending them to the serai of Orkhan. The tribute of Christian children

established by Orkhan was extended and systematised by his son, Murad

I., and formed the keystone of the political and military power of the

Othoman empire, until the corruption of the corps of janissaries by the

introduction of other elements. The tribute of Christian children,

however, continued until the year 1685, when it was formally abolished.

The tribute children were generally collected between the ages of seven

and nine. They were at first lodged in the Sultan’s palace, and

carefully instructed in the principles and forms of the Mohammedan

religion under the ablest teachers, selected by Orkhan, who studied

their dispositions and mental capacities. They then entered on a course

of elementary knowledge and gymnastics. As their mental capacities were

developed, and their physical strength increased, they were divided into

several classes. Some, destined to become “men of the pen,” were

educated in legal and administrative knowledge, and from them the

officials in the civil and financial administration were usually

selected. Many became secretaries of state, judges and viziers. Another

division was disciplined as “men of the sword,” and the celebrated corps

of janissaries was at first composed of select individuals from this

body. This college of conquering missionaries, when formed by Orkhan,

consisted of only one thousand, but before the end of his reign it had

increased to three thousand; and when Mohammed II. took Constantinople,

the number had attained twelve thousand. The tribute children were also

numerous in the ranks of the cavalry, artillery, and police soldiers of

the empire. Never, indeed, was so terrible an instrument of absolute

power created so rapidly and so completely beyond all external influence

as that which Orkhan formed. The tribute children were all members of

the household of the Othoman Sultan. They had no ties of family or

country, and felt no responsibility but what they owed to the prophet

and the Sultan. At the beck of the Sultan, and with a fetva of the

mufti, they were ready to strike down the proudest noble of the

Seljouks, to shed the purest blood of the Arabs, and to trample on all

the hereditary feelings and prejudices of the courts of the Caliphs.

Against the Christian nations they were animated with the most fervent

zeal; for it was a principal part of their education to infuse an

enthusiastic wish to extend the empire of Islam. Thus Orkhan made

Christian parents the most active agents in destroying the Christian

religion. It is impossible to reflect on this lamentable occurrence

without feeling that, had the Greek emperors and the orthodox priests of

the period given their subjects and their parishioners as good an

education as Orkhan gave his slaves, the attacks of the Turks might have

been triumphantly repulsed.

That the system of education pursued in the palace of Orkhan must have

derived some of its excellent qualities from the family system of

Othman’s household, cannot be doubted. The Othoman tribe was not morally

corrupted, like the society of the Seljouk Turks; the history of their

empire bears strong testimony to the fact during several generations.

The Othoman sultans were, during the early period of the empire,

educated on the same system, and in the same manner, as the tribute

children, and no state can show such a long succession of hereditary

sovereigns remarkable for great talent. The Othoman institutions testify

the sagacity of Orkhan and Murad I. more than their rapid conquests.

Bayezid the Thunderbolt, though his rash pride caused the defeat of

Angora and the ruin of the empire for a time, was liberal and generous

to his Christian subjects, whom he admitted freely to his society.

Mohammed I., who restored the empire ruined by his father’s ambition,

was a staunch friend and a kind master, though, in his hostilities, as

old Phrantzes says, he was as obstinately persevering as a camel. Murad

II. distinguished himself by his attention to the administration of

justice, and swept away many of the abuses which, under the Greek

emperors, had exhausted the fortunes of the Christians. If any of his

pashas or judges oppressed the Christians in his dominions they were

severely punished. Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople, united

the activity of youth with the sagacity of age, both as a warrior and a

statesman. He possessed considerable literary and scientific knowledge,

and had made great progress in astrology, then the fashionable science

both among Christians and Mussulmans. He was fond of reading, and spoke

the Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Sclavonian languages

with fluency. Such is the character of the early sultans for six

generations, as transmitted to us in the pages of their mortal enemies,

the Byzantine Greeks. Other authorities tell us that these infidels were

ready to receive suggestions for the improvement of their army and their

civil administration, and that they were indefatigably engaged in

submitting new ideas in the civil administration, and new inventions in

the art of war, to the most rigorous examination. Activity and

intelligence were stimulated in every branch of the public service by

the example of the prince. The consequences form the staple of early

Othoman history. New combinations in war and politics presented

themselves daily to every Turkish pasha, which called for a prompt

decision; and as it was incumbent on him to transmit a report of the

reasons which had determined his conduct to an able and despotic master,

he soon learned prudence in counsel as well as promptitude in action.

For two centuries we find nothing vague and indefinite in the operations

of the Othoman sultans, or of the pashas intrusted with the command of

their armies. The first modern school of generals and statesmen was

formed in the Othoman empire.

The general causes of the decline of the Othoman empire are well known.

The janissaries, instead of being tribute children, were transformed

into a _garde nationale_, like what we have seen flourish and disappear

at Paris. But the logical principles of a paternal monarchy still exist

at Constantinople. The Sultan is connected with his people, but can have

no ties of family. He ought not to be the son of a free woman, but the

child of a slave, destitute of every family tie, in order that no

personal attachments and family sympathies may interfere with the cares

of administration.

At the present moment we hear it asserted on all sides, that the Othoman

administration is making great progress in restoring energy and

intelligence in the government. Yet there are some who insist that the

progress is small; that it is an empire without roads, and a government

without a people; a central administration which every subject, be he

Christian or Mussulman, detests for its financial rapacity and

systematic contempt for justice. Inshallah! there is some truth on both

sides, but it is not exactly our clue to separate the wheat from the

tares, as they resemble one another so much at Stamboul as to confound

the skill of European diplomatists. We know to our cost that there is no

road either to Brusa or Adrianople fit for a French diligence, and that

an abortive attempt was made to form a road from Trebizond to Erzeroum.

The great feature of the Othoman empire at the present day is this, that

capital cannot be profitably employed in the improvement of the soil,

and, strange to say, this peculiar feature of its social condition is

common to the new-created monarchy of Greece, and to no other European

state. Trade often flourishes, cities increase in population and wealth,

gardens, vineyards, and orchards grow up round the towns from the

overflow of commercial profits, but the canker is in the heart of the

agricultural population; a yoke of land receives the same quantity of

seed it did a hundred years ago, and the same number of families

cultivate the same fields. This is the most favourable view of the case;

but the fact is, that many of the richest plains of Thrace, Macedonia,

and Asia Minor, are uncultivated, and have only the wolf and the jackal

for their tenants. In Greece, too, under the scientific administration

of King Otho, and with a representative government _à la Française_, we

see the plains of Thebes, Messenia, and Tripolitza, present the same

agricultural system which they did under the Othoman government, and

agriculture in general quite as much neglected and more despised. Now

the line of demarcation between civilisation and barbarism really

consists in the profitable investment of capital in the soil. The

agricultural population is the basis of a national existence, and unless

the soil produce two bushels of wheat from the same surface where one

formerly grew, and fatten two sheep where one merely gathered a

subsistence, a nation gains little in strength and wellbeing though its

cities double their population. The political and social problem, with

regard to the governments of Constantinople and Athens, which now

requires a solution, is, to determine the causes that prevent the

cultivation of wheat on the European and Asiatic coasts of the

Archipelago, and in the fertile island of Cyprus. The provinces between

the Danube and the Don were in a similar condition when Akerman,

Okzakoff, and Azof, were Turkish pashaliks; under the Russian

government, they supply France and England with grain. Now, the

grain-growers of Turkey could furnish half the grain exported at present

from the Black Sea, and they could obtain much higher prices for their

produce in consequence of the great saving of freight to consumers. Even

the fertile districts of Bithynia and Thrace, bordering on the Sea of

Marmora, than which there are no finer corn-districts in the world,

cannot furnish Constantinople with a regular supply of wheat; and the

Osmanlees would often suffer famine in the capital of their empire,

unless they were provisioned from the provinces taken from them by the

_Moskof gaiour_.

For our part, we must say that it is not unreasonable to entertain some

doubts of the improvement which has manifested itself in the Othoman

administration proving permanent, until we see some increase of the

agricultural population. When the citizens of Stamboul and Athens begin

to colonise the country, it will be time enough to talk of the

regeneration of the Othoman power. And unless the population of the

kingdom of Otho of Bavaria, which possess all the advantages to be

derived from universal suffrage, joined to the inestimable liberty of

walking about the streets with pistols and Turkish knives stuck in the

belt, begin to abandon its passion for coffeehouses, and find pleasure

and profit in the cultivation of the fields, the improvement of the

Greek nation will not be generally admitted, even though Athens become a

clean, elegant, and flourishing city. There must be an evident increase

in the amount of the produce of the soil from a given number of acres,

before those who study the political history of nations can be persuaded

of the feasibility of the project of restoring a Greek empire.

MACAULAY’S SPEECHES.[9]

As we never had the good fortune of moving in that circle of society to

which the power of retailing anecdote, with minute circumstantiality,

was considered as the proper passport—as we never were invited to listen

to the small scandals of the group collected at Holland House, or the

smaller delivery of the contents of commonplace books, which, in less

renowned Whig coteries, is considered the perfection of sprightly

converse—we are not ashamed to acknowledge our momentary oblivion of the

party, who, in the sonorous verse and rounded periods of a brother

dramatist, recognised his own thunder. We cannot at this moment

accurately remember whether it was the figurative Puff or Plagiary, or

the real Cumberland, who preferred that accusation; and, therefore, we

frankly admit, that we lie at the mercy of those gentlemen who consider

a slip in an anecdote, or an erroneous name and date in a fragment of

gossip, as the evidence of deficient education, and the token of

unpolished intercourse. We allude to the story in question merely

because the preface to Mr Macaulay’s collected speeches exhibits a

curious specimen of the wrath which may be excited by another method of

conveyance. It is not the appropriation of his thunder, but the

non-appropriation of it, which seems to have roused Mr Macaulay to a

point of very vehement indignation. It appears that a London publisher,

Mr Vizetelly, availing himself of a licence which the law

permits—namely, that of reprinting speeches which have been publicly

delivered—conceived that the issue of a collection of Mr Macaulay’s

speeches might possibly prove a paying speculation. He reprinted, as we

are given to understand, from “Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,” a

number of these orations; but, in his preliminary advertisement he

appears to have announced that he did so “by special permission.” That

phrase ought not to have been used; or if used, it should have been

accompanied by a distinct reference to the party who granted the

permission. Nine out of ten of the reading public would certainly

conclude, from the terms employed, that Mr Macaulay, not the proprietor

of Hansard, had authorised the publication; and, so far, there is just

ground for complaint. It was not only natural, but proper, and due to

himself, that Mr Macaulay should have taken steps to disavow any

connection with, or any countenance given to the enterprise of the

enigmatical publication. But he has not contented himself with a broad

disclaimer. Stung to the quick by some absurd blunders which the

self-constituted editor has committed, and which are specially referred

to in the preface, in terms of vehement indignation, he has thought it

necessary for his own fame to suspend “a work which is the business and

the pleasure of my life, in order to prepare these speeches for

publication.” It is no compliment to Mr Macaulay to say that the public

will not thank him for having done so. The desire and eagerness, on the

part of the public, to receive a new instalment of his History, is only

equalled by their repugnance to peruse speeches upon subjects the

interest of which has long gone by—a repugnance not lessened by the

impression that, even when new, the speeches were not of a superlative

degree of merit. We are sorry that because Vizetelly—whom Mr Macaulay

supposes to be actuated by a desire of attaining the same distinction

which was formerly enjoyed by Curll—should have mistaken Pundits for

Pandects, and magnified the city of Benares into an oriental

nation—because he has made the gifted orator “give an utterly false

history of Lord Nottingham’s Occasional Conformity Bill”—or because he

has represented him as saying “that Whitfield held and taught that the

connection between Church and State was sinful,” whereas Whitfield never

said anything of the kind, nor was Mr Macaulay so ignorant as to have

averred that he did,—we say we are sorry that because Vizetelly did

these things, our brilliant, though tardy historian, should have

considered his reputation so dangerously imperilled, as to depart from

his legitimate and most interesting labours, for the purpose of

presenting us with a mediocre and uninspiring volume of speeches. It is

true that he avers reluctance, nay, even disinclination to the task. If

that were his real feeling, he need not have troubled himself much about

the speculations of Vizetelly. During the last twenty years, many public

speakers—nay, some men who may be classed as real orators—all of them

far more distinguished than Mr Macaulay, for power, energy, pathos, wit,

and influence, have gone to their graves; and yet no attempt has been

made, though the absence of copyright in speeches might have encouraged

the speculation, to publish their works in a collected form. If we want

to form an idea of the styles of the late Earl Grey, or Lord Durham, or

Sir Francis Burdett, we must necessarily have recourse to the Mirror of

Parliament. The filial piety of their relatives, great as it was, did

not lead them to the generous error of supposing that their speeches

would hereafter rank with those of Demosthenes or Cicero. In our own day

no man, as a popular orator, equalled Daniel O’Connell; yet where are

his collected speeches?—and be it remembered that popular oratory is

essentially Demosthenic, and that O’Connell could produce a greater

effect upon a mixed audience—which is the test of oratory—than any other

man of our time. Where are Shiel’s speeches? In Hansard—where, we

hesitate not to say, the speeches of every man of the slightest eminence

in public life ought to be allowed to remain, without separate

collection, at least during his own lifetime, and until his career is

accomplished. Indeed, there are many prudential reasons, at the present

day, against the collection of senatorial speeches. No one has proposed

to issue those of the late Sir Robert Peel, although there can be no

doubt that such a publication would afford some curious subjects for

commentary. It would serve the same purpose as the ancient collections

of commonplaces—_loci communes_, _loci rerum_, &c.—from which the tyro

in rhetoric might draw arguments adapted for immediate use on either

side of a question. In such a collection all possible _pros_ and

_contras_ would be found, not drily stated, but set forth with elaborate

ingenuity. One speech would give the Protestant, and another the

Catholic side of the question—one while we should find the orator

supporting agriculture against manufactures—another, manufactures

against agriculture; the zeal and sincerity being in both cases the

same. Then, what a charming miscellany Sir James Graham has it in his

power to offer to the public! What deftness—what dexterity—what amazing

complexity of tergiversation would be exhibited by a collection of his

Parliamentary speeches! We feel almost inclined to advise Mr Vizetelly

to ransack Hansard for the Netherby harangues; the more so because Mr

Macaulay, in his own edition, has taken care to insert nothing

calculated to irritate Sir James. That is not altogether fair, and it is

certainly the reverse of valorous. Mr Macaulay had occasion, in his

place in Parliament, to direct vigorous speeches both against Sir Robert

Peel and against Sir James Graham. He tells us now in his preface that

“it was especially painful to me to find myself under the necessity of

recalling to my own recollection, and to the recollection of others, the

keen encounters which took place between the late Sir Robert Peel and

myself;” and he pays a very handsome compliment to the memory of the

deceased statesman. That is graceful, amiable, and, we doubt not,

entirely sincere. Nevertheless he publishes _verbatim_, what he said in

debate against Sir Robert Peel, who is no more; whereas we find no trace

of his famous speech in the letter-opening case, directed against Sir

James Graham, who is the living colleague of Lord John Russell. The

omission may be accidental; or Mr Macaulay may think the speech in

question not so felicitous as to be worth recording. If the latter, we

differ from him. It was a spirited speech—much more nettlesome and

pungent than threefourths of those which he has included in the present

volume; and we have no doubt that Sir James Graham, if appealed to, will

corroborate our opinion. Be it observed, however, that we do not by any

means maintain that Mr Macaulay was bound to reprint his diatribe

against Sir James. We make these remarks for the purpose of showing how

unwise it is for any man to become the editor of his own speeches;

seeing that he must either give huge offence to the living, or let them

escape scot-free, whilst he repeats his strictures on the dead. After

all, we think he would have acted prudently in submitting to the “great

wrong,” which Mr Vizetelly, under the tacit sanction of the law, which

in theory is held to countenance no wrong, has found it his interest to

inflict. We rather fear that he has been too hasty in intermitting his

historical labours. Had some excessively imprudent speculator in

literature chosen to risk his capital by reprinting from Hansard the

speeches of Lord John Russell or of Lord Aberdeen, we are certain that

Mr Macaulay, if consulted on the subject, would have advised these

eminent statesmen—even although the ignoramus of an editor had distorted

the nature of their arguments, and substituted Pandects for Pundits—to

abstain from putting forth their lucubrations in a collected form. We

have that confidence in his judgment and discretion, when called upon to

advise others in matters of a literary nature, that we cannot doubt such

would have been the tenor of his recommendation. But, unfortunately, in

regarding matters personal to themselves, the great majority of mankind

use glasses materially differing in focus from those which they assume

when investigating the affairs of others; and it is painful to remark

that, on this occasion, Mr Macaulay has acted as his own optician. It

would have been much wiser in him to have allowed Mr Vizetelly to have

disposed of as many copies as the public would take, without more

remonstrance than a simple disclaimer, than to have fastened upon the

blunders about Benares, and Whitfield, and Lord Nottingham’s Bill, as so

many apologies for bringing forward a revised and collected series of

his speeches.

He has done so, however; and we have now to consider him as a man, who,

by no means verging towards the end of his career—for we trust he may

long be spared to delight the public by the elaborate compositions of a

mind naturally highly gifted, greatly improved by exercise, and

prodigiously stored with information—has deliberately chosen to set

forth his claims to be ranked in the scale of orators. Whether Mr

Macaulay may choose to believe that we are sincere, or not, in the

opinion we are about to express, is, to us, of little consequence.

Politically, of course, we differ from him in many respects. We cannot

even challenge, what is generally understood to be the opinion of his

own party, that he is not qualified to act in the capacity of a leading

statesman, or member of the Cabinet. We believe his mind to be of that

cast, that it does not readily and aptly conform itself to present

exigencies. It is too much wedded to the past, and to mere party

traditions and intrigues. Let a crisis arrive, demanding immediate and

decided action, and Mr Macaulay will be found puzzling back to the

Revolution Settlement of 1688, or some other event of lesser consequence

about the same date; and descanting on the conduct of the leading Whig

Lords of that period, and the way in which they managed to juggle and

forswear themselves; and from these premises he would form conclusions

applicable to the present times. The Whig party leaders are notoriously

addicted to tradition, but Mr Macaulay’s ideas go back a great deal

farther than is convenient even for their purpose. They, naturally

enough, do not want the aid of history farther than concerns their

immediate guidance; and they would be glad to sink altogether the memory

of dynastical questions, and begin with Fox, who is the proper god of

their idolatry. Mr Macaulay, by resolutely harking back to forgotten

eras, frightfully embarrassed his colleagues in the Cabinet, when he

ranked as a minister. It _was_ an excessive bore to be told what Danby

did or would have done, or what Halifax meditated, or William of Orange

proposed, when the point at issue was something referring to our own

day, arising out of entirely novel circumstances, and having nothing

whatever in common with the policy that actuated statesmen at a time

when rival dynasties placed in dispute the true succession to the crown.

In reality, however, it is no disparagement to Mr Macaulay to say that,

from the peculiar turn of his mind, the nature of his pursuits, and the

intenseness of his literary habits, he has failed in acquiring even a

moderate reputation as a statesman. To the public, his withdrawal or

exclusion from office ought to be anything but matter of regret; since

it is better, both for his own fame and for the literary reputation of

our country, that he should be employed in illustrating its annals

according to his own views and conviction, than if he were participating

in the labours of Molesworth, Wood, and the other eminent individuals

who drone away their time in the Cabinet. As an historian, he has

already made himself a name far more enduring than that of any mere

politician, and he can very well afford to abandon the honours and

responsibilities of office to inferior men who regard that alone as the

summit of earthly ambition. And we know, and are pleased to know, from

his own statement and from the assurance of his friends, that he feels

anything but regret at having exchanged the harassments of office for

the literary leisure, which he knows so well and so effectively to

employ. We are only sorry that he has thought fit, in this very marked

and unusual manner, to invite public discussion of his claims to be

considered as an orator. As an historian, and historical writer, he has

already received, in the pages of the Magazine, a warm and deserved

tribute. Without acknowledging the soundness of all his views—indeed,

while questioning many, and decidedly objecting to some, both as regards

facts and conclusion—we have been, and are ready to bear testimony to

his talent, his research, the vigour of his style, and the occasional

brilliancy of his pictures. That he is a literary artist of high rank

and position, we have admitted most cheerfully, and, we know, have said

so cordially. But he now comes before us in another character. The

historian requests—nay, demands—that we shall regard him as a public

speaker, and assign him his proper place in the roll of orators. In

doing so, he certainly departs from his own familiar walk, challenges

comparison, which it would have been wise to have avoided—and provokes

criticism which otherwise would not have been exerted. When men play

many parts, it is inevitable, unless in the case of such a phœnix as the

Admirable Crichton, that some one part must be vastly inferior to the

others. As an historian, an essayist, and a vivid versifier, we are

inclined to rank Mr Macaulay high. We cannot admit that he is an orator

in the strict sense of the term. As a public speaker, he has almost

invariably failed in realising the expectations excited by his literary

renown.

We must, as we are aware, assign sufficient reasons for that opinion;

and we shall be met, at the outset, by the fact, that a speech from

Macaulay is considered as an event. So it is; and so, too, in the House

of Commons, would be deemed a speech from Sir Charles Wood, did that

parody of a statesman confine himself to a single harangue in the year.

Mr Macaulay, we know, will not suspect us of any intention of comparing

him with the present President of the Board of Control. We are in no

danger of mistaking Hyperion for a satyr. But the truth is, that men who

have been thrust, whether by interest or not, into high official

situations, are as likely, if they practise general reticence, to be

listened to in the House of Commons, as are men of exalted intellect;

and that an elderly proser, who speaks only once in each session, has a

better chance of an audience than the glib and voluble orator who starts

up in every debate. In public life Mr Macaulay has shown great

discretion. During the last twenty years he has spoken but seldom, and

never without careful and elaborate preparation; therefore, when it

becomes known that he is about to address the House, he is sure to meet

with a large, respectful, and attentive audience. Nor is this to be

wondered at, on other grounds; for, independently of his high celebrity,

Mr Macaulay’s speeches are much better worth listening to than the

majority of those now delivered in the House of Commons. The language is

correct and well-chosen, the arguments are carefully arranged, and there

is none of that hesitation, repetition, and digression, which frequently

disfigures the efforts of those who have less leisure beforehand to

prepare and adjust their speeches. The curiosity of the audience is

excited by the eminence of the speaker, and they are well assured that

what he is about to lay before them will bear the peculiar and

unmistakable impress of his style. And so it does; but then the genius

of Mr Macaulay is not of the oratorical kind. He can impart

information—that is, he can summon to the aid of his arguments whole

lists of precedents, some of them not very applicable, and countless

parallels, or instances which he alleges to be such. These give, at all

events, an air of profundity to his discourse, and cannot be called

inappropriate to the mouth of an historian. But upon a mixed audience

they can produce very little effect, for this reason, that they are not

familiar with one out of ten of the cases which he cites, or the

incidents to which he refers; and, consequently, they must either

receive them on trust, or disregard them altogether. We do not think, as

some of his associates have alleged, that Mr Macaulay intends to make a

parade of his acquired learning. We rather incline to hold that, as is

common with men who addict themselves greatly to any particular branch

of study, he takes it for granted that the whole world is studying in

the same direction, and is not conscious that he is throwing an

extravagant quantity of historical pearls—or, it may be, paste—before

his audience. Such at least is our belief; for we are not willing to

suppose that Mr Macaulay would condescend to that very low kind of

pedantry, not unusual among country preachers and schoolmasters, which

seeks to astonish by the assumption of superior learning. “It was in

this way,” said Mr Macaulay, in one of his earlier speeches, “that

Charles II. was forced to part with Oropesa, and that Charles III. was

forced to part with Squillacci.” Very likely it was; but how many of the

House of Commons had ever heard of Oropesa or Squillacci? How many were

familiar with the events he referred to? Probably not one. He would have

produced the same effect upon their reason and understanding, have

influenced their convictions quite as powerfully, if he had told his

audience that Mumbo-jumbo and Arimaspes had been dismissed by Don John,

or Peter of Portugal. Let us refer to that passage in his speech on the

Dissenters’ Chapels Bill, which the ignorant Vizetelly mangled. The

speech is evidently a favourite with Mr Macaulay, and we presume he has

restored it in its integrity. Addressing himself to the point, that

prescription constitutes a good title to property, he brings into the

compass of one page such a mass of illustration from all ages, nations,

and institutions, that we cease to be shocked at the barbarism of the

Vizetellian blunder, especially when we observe that the Jurists who

framed the Code of Justinian are referred to in the same sentence with

the Pundits of Benares. Indeed, we think that Mr Vizetelly is fairly

entitled to stand upon the very excuse which the legally-inclined Mr

Bartoline Saddletree proponed, when challenged by Reuben Butler for an

error on the same subject.

“‘It’s owre true, Mr Butler,’ answered Bartoline, with a sigh; ‘if I had

had the luck—or rather, if my father had had the sense to send me to

Leyden and Utrecht to learn the Substitutes and Pandex’——

“‘You mean the Institutes—Justinian’s Institutes, Mr Saddletree?’ said

Butler.

“‘Institutes and substitutes are synonymous words, Mr Butler, and used

indifferently as such in deeds of tailzie, as you may see in Balfour’s

Practiques, or Dallas of St Martin’s Styles. _I understand these things

pretty weel, I thank God; but I own I should have studied in Holland._’”

Such far-fetched illustrations necessarily tend to diminish the force of

Mr Macaulay’s speeches, which is the more unfortunate, because he is

peculiarly addicted to that kind of argument which the old rhetoricians

styled the παράδειγμα, being that which is drawn from Example. Even when

he does not pass into ground altogether unknown to his audience, when he

refers in support of his position to some passages in British history,

he avoids those which are most familiar, and selects the remoter and

more obscure. Hence it is that he so often fails in exciting and

maintaining enthusiasm. No sympathy can be roused by references to Sir

George Savile, Hugh Peters, or Praise-God-Barebones; nor is the

substitution of a political essay for a speech the best means of

commanding the admiration or influencing the will of an audience. We are

inclined to think that Mr Macaulay’s early oratorical training has

exercised a prejudicial rather than a salutary influence over his

subsequent style. He was, we believe, a member of the Union Debating

Society at Cambridge, in which arena questions of immediate political

interest were discussed quite as keenly as on the floor of the House of

Commons. Without pronouncing an opinion hostile to the institution of

debating societies, we may be allowed to remark, that the too frequent

introduction of politics as the subject of discussion among the young

can hardly receive the approbation of any thinking man of maturer years.

The arguments employed on such occasions must be, and are, the spent

weapons of politicians who are engaged in real warfare; and these are

used by the juvenile enthusiasts without any examination as to their

soundness or propriety. There is, in truth, little sense, and no

advantage in this mimic warfare. Young men are thereby induced, not to

reason, but to dogmatise—not to argue, but to declaim; and the

opposition which they encounter to their borrowed views only serves to

strengthen them in prejudice. The leader of a political debating society

is usually an insufferable specimen of the juvenile prig. He can prate

for the hour on such generalities as the constitution, the liberty of

the subject, the rights of the people, and so forth; but, if you bring

him to book, and demand a distinct explanation of what he has been

saying, you will immediately discover that he is neither in possession

of fixed notions nor of intelligible ideas. There is a kind of frothy

rhetoric, very much used in debating societies, which serves to disguise

commonplaces, and helps to make them appear almost brilliant to an

inexperienced audience; and in that sort of rhetoric Mr Macaulay early

became an adept. Most men who have acquired this style in public are

compelled to get rid of it. At the bar it would not be tolerated; and it

is worthy of remark that the most shining lights in debating societies

usually pale their ineffectual fires when brought into the legal

profession. In the senate, where less precision is required, they

succeed better; but even there it requires an immense deal of attrition

and wear before they can become expert masters of debate. Now it seems

to us, after a diligent perusal of his speeches, that Mr Macaulay has

never been able to emancipate himself from the bondage of the debating

society. He speaks now, just as he might have spoken more than thirty

years ago; only that his language is more select, his range of

illustration larger, and his perorations more artificial, and therefore

more frigid than before. In point of confidence, we do not believe that

he has either gained or lost. Some men begin their public career with

diffidence and trembling, and end by becoming remarkably self-possessed.

Others, who had a fine stock of assurance to begin with, are so cowed by

the buffets they receive, as actually to have modesty forced upon them;

and we have known more than one instance of a young Boanerges who, by

dint of constant punishment, has been brought to see the error of his

ways, and the exaggerated estimate he had formed of his own natural

powers. Mr Macaulay, however, belongs to neither category. He believed

himself an oracle as a boy: he believes himself an oracle as a man. And,

if justified in the one belief, who shall venture to say that he is

erroneous in the other? Certain it is that, in 1826, when he penned his

essay on Milton, he displayed as much power, taste, and vigour, as are

exhibited in the volumes of his History given to the public in 1849. He

spoke with more animation, clearness, and effect, on the subject of the

Reform Bill in 1831, than on any subsequent occasion, though some of his

later speeches may have been more highly elaborated. He is, of course,

better informed now on points of history, science, and literature, than

when he emerged from Cambridge; but we question whether he has gained

much additional knowledge of the world, or of the motives which actuate

mankind. Never, perhaps, did a man attain so high a point of literary

distinction without possessing in a moderate degree the power of

affecting the passions. We can scarcely refer to a single passage out of

his whole writings, whether in prose or verse, which is likely to have

drawn a tear. His speeches, as we now read them, are remarkably frigid.

They may satisfy the understanding, but they never could influence the

will. We are well aware that, in the House of Commons, as presently

constituted, no speech, however eloquent, can be supposed to affect the

votes of any considerable section; but the peculiarity of Mr Macaulay’s

speaking is this, that we can hardly conceive the possibility of his

making a convert. This is owing, we think, in a great measure, to a

somewhat singular disregard—for we cannot suppose it ignorance—of the

means which the chief orators, both of ancient and modern times have

deemed it their duty to employ. In the first place, Mr Macaulay never

seems to think it necessary to take the slightest pains to conciliate

his audience. Of course there are many cases when such introductory

conciliation is not required—for example, when addressing an entirely

sympathetic meeting, or when retorting upon the direct attack of an

antagonist—but in very few instances indeed does Mr Macaulay introduce

himself, upon a debated point, otherwise than as a determined partisan.

There can be no doubt that introductions of a conciliatory nature

require the utmost delicacy of handling. They are made for the purpose

of showing that the speaker comes to the consideration of the question

at issue, with as much fairness, deliberation, and candour, as can be

expected from man of mortal mould; and further, that he does not intend

to dictate to his audience, but rather, by impressing them with his own

views, to induce them to consider calmly whether his conclusions are

true or false. This does not imply the abandonment of the strongest

argument, or the most forcible illustration in the after-part of the

speech. It is an arrangement dictated by nature; because in every case,

when a man rises to address an assembly, his first care ought to be to

dispel, if possible, personal suspicion if that should exist, and to

secure a willing auditory. Of this art Cicero was an entire master; and

it is no exaggeration to say, that his most remarkable forensic triumphs

were achieved rather by the effect of his introductions, than by the

subsequent ingenuity of his arguments, and his unrivalled skill in the

disposition of narrative. We are quite aware that introductions of this

kind, when badly framed, have exactly the opposite effect from that

which was intended. There probably never was a worse one than that

attempted by the late Sir Robert Peel, in his memorable speech delivered

in the House of Commons on 27th January 1846, in which he beat about the

bush so long, that he entirely destroyed the effect which he intended to

produce. But, whether as regards the immediate impression on the House,

or the subsequent effect on the country, we must hold that a speaker

ought to endeavour, in the first instance, to divest himself of the

appearance of being actuated by mere party motives. Such men as the late

Duke of Wellington, or the present Marquis of Lansdowne, whose long and

unblemished public lives have been accepted as full evidence of the

purity of their motives, might indeed dispense with any such

protestation; but there are not many who, from age and public

confidence, have acquired a similar privilege. Now, it is rather curious

to observe that Mr Macaulay seems, throughout his whole career, to have

disdained any kind of conciliation. He has approached every question,

not only with his mind made up upon it, but in the spirit of the

strongest contempt and depreciation towards all who disagreed with him.

He never, like Themistocles, volunteered to receive a buffet in order to

gain a hearing. He rather, in imitation of Dares, walked into the arena

with the gauntlets buckled round his wrists,

“And dealt in empty air his whistling blows.”

It is no business of ours to recount how often he has met with an

Entellus, who has doled out severe punishment; we are now simply

referring to what we consider to be his oratorical deficiencies or

omissions.

Next we would observe, that the impression left on our mind by the

perusal of these Speeches—which, referring as they do to bygone events,

do not excite the slightest feeling of antagonism—is that the value of

the matter is generally disproportioned to the grandiose nature of the

style, and the uniform pomposity of language. It is quite true, that Mr

Macaulay has spoken upon several interesting and important questions;

and it is equally true that an orator, in addressing himself to themes

of that description, is entitled to assume a higher tone than might be

suitable to a meaner subject of debate. But then, he must take care that

his thoughts and sentiments are raised to the like elevation. One

distinguishing quality of the real orator is, that he rises with his

subject. His intellect seems to expand in proportion to the greatness of

his theme—he elevates himself in feeling and energy above the level of

his audience, and the high thoughts which then rush upon his mind are

expressed with corresponding dignity. The orator, like the poet, has his

fits of inspiration, varying in intensity and degree according to the

subject with which he deals. This, of course, precludes that method of

slavish preparation, now unfortunately too common, by means of which not

only the substance of the speech, but the very words, are elaborately

fabricated in the closet, and committed to memory. The man who adopts

that system may be a good speaker, but he never will attain the highest

point of elevation as an orator. Like the swimmer on a stormy sea, the

orator should rise and fall with the wave of his audience; for he is

contending for the mastery over a moral element, than which the natural

one is not always more fluctuating or fierce. It may be well to

calculate and consider beforehand the line of argument to be adopted,

just as a prudent general will make his dispositions before going into

battle. But as no commander can foresee what may happen in the field,

can provide for every emergency, or lay down for himself a course of

action from which he will not deviate—so neither ought the orator to

commit himself to a certain form of words, which possibly may prove

either unappropriate to the occasion, or injurious to his cause. Men

think differently in the closet, and in the scene of action. In the

former they are comparatively unimpassioned—in the latter they must

necessarily exhibit passion if they seek to rouse it in others. The most

skilful and elaborate discourse, if coldly conceived and expressed, will

have a drenching rather than an inspiring effect upon an audience which

is already possessed with a considerable degree of enthusiasm. Their

feeling, favourable to the speaker and his cause, must not be put

back—it ought, on the contrary, to be heightened. The force of these

observations will become apparent to every one who will take pains to

investigate the subject, for there is nothing more certain, than that

the success of an orator depends mainly upon the amount of energy which

he can display. Energy was the secret of the success of Demosthenes; and

Cicero, with all his art, could not find a higher quality to recommend.

It must be confessed that modern statesmen have been too much in the

habit of disregarding this evident truth. Some of them—and we would

instance as a notable example the late Sir Robert Peel—might have

secured a far more enthusiastic following than they ever could boast,

but for their extreme and over-cautious frigidity. To this remark Lord

John Russell, who perhaps has had more opportunities than any other

living man of acquiring personal influence, is also peculiarly liable.

On the contrary, take the case of Lord Palmerston. He is not implicitly

trusted by any strong party in the state; and yet, in the House of

Commons, no man can produce a greater effect, or possesses a larger

personal influence. And why is this? Because he can carry an audience

along with him—because he is never frigid, never dull, never addicted to

circumlocution—because he possesses and exerts energy in a high degree;

and is, in truth, what few of his contemporaries can claim to be—an

orator. Read one of his speeches, and you see at once that it was not

concocted in the closet—that he had not stooped to polish sentences

beforehand, or to select language which should pass for a pattern of

composition. Mark, too, the variety of his style—how quietly and

playfully he disposes of a small matter—how, during debate and attack,

to use the language of Canning, he “silently concentrates the power to

be put forth on an adequate occasion.” No wonder that, when the occasion

arrives, he should extort admiration even from his adversaries. Very

different is the case with Mr Macaulay. Whatever be the subject, he

rises to lecture, and has his lecture thoroughly prepared. He is

speaking to-night, amidst the hum of the House of Commons, what he wrote

yesterday in the quiet seclusion of his chambers in the Albany. He had

no thought whatever of his audience; he was thinking simply of his

style. That he may adorn and heighten; but he cannot vary it at

pleasure. Ask him to pronounce a panegyric upon a deceased hero, and a

discourse upon a drowned mouse, and he will execute both in the same

strain. The victor in a hundred fields will not be celebrated in periods

more stately than the invader of a hundred cheeses. Simplicity is not

part of his nature—he must have recourse to rhetoric or be dumb.

Now, although this style may be tolerated in writing, it becomes very

tedious when adopted in public speaking. Dress up a mere commonplace

with the utmost skill and ingenuity, and yet, to the hearer, it retains

its original character. The way in which a thing is said, does not alter

the substance of the thing itself—the fine features cannot conceal the

emaciation of the body beneath. We have gone over several of the

speeches contained in this volume, for the purpose of ascertaining the

real value, power, and ingenuity of the arguments set forth; and we are

compelled to say, that in no one instance have we been able to discover

the trace of an independent thought, or of a purely original idea. Some

of them are unquestionably able speeches. Ask a man of high talent and

extensive information, like Mr Macaulay, to deliver a discourse upon any

possible theme, and he will do so in a manner which shall elicit shouts

of applause from a Mechanic’s Institute. Nay, he will be loudly cheered

even within the walls of Parliament, provided that a considerable

interval is allowed to elapse between each exhibition—because, as we

know from the history of Euphuism, fine language commands admiration,

and rounded periods are always grateful to the ear. Besides this, it

would be untrue, and highly unfair to Mr Macaulay to insinuate that he

cannot make proper use and disposition of such arguments as lie before

him. He states them well and adroitly; though, as we have already

hinted, frequently marring their effect by the extreme remoteness of his

illustrations. But neither our reading nor our recollection can furnish

us with one case in which Mr Macaulay has put forth an original view, or

disentangled himself from the general mass of debaters. In political

life or strife, he appears simply as a furbisher of old iron, a process

in which he certainly is expert; and he manages to make an exceedingly

rusty rapier pass for a tolerable Toledo. More he seldom attempts. His

speeches are often brilliant, in the same sense in which we apply the

epithet to fireworks; tolerably, though not strictly logical; always

sententious, rounded, and adapted to a mouthing delivery—but never

ardent, never eloquent, never calculated to excite enthusiasm. If mere

rhetoric could make an orator, Mr Macaulay ought undoubtedly to be the

first of the age. He has studied it on the same principle as did

Gorgias, who made it his boast that he could speak, and speak well upon

any given subject, even though he was not conversant with its details,

by aid of the commonplaces which he could dress up for the occasion.

Gorgias had some reputation during his lifetime, but he is now

remembered only on account of his extravagant boast. His works have long

since perished; and we do not think that the efforts of Mr Macaulay, as

an orator, will survive even so long as those of Gorgias.

If there had been, in this collection, one speech upon which we could

have dwelt with any feeling of artistic interest—one which we could have

withdrawn from the rest, to rank among the remarkable specimens of

British eloquence—we should not only have been delighted, but proud to

have selected it for eulogy. That which we have perused with the most

pleasure, on account of its sentiment and manly feeling, is the speech

delivered in 1846 upon the subject of the Ten Hours’ Bill. Regarded

merely as an oration, it may not be of high value; but it displays, in a

most pleasing light, the genuine kindness of his heart, his strong

sympathy with suffering, and his genuine hatred of oppression. Such

speeches are worthy of record, because they rank in the category of good

deeds and noble actions; and deserve to be remembered with gratitude as

exertions in the cause of humanity. We do not inquire now into the

abstract merit of the speeches of Wilberforce, nor does his fame depend

at all upon his oratorical skill. He has passed from the roll of

speakers to the catalogue of philanthropists; and instead of directing

the attention of youthful aspirants after public distinction to the

force of his style, or the energy of his expression, we pay homage to

his memory as the chief instrument, under Providence, of removing the

fetters from the slave. In like manner, notwithstanding certain

peculiarities which lead us rather to admire than to love, Mr Macaulay

has high claims to the public gratitude and respect. In open questions,

and those in which party considerations do not materially interfere, he

has always shown himself accessible to conviction, generous in his

views, and just in the expression of his sentiments. There are, among

living public men, some who are more genial and attractive; but there

are not many who are better entitled to our respect. Our criticism has

been framed utterly irrespective of politics. We cannot boast, at the

present day, of so large a list of men, either of genius or of high

talent, as to omit the opportunity of paying tribute, where tribute is

justly due. “I hope that I am,” says Mr Macaulay, in the last sentence

of his last recorded speech, “at once a Liberal and a Conservative

politician.” We hope so too; and we hope, moreover, that the avowal was

made—not because Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell

and Mr Gladstone, Sir William Molesworth and Mr Sidney Herbert, have

agreed to lie down together—but because Mr Macaulay wishes henceforward

to emancipate himself from party trammels. It is certainly time that he

should do so. He has occupied a subordinate rank in the Whig regiment

longer than he ought to have done for his own reputation; and we are not

sorry to see this disclaimer put forth in so marked a manner at the very

end of his last publication. It is, like the reading of the closing line

of the Iliad in the famous manuscript copy, which the supporters of the

Cyclic theory point to as clearly indicative of further action, a phrase

fraught with meaning; and when the coalition is dissolved, as it soon

must be by the influence of a political thaw, we trust that Mr

Macaulay’s tendencies may indeed appear to be Conservative, without the

sacrifice of the true liberality which becomes the gentleman and the

scholar. We do not believe that the general verdict of the public upon

this collection will be of a different tenor from our own. But, after

all, Mr Macaulay has no great reason to repine because he has failed to

achieve a high place in the roll of British orators. His speeches will

not be quoted for their eloquence and power, as those of Burke, Grattan,

Erskine, and Canning are; but his history and essays, and even ballads,

will insure him a reputation not less extensive and enduring. We need

scarcely remind him that men who have attained high reputations as

statesmen, and been conspicuous as public speakers, have altogether

failed in their attempts to found a literary name. No one who has

perused the historical chapters composed by Fox, can regret that his

design proved abortive, and that the subject has been left to the more

brilliant and dexterous treatment of Macaulay. We cannot say with truth

that Lord John Russell’s literary efforts inspire us with an exalted

idea of the author’s powers—we are even of opinion that he would have

done well in abstaining from appearing before the public, either as a

dramatist, biographer, or editor. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ It is by

natural instinct that every man addresses himself to the occupation in

which he is qualified to excel; and that ambition which prompts men to

deviate from their destiny, and undertake tasks which are not congenial

to their feelings and sympathies, ought to be repressed. We cannot view

Mr Macaulay’s career without being convinced that nature designed him to

play his part as a literary man rather than as a politician. He has

indeed tacitly admitted that; for he has withdrawn himself very much of

late years from debate, preferring literary occupation to the excitement

of political strife. We are sorry that he has been induced to interrupt

his more interesting labours for the sake of undertaking this

collection; for, although the volume will find its way into many

libraries—as what volume that bore his name upon the title-page would

not?—it will be regarded hereafter with little interest, and may

possibly be cited as an instance of unsuccessful ambition. We repeat

that Mr Macaulay’s fame rests upon his writings, and that the

publication of his speeches is by no means calculated to extend or

heighten his intellectual reputation; though it cannot diminish the just

estimation in which he is held as a man.

FIFTY YEARS IN BOTH HEMISPHERES.[10]

The memoirs of a man of a singularly adventurous and speculative turn,

who, having entered upon the occupations of manhood early, and retained

its energies late, has prolonged the active period of his life to

upwards of half a century, who has been an eyewitness of not a few of

the important events that occurred in Europe and America between the

years 1796 and 1850, and himself a sharer in more than one of them, who

has been associated or an agent in some of the largest commercial and

financial operations that British and Dutch capital and enterprise ever

ventured upon, and has been brought into contact and acquaintance—not

unfrequently into intimacy—with a number of the remarkable men of his

time, can hardly, one would imagine, be otherwise than highly

interesting, if the author have but sufficient command of his native

tongue plainly to write down what his memory has retained, sufficient

discrimination and self-restraint to avoid dwelling upon details of too

trifling and egotistical a nature. Generally speaking, we have but

little confidence in the interesting qualities of German septuagenarian

autobiographers. Garrulity is the privilege of age, and German garrulity

is a grievous thing, particularly when it displays itself upon paper. In

Germany, where nearly everybody capable of grammar writes a book, even

though he have nothing to write about, elderly gentlemen, who really

have seen something worth the telling, are apt to imagine they can never

make too much of it, and instead of delighting us with the pure spirit,

drench us with a feeble dilution. Such was the case, we well remember,

with our old acquaintance, Baron von Rahden, whose military experiences

during the stirring period of 1813–14–15 we brought before our readers

now just seven years since, and who, instead of cutting short the

tolerably prolix history of his life and adventures at the date when

peace sheathed his sword, elaborated two other ponderous and very

wearisome volumes, scarcely relieved by an account of General Chassé’s

defence of Antwerp, and by sketches of a campaign in Catalonia, in which

the indefatigable and restless old fire-eater, unable to pass his latter

days in tranquillity, served under the orders of the Carlist general

Cabrera. There is more variety and vivacity in the book now before us

than in the baron’s interminable record, of which, however, it has in

some respects reminded us. Von Rahden, a soldier by profession and

inclination, gave us far too much of his proceedings in times of peace,

and dwelt at tedious length on garrison rivalries, his own unrewarded

merit, and German provincial topics. Mr Nolte, on the contrary, by

profession a man of peace, whose weapon is the pen, his field of battle

the Exchange, and his campaigns amongst cotton bales, whose tutelar

deity has been Mercury instead of Mars, and whose commanders and allies,

instead of the martial-sounding appellations of Blucher, Gneisenau, and

Chassé, have borne the pacific but scarcely less famous names of Hope,

Labouchere, and Baring, has mingled, in the rather complicated narrative

of his mercantile pursuits, triumphs, and disasters, much adventure both

by flood and field, in which he himself was personally engaged, and

displays, in the telling, not a little of the go-ahead spirit proper to

the people amongst whom he has passed a large portion of his life. He

has really seen a great deal, and his reminiscences, although here and

there his style of narrating them be trivial and in questionable

taste—whilst some of his long accounts of financial and commercial

operations will more particularly interest bankers and merchants than

the general reader—contain much that will attract all. In Germany the

first edition of his book has gone off at a gallop,—no small testimony

to its merits in a year during which present politics have been the

all-absorbing topic. We do not wonder at its popularity; for, besides

the mass of anecdote and historical recollections it comprises, the

author has contrived to give an interest to his individuality, by the

off-hand style in which he tells of his errors and of his triumphs, of

his many reverses and disasters, as well as of his rarer moments of

prosperity and success.

We should as soon think of attempting, within the compass of an article,

a digest of an encyclopædia as of Mr Nolte’s volumes. We should fill

half a magazine by merely tracing his itinerary. There never was such a

rolling stone. He treats the Atlantic as most men do Dover Straits, and

thinks no more of a few hundred leagues of land travel than a modern

Cockney of a run to Ramsgate. Whole years of his life must have been

passed on board ship, and behind post-horses. His book necessarily

partakes of the desultory nature of his career. It better bears dipping

into than reading from end to end.

Born at Leghorn, in the year 1779, of a German father, Mr Vincent

Nolte’s first reminiscence, of much interest to his readers, is

connected with the invasion of Italy by the French under Buonaparte. His

father had for some years left Italy, and settled in Hamburg, his native

place; but young Vincent, after being educated in Germany, was sent back

to Leghorn, to take his place as junior clerk in his uncle’s

counting-house, one of the most important in that city. He was in his

seventeenth year when, upon the last Saturday in June 1796, a courier

from the British minister at Florence brought news to the consul at

Leghorn that the French were approaching. There was great bustle amongst

the English merchants to get their property shipped, and place it and

themselves under the protection of Nelson’s squadron, then cruising off

the port. After unremitting labour, and favoured by the wind, the last

ships, with English goods on board, left the harbour at noon on Monday.

They had been but two hours gone, when it suddenly became known in the

city that the French were close at hand, advancing by the Pisa road, and

presently a party of cavalry galloped round the fortifications to the

_Porta Colonella_, and rode straight up to the fort, on which the Tuscan

flag waved. Suddenly those colours disappeared, and were replaced by the

French tricolor, displayed for the first time to the wondering eyes of

the Tuscans. Almost at the same moment the cannon of the fort thundered,

and sent some shots after those English vessels nearest to the

harbour—thus signalling to Nelson the entrance of the French. Young

Nolte, who had little love for the desk, whose wish it was to become a

painter, and who then, and all his life through, was ardent, impetuous,

and a lover of excitement, could sit still no longer, but ran out of the

respectable counting-house of Otto Franck & Co., consul for Hamburg,

&c., to stare at the invaders. At the head of a body of cavalry, a

horseman of remarkable beauty galloped up the street, and alighted at

the door of the Genevese banker, Dutremoul. It was Murat. This was

between two and three in the afternoon.

“At six in the evening, the news spread that General Buonaparte was at

the Pisa gate. No sooner did he learn that the English residents had had

time to escape with their property, than he broke into a violent rage.

At that moment Count Spannochi, attired in the ordinary uniform, a blue

coat, red waistcoat, and white breeches (the full-dress uniform

consisted of a white coat and red waistcoat and breeches), and,

surrounded by his officers, and by the chief authorities of the city,

advanced to welcome the general, who still sat upon his horse.

Buonaparte gave him no time to speak, but at once violently assailed

him. ‘How dare you,’ he cried, ‘appear before me thus? Do you not know

your duty? You are an insolent fellow, a traitor! You have let the

English escape; you shall pay for that. A court-martial shall sit

immediately. You are my prisoner—give up your sword!’ And Count

Spannochi disappeared. Buonaparte’s words were repeated to me that same

evening by my fellow-clerk, Giacomini, who had gone with the crowd

outside the Pisa gate, and had heard them. Next day we learned that the

governor had been sent under arrest to Florence, and that the French

general, Vaubois, commanded in his stead. Hardly had Buonaparte and his

staff reached the grand-ducal palace, when police-agents went round to

all the houses, ordering a general illumination, under heavy penalties

in case of disobedience. The only Leghorn newspaper that then existed

announced, upon the following day, the arrival of the victor of Lodi and

Arcola, adding, that the inhabitants had _spontaneously_ illuminated. I

then, for the first time, got a correct idea of a _spontaneous

illumination_, and was never afterwards at a loss to understand the

expression. At eleven o’clock the next morning, the foreign consuls

waited upon the general, who quickly dismissed them, when suddenly his

eye was attracted by my uncle’s red coat. ‘What is that?’ he cried. ‘An

English uniform?’ My uncle, taken quite aback, had just enough presence

of mind to reply, ‘_No, Padrone, questa e l’uniforme di Amburgo!_’ and

endeavoured, but in vain, to make his escape. Buonaparte burst forth

with a violent diatribe against everything that looked English, against

all who thought like Englishmen, or had anything to do with England.

‘Those English,’ he said, according to my uncle’s account to me upon his

return home, ‘shall get such a lesson as they have never yet had! My

road now lies to Vienna, then farther north, to destroy their nests in

Hamburg and elsewhere, and then to seek them in their own robbers’

den!’”

Young Nolte was bent upon seeing the hero of the day, who, before

attaining his eight-and-twentieth year, had played such havoc amongst

Austria’s veteran commanders, and, disregarding his uncle’s commands to

keep in-doors, and out of the way of the dense mob upon the _Piazza

d’Arme_, he again played truant, and stationed himself at the corner of

the palace, at whose entrance an open carriage awaited the French

general. His account of the impression he carried away of Napoleon’s

appearance has some originality. The peculiar expression, attributed by

him to the eyes, reminds one of the present French Emperor.

“At last there came out, accompanied by a number of officers, a little,

youthful-looking man, in a plain uniform, with a pale, almost a yellow

complexion, and long, lank, raven-black hair, hanging over his ears,

after the fashion of the Florida savages called _Talapouches_. That was

the hero of Arcola! Whilst he took the right-hand place in the carriage,

and whilst his aides-de-camp got in, I had a few moments to observe him

closely. There was a continued smile round his mouth, with which,

however, the man himself had evidently nothing to do, for the fixed

indifferent look of his eyes showed that the mind was busy elsewhere. I

never again beheld so remarkable an expression. It was the dull gaze of

a mummy, barring a certain beam of intelligence betraying the inward

life, but only by a faint and glimmering gleam. Macbeth’s words to

Banquo’s ghost, ‘There is no speculation in those eyes!’ would almost

have fitted here, had not previous and subsequent events sufficiently

shown what a spirit lurked behind those impressive orbs. The carriage

drove away—seven years elapsed before I again beheld that extraordinary

man. He left the town the next day. I must not omit to mention a

colossal and well-built officer, who stood, in a respectful attitude,

beside the carriage-door. This man, who had just been named town-major

of Leghorn, was the grenadier who, seven years previously, on the 14th

July 1789, led the storm of the Bastile, and was the first to scale its

walls, who afterwards, as General Hullin, was governor of Berlin after

the battle of Jena, and presided over the court-martial appointed to

try, or rather to shoot, the unfortunate Duke d’Enghien.”

The presence and proceedings of the French in Leghorn were alike odious

to the inhabitants, who found an important branch of their trade—that

with England—completely cut off, and who had to satisfy unceasing

demands for money and equipments. Large bodies of ragged, barefooted

troops continually entered the town, to quit it well shod and with new

uniforms. The republican cockade became an abomination in the eyes of

the Leghornese, who christened it _il pasticcino_—the little pie—and

wrote innumerable lampoons upon its wearers. Leghorn was converted into

a camp, and on a large altar in the middle of the _Piazza d’Arme_, a

statue of Liberty was erected, at the foot of which the popular

representatives, Garat and Salicetti, daily harangued the troops upon

parade. Business was at a standstill; Vincent Nolte deserted his desk

and roamed about the town, sketching the groups of foreign soldiers. And

even when things began to settle down, he would do nothing but ramble in

picture-galleries and make love to pretty Florentines, until at last his

uncle, despairing of his doing any good, wrote to his father that he was

on the high-road to perdition. This alarming piece of information

produced an instant summons to Hamburg, where, in the paternal

counting-house, the young scamp amended his ways and applied earnestly

to business, displaying great energy, industry, and capacity.

The year 1799 was a disastrous one for Hamburg. Within six weeks there

occurred upwards of one hundred and thirty failures for a total of

thirty-six millions of marks. The panic was universal, and trade was

shaken to its foundations. Mr Nolte’s house weathered the storm, but was

compelled, three years later, to suspend its payments in consequence of

the failure of the Leghorn establishment. The creditors received

eighty-five per cent, and the numerous friends of the unfortunate

merchant subscribed a capital of one hundred and twenty thousand marks

to start him again in business. Upon the list figured the well-known

name of Francis Baring, a former schoolfellow of the insolvent’s, for

the munificent sum of twenty thousand marks, upon which he positively

refused to receive interest. Thus supported, Mr Nolte again applied

himself to business. But he was then a man advanced in years and of

little enterprise, and his son, bold and ambitious, saw that he was not

likely to strike out new paths to wealth, whereas the old and ordinary

avenues to commercial profits were then closed, all over the European

continent, by the iron hand of Napoleon, that mortal foe to trade, and

contemner of its votaries. And as young Nolte could be of no use to his

father, who despised his views as the dreams of a stripling, bent upon

pleasure and unworthy of attention, he sought employment abroad. This he

found in the house of Labouchere and Trotreau at Nantes, where he

accepted an engagement for three years, to carry on the German and

English correspondence. And so, in his twenty-fifth year, he took leave

of his parents, with a heavy heart, he says, but without uneasiness as

to the future, and travelled, by way of Bremen, to Paris.

Mr Nolte’s arrival in the French capital coincided with the proclamation

of Napoleon as emperor, and with Moreau’s imprisonment on the charge of

a plot against the government and life of the First Consul. It was his

first visit to Paris—the period was interesting. He was so fortunate as

to find a friend who willingly undertook to be his cicerone, and a few

weeks flew rapidly by, during which, thanks to his guide’s familiarity

with places and persons, he acquired a better knowledge of both than he

would in as many months had he been left to himself; for it would have

served him little (except, perhaps, in the way of emptying his pockets)

that the doors of Frascati’s, then the favourite resort of the Parisian

fashionable world, were open to all who could pay for admission, and who

chose to roam through its gorgeous saloons and brilliantly illuminated

gardens, had he not had with him some one able to inform him that yonder

beautiful woman was Madame Recamier—yonder elegant young man, leaning

against the pedestal of a statue, the renowned ball-room hero Trénis—and

the one beyond him, with a music-book in his hand, the celebrated singer

Garat. But of all that Mr Nolte saw and heard, nothing made a deeper

impression upon him than the lively and universal interest taken in the

fate of Moreau. “Rarely,” he says, “was that name uttered by the middle

and lower classes without an expression of love and respect, and without

a curse upon his two implacable persecutors, the First Consul, and the

governor of Paris, General Murat, whose proclamations exhibited at every

street corner the name of Moreau in juxtaposition with the

words—‘Traitor to the Republic.’ Men could not and would not credit the

guilt of the distinguished general; and the Paris wits, never at a loss,

declared that there were but two parties in France, ‘_les moraux_

(Moreaus) _et les immoraux_’—a saying which one heard everywhere

repeated.” Condemned to banishment, the conqueror of Hohenlinden betook

himself, by way of Cadiz, to the United States, where Mr Nolte some

years afterwards met him, and made his acquaintance.

Mr Nolte was present at the first review passed by the new emperor, on

the Place du Carrousel at Paris. He was very desirous to get a near view

of the victorious general and successful adventurer, whom he had first

seen, seven years before, in the full flush of triumph at Leghorn. Two

officers of the Danish life-guards, with whom he had travelled from

Bremen, made interest for him with their ambassador, and procured him

admission to the gallery of the Louvre, a favour granted to few. “I saw

the great man of the day, surrounded by a brilliant staff, and by

uniforms of every kind, ride several times up and down through the

ranks, then gallop full speed along the front of the lines of cavalry

drawn up outside the inner court, amidst cries of ‘_Vive l’Empereur!_’

when suddenly his horse fell, and Napoleon rolled upon the ground, still

grasping the bridle tightly. In a few seconds he had mounted again, and

galloped on, before even a part of his staff, who quickly dismounted,

could go to his assistance. The newspapers said nothing of this

incident, and its ominous character struck me the more by reason of

their silence.”

The chief partner of the mercantile house into whose employment Mr Nolte

now entered, was a younger brother of the late P. C. Labouchere, of the

celebrated house of Hope of Amsterdam. Mr A. M. Labouchere was very

desirous to extend his connection and business with the United States,

but did not seem fully to appreciate the facilities for so doing

afforded him by his close alliance with the Hopes and Barings, whose

names appeared as references in the circulars of the Nantes house.

Nolte, whose energy and talent early earned him a considerable share of

his employer’s confidence, urged Mr Labouchere to send an agent to the

States to carry out his wishes, and offered to go himself, if no better

was to be found. He was told to put upon paper his ideas concerning

America, and concerning the advantages to be derived from a journey

thither. This statement he executed in a manner to excite the warm

approval of Mr Labouchere, who desired him to forward it to his brother

in Amsterdam. The reply was a summons to the Dutch capital. There the

elder Labouchere, who had formed a high opinion of Nolte from his

correspondence, unfolded to him a gigantic project, the mere sketch of

which bewildered him; and although not diffident of his own powers, he

declared that he did not hold himself sufficiently experienced to

undertake such responsibility, and felt that he should not be able to

come up to his employer’s expectations. “That is my business, and not

yours,” Mr Labouchere replied. “I have but one thing to recommend to

you, and that is, never to do aught that shall give you cause to blush

before me or before yourself.” This was lightening the load of

responsibility from which the young man shrank, and giving him fresh

confidence by showing him that others appreciated him more highly than

he did himself, and he no longer made objections. He was to go to the

United States, and for a few months merely to look around him and

acquire a knowledge of the country. Before entering, however, which he

does at great length, into an account of the important business about to

be confided to him, and into whose details he was not initiated until

some time afterwards, he gives an amusing chapter to a sketch of the

celebrated banker and contractor Ouvrard, from whose combinations the

proposed operation issued, and with whom Mr Nolte was well acquainted,

and had frequent intercourse at several periods of his life. The chapter

includes some curious traits and anecdotes of Napoleon, who, it is well

known, detested Ouvrard, and tyrannised over him, although he was more

than once obliged to seek his aid. Napoleon notoriously hated and

despised traders and bankers. “I do not like merchants!” he is reported

to have said—with that _brusquerie_ which, in a less man, would have

been designated as brutal ill-breeding—to the deputation from the

merchants of Antwerp that went to welcome him to the town; “a merchant

is a man who would sell his country for a three-franc piece!” He was

jealous of, or at least indignant at, Ouvrard’s enormous wealth, and the

influence it gave him—both of which he considered too great for any

private person to possess; but, according to Mr Nolte, who seems quite

conversant with the scandalous chronicles of any day during the last

half-century, there were other private causes of irritation, which most

of Napoleon’s biographers either were ignorant of, or thought it

unnecessary to mention, and which certainly are less out of place in the

present author’s far from prudish pages than they would be in a grave

biography. Ouvrard’s own Memoirs, published nearly thirty years ago,[11]

are now little remembered; and Mr Nolte is evidently indebted to them

for the outline of his sketch, as well as for several incidents and

anecdotes, but he has filled up details which the great speculator

thought proper to omit. The relative positions of Ouvrard and Napoleon,

at different periods of their lives, present the strangest contrasts.

When the former, quitting the army in which he had for a short time

served, applied himself with skill and success to commercial and

speculative operations, and quickly realised a fortune of several

millions of francs, Napoleon was so needy as to be desirous to avail

himself of a decree of the Committee of Public Safety, by which officers

were entitled to receive as much cloth as would make them a uniform. The

anecdote is well known. Napoleon’s application was rejected because he

was not just then employed, and he was very glad when Ouvrard, with whom

he had become acquainted at the house of the Director Barras, induced

Madame Tallien, whose lover the capitalist then was, to give him a

letter of recommendation to the commissary of the 17th military

division; a letter which procured young Buonaparte what he had great

need of—a new uniform. Subsequently, in Napoleon’s days of power and

magnificence, when he began to spite and squeeze Ouvrard, the latter

loved to tell this anecdote—a contrast with Talma, who had been

Napoleon’s intimate, and had often lent him money in his days of penury,

and who became ever more reserved in his communications and behaviour

the higher his friend ascended upon fortune’s ladder. To Ouvrard

Napoleon was unquestionably harsh, cruel, and unjust. His dislike to him

seemed to augment in a direct ratio with the magnitude of the gains

which the capitalist owed to the circumstances of the times, to his

great financial capacity, and to the vastness of his operations. Of the

extent of these and of his profits, we may form some idea from a passage

in Mr Nolte’s book, where he states positively that Ouvrard cleared six

hundred thousand pounds sterling by his contract for victualling the

Spanish fleet under Mazaredo when it lay at Brest, and afterwards at

Cadiz. But if his gains were large, his losses, arising chiefly from

Napoleon’s ill-will and despotic acts, were also heavy. During the

Egyptian campaign, the Directory borrowed ten millions of francs from

him, which he produced with the greatest ease. After Buonaparte’s return

and the fall of the Directory, the First Consul asked him for twelve

millions more. Ouvrard declined. The other Paris bankers were applied

to; they either could not or would not. The First Consul was

furious—doubly so when Ouvrard claimed repayment of the ten millions

lent to the Directory. He had him paid in assignments on the revenue of

the past year, which had all been expended. It was equivalent to a

repudiation of the debt. Soon afterwards, Ouvrard was arrested, under

pretext of fraud in his dealings with the government and supply of the

French navy. He was kept in strict confinement, his papers were sealed

up, and a committee of councillors of state was appointed to investigate

his affairs. Nothing could be substantiated against him, but it was

ascertained that his fortune, in landed property, money and French

_rentes_, (then worth but 15 per cent) amounted to twenty-seven millions

of francs. “On this occasion,” says Mr Nolte, quoting almost the words

of Ouvrard, “a discovery was made which deeply wounded the First

Consul—namely, that, during his absence in Egypt, Ouvrard had supplied

Josephine, who was an old friend of his, and who had remained at

Malmaison, with money. She had become his debtor to a considerable

amount. This circumstance, combined with the refusal of the twelve

millions, inspired Buonaparte with the most violent antipathy to

Ouvrard, at whose arrest all Paris (especially the bankers) was

indignant and loud in complaint. Collot, afterwards director of the

mint, who was one of the First Consul’s most intimate advisers, did not

scruple to tell him that it was beginning badly, thus to let all

apprehend that they might in their turn be the victims of such arbitrary

measures. ‘A man,’ replied Buonaparte ‘who possesses thirty millions,

and sets no value on them, is much too dangerous for my position.’”

Josephine and other influential personages interceded for Ouvrard, who

escaped the military tribunal with which Napoleon threatened him, and

was set at liberty, but remained under the surveillance of gens-d’armes.

This in no way prevented his continuing to receive with princely

hospitality at his château of Raincy (afterwards the Duchess of Berry’s)

the best society of Paris, and the most distinguished foreigners who

visited that capital—amongst others, Fox and Lord Erskine, who were his

guests after the peace of Amiens.

But we must take Mr Nolte away from Paris—which seems his favourite

city, but where he can never linger without getting scandalous—and

across the Atlantic. He sailed in July 1805, and reached New York in

forty-two days, then a marvellously rapid passage. The astonished owner

of the American ship “Flora” could hardly believe his eyes when he saw

her come into port before he had received advice of her arrival at

Amsterdam. Mr Nolte found the yellow fever in New York, and left the

place for a few weeks, but returned thither in time to witness the

arrival in the bay of a vessel from Cadiz, with General Moreau on board.

The drums beat, and the militia turned out and formed up in Broadway. As

each company had a different uniform—sometimes a very odd one—the effect

of the whole display was a good deal like that produced by a harlequin’s

jacket, which did not prevent the commander of the motley corps from

being prodigiously proud of his warriors, and asking Moreau—when he

landed, plainly dressed in a blue coat, and rode into the town, upon a

horse in waiting for him, amidst cheers and music, and surrounded by the

variegated staff of the militia—what he thought of the American troops?

Moreau replied that he had never in his life seen such soldiers—which he

probably never had. A similar reply has been since attributed to General

Bertrand, when he landed in the States some years ago, and a review was

held in his honour. The speculative spirit of the Yankees, who love to

combine business with pleasure, and to turn an honest dollar whilst

admiring a hero or listening to a Lind, slumbered not in 1805 any more

than in 1850. The same genius for advertisement which made a hatter pay

some hundred dollars for the best place at the Swedish Nightingale’s

concert, stimulated the promoters of one that was to be given, on the

night of General Moreau’s arrival, in the great hall of the City

Hotel—then the first in New York—to beseech his presence, and, as soon

as he had promised it, to placard his name. The crowd was tremendous.

Moreau, it was on all hands agreed, looked very little like a French

general, in his simple dress, without cocked hat, feather, or

embroidery—whereas General Morton, chief of the militia, had a most

martial aspect in his Washington uniform. He introduced to the French

leader all who chose, and there was a prodigious shaking of hands. Mr

Nolte was standing near the two generals when a Quaker was presented,

who shook Moreau’s hand heartily. “Glad to see you safe in America,”

quoth Broadbrim. “Pray, general, do you remember what was the price of

cochineal when you left Cadiz?” The hero of Hohenlinden shrugged his

shoulders and confessed his ignorance. It was not until some time

afterwards, in Philadelphia, that Mr Nolte became personally acquainted

with Moreau, whom he found, he says, “a mild, agreeable, but, in an

intellectual point of view, upon the whole, an insignificant and

uninteresting man. His manners were simple, and possessed a certain

naturalness which was attractive, but his conversation, or rather his

monologue—for we seldom had long dialogues—fettered the attention only

when its subject was that of his certainly highly remarkable and

distinguished military exploits. Then there was pleasure in listening to

him. Of Napoleon he scarcely ever spoke but as ‘the tyrant.’” The best

portrait—indeed, the only good one we are acquainted with—of Moreau,

that by Gérard, conveys quite the same idea here given of him by Mr

Nolte—that of a mild, amiable, but by no means a highly intellectual

man, with less of the military air and look about the head than perhaps

in any other distinguished general of the French republic or empire.

We do not purpose going into the details of Mr Nolte’s commercial

proceedings as one of Hope’s agents in America. They were connected with

Ouvrard’s well-known colossal plan for drawing specie from Mexico, in

whose treasury—owing to the interruption, by the war with England, of

intercourse between Spain and her colonies—seventy millions of dollars

had accumulated. The duties assigned to Mr Nolte compelled him to take

up his quarters at New Orleans, then in its infancy as a commercial

city, and in the worst possible repute. Louisiana, after belonging

alternately to France and Spain, and then to France again, had been but

recently sold to the United States, and three-fifths of the white

population of its capital were French by birth or extraction. New

Orleans then had about sixteen thousand inhabitants, one-third of whom

were slaves and coloured people. The character its citizens enjoyed in

the Northern States may be judged of by the following anecdote: A friend

of Mr Nolte’s, who had just formed an establishment at New Orleans,

finding himself at Boston, and seeing a vessel advertised to sail thence

for the former city, called upon the owner to ask him to consign the

ship to his house. Whereupon the owner told him in strict confidence

that he had just as much intention of sending his vessel to the moon as

to New Orleans, and that he had inserted the advertisement merely in the

expectation that amongst the persons applying for a passage he should

find a rascal who had defrauded one of his friends of a considerable

sum. “It is probable,” he added, “that he will try to get to New

Orleans, that being the natural rendezvous of all rogues and

scoundrels.” Not one of the eighteen or twenty commercial houses

existing at New Orleans when Mr Nolte first went there possessed capital

worth the naming, and a respectable character was nearly as great a

rarity as ready cash. Roguery, disguised under the polite name of

“cleverness,” was commonly practised and indulgently viewed. Juries and

authorities were corrupt, false witnesses easily purchased, and justice

was hard to obtain. In illustration of this state of things Mr Nolte

tells some curious stories, one in particular, in which the celebrated

American jurist Edward Livingston figures. “I well remember,” he says,

“the remarkable trial of a certain Beleurgey, the editor of one of the

first American newspapers which appeared in New Orleans, in 1806 and

1807, in French and English, under the name of _Le Telegraphe_. To

obtain money he had forged the signature of a rich planter, to whom,

when his crime was discovered, he wrote, confessing his guilt, and

earnestly entreating him not to prosecute him. The planter seemed

disposed to accede to his prayer, but the letter was already in the

hands of justice. How then did Livingston contrive, as Beleurgey’s

counsel and defender, to obtain his acquittal in spite of that damning

proof of his guilt? Davezac (Livingston’s brother-in-law and factotum)

brought forward witnesses who swore that they knew Beleurgey to be such

a liar that no word of truth had ever issued from his lips. ‘See here,’

then said Livingston to his French jury—‘it is proved that the man is

incapable of speaking the truth; the very confession is a lie, for none

but a madman would accuse himself. So that Beleurgey either has lied or

is out of his senses; in either case he knew not what he did, and cannot

be found guilty!’ And the jury acquitted him!” New Orleans was evidently

not a tempting place to settle in, for an honest man, with money to be

robbed of; but then, with conduct and judgment, there was money to be

made, and moreover Mr Nolte, as a mere agent for others, had no choice

but to abide there. Presently the arrival, in quick succession, of three

fast-sailing schooners from Vera Cruz, bringing half a million of

Mexican dollars to the address of Vincent Nolte, drew attention to the

young man whom previously few had heeded—save the French planters, to

whom his knowledge of their language was a recommendation. But now

boundless hospitality was shown him, no party was complete without him,

and for three months he passed a pleasant enough life, when suddenly the

yellow fever laid him on his back. Upon the morning of the third day

there appeared at his bedside one Zachary, the cashier of the Louisiana

bank, and one of the very limited number of honourable men in the city,

and gravely asked him if he had made his will. To this ominous inquiry

Mr Nolte replied by a negative and an interrogative. “No! Why?”—“Well,”

continued Zachary, “I suppose I need not tell you that you have got the

yellow fever, and that it is more than possible you will die tomorrow,

for the fourth is the critical day, which one does not generally get

over. You have large sums lying at the bank—larger sums than have ever

before been seen here—and, if you die, the capital will fall into very

unsafe hands. The persons appointed by the State to take charge of the

property of foreigners dying intestate, are not only undeserving of

confidence, but, to speak plainly, are downright rascals.” The sick

man’s reply was that he neither felt inclined nor intended to die. “And

as I am sure not to die,” he concluded, “I see no use in bothering my

head about my will.” Zachary looked hard at him. “Well, my dear Mr

Nolte,” he at last said, “since that is your mood, I too am certain you

will not die,”—a prognostic justified by the patient’s speedy recovery.

In the yellow fever, as in other maladies, a faint heart kills many.

We pass over several chapters and some years. They include a good deal

of interesting matter, and, of course, abundance of travelling;—a return

to Europe, and brief residences in various cities of the United States,

in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. On a voyage from the Havana to

Baltimore, Mr Nolte was wrecked upon the Carysford reef, which owes its

name to the total loss of the frigate Carysford in 1774; and he gives a

capital account of his sufferings and those of his ten companions on a

raft composed of three small spars, six oars, and a hencoop, half

immersed, and neglected by passing vessels, who took them for

shipwrecked Spaniards, and feared to succour them, lest, when rescued,

they should rise against their deliverers and take the ship into Cuba,

an act of ingratitude that had been recently perpetrated under similar

circumstances. A woodcut of the frail and curiously-constructed raft is

the only illustration the book contains. At Philadelphia, Mr Nolte, who,

it is to be observed, has been all his life an unlucky man, was run away

with in his tandem, and, jumping out, broke his leg, which, badly set by

two ignorant American Sawbones, occasioned him terrible suffering and

long confinement. His agency for Hope’s house at an end, and after

declining two advantageous offers of partnerships in Europe, one of

which he would perhaps have done wisely in accepting, he determined to

apply the very liberal sum he had received for his services to the

establishment of a commercial firm at New Orleans, in aid of which the

houses of Hope and Baring advanced him funds, opened him a credit, and

allowed him to put their names in his circular as his friends and

supporters. This brings us to the most interesting portion of his book.

Mr Nolte has a habit of interlarding his German, especially the scraps

of dialogue scattered through his volumes, with a great deal of English

and French, both of which languages he evidently understands as well as

his mother-tongue. To readers in the same case, this practice gives to

the book additional character and pungency; but to those to whom German

alone is familiar it will prove troublesome, since he does not subjoin

translations. As an instance of this, we will give his account of a

casual meeting with a man who has since become universally celebrated.

It was during his journey on horseback from Philadelphia to Pittsburg,

where he was to join a friend with whom he had entered into partnership,

and whence they were to proceed, with a couple of flat boats laden with

flour, two thousand miles down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans,

there to form their mercantile establishment. Steam had not at that date

annihilated distance in America; there were no boilers bursting on the

rivers, or trains on railroads rattling through the States, and

travelling was slow work, particularly with goods. The voyage by flat

boats from Pittsburg to New Orleans was a forty or fifty days’ business.

On a cold December morning, after a solitary ride over Laurel Hill, the

highest of the Alleghanies, Mr Nolte halted, towards ten o’clock, at a

small tavern by the falls of the Juniata river, and asked for a solid

breakfast.