I ENTER THE WORLD.
Yes, at this stage of my life, viz., in my fifteenth year, and from
this sequestered school, ankle deep I first stepped into the world.
At Winkfield I had staid about a year, or not much more, when I received
a letter from a young friend of my own age, Lord Westport, [1] the son of
Lord Altamont, inviting me to accompany him to Ireland for the ensuing
summer and autumn. This invitation was repeated by his tutor; and my
mother, after some consideration, allowed me to accept it.
In the spring of 1800, accordingly, I went up to Eton, for the purpose
of joining my friend. Here I several times visited the gardens of the
queen's villa at Frogmore; and, privileged by my young friend's
introduction, I had opportunities of seeing and hearing the queen and
all the princesses; which at that time was a novelty in my life,
naturally a good deal prized. Lord Westport's mother had been, before
her marriage, Lady Louisa Howe, daughter to the great admiral, Earl
Howe, and intimately known to the royal family, who, on her account,
took a continual and especial notice of her son.
On one of these occasions I had the honor of a brief interview with
the king. Madame De Campan mentions, as an amusing incident in her
early life, though terrific at the time, and overwhelming to her sense
of shame, that not long after her establishment at Versailles, in the
service of some one amongst the daughters of Louis XV., having as yet
never seen the king, she was one day suddenly introduced to his
particular notice, under the following circumstances: The time was
morning; the young lady was not fifteen; her spirits were as the spirits
of a fawn in May; her _tour_ of duty for the day was either not come,
or was gone; and, finding herself alone in a spacious room, what more
reasonable thing could she do than amuse herself with _making cheeses?_
that is, whirling round, according to a fashion practised by young
ladies both in France and England, and pirouetting until the petticoat
is inflated like a balloon, and then sinking into a courtesy.
Mademoiselle was very solemnly rising from one of these courtesies,
in the centre of her collapsing petticoats, when a slight noise alarmed
her. Jealous of intruding eyes, yet not dreading more than a servant
at worst, she turned, and, O Heavens! whom should she behold but his
most Christian majesty advancing upon her, with a brilliant suite of
gentlemen, young and old, equipped for the chase, who had been all
silent spectators of her performances? From the king to the last of
the train, all bowed to her, and all laughed without restraint, as
they passed the abashed amateur of cheese making. But she, to speak
Homerically, wished in that hour that the earth might gape and cover
her confusion. Lord Westport and I were about the age of mademoiselle,
and not much more decorously engaged, when a turn brought us full in
view of a royal party coming along one of the walks at Frogmore. We
were, in fact, theorizing and practically commenting on the art of
throwing stones. Boys have a peculiar contempt for female attempts in
that way. For, besides that girls fling wide of the mark, with a
certainty that might have won the applause of Galerius, [2] there is a
peculiar sling and rotary motion of the arm in launching a stone, which
no girl ever _can_ attain. From ancient practice, I was somewhat of
a proficient in this art, and was discussing the philosophy of female
failures, illustrating my doctrines with pebbles, as the case happened
to demand; whilst Lord Westport was practising on the peculiar whirl
of the wrist with a shilling; when suddenly he turned the head of the
coin towards me with a significant glance, and in a low voice he
muttered some words, of which I caught "_Grace of God_," "_France_
[3] _and Ireland_," "_Defender off the Faith, and so forth._" This solemn
recitation of the legend on the coin was meant as a fanciful way of
apprising me that the king was approaching; for Lord W. had himself lost
somewhat of the awe natural to a young person in a first situation of
this nature, through his frequent admissions to the royal presence. For
my own part, I was as yet a stranger even to the king's person. I had,
indeed, seen most or all the princesses in the way I have mentioned
above; and occasionally, in the streets of Windsor, the sudden
disappearance of all hats from all heads had admonished me that some
royal personage or other was then traversing (or, if not traversing, was
crossing) the street; but either his majesty had never been of the party,
or, from distance, I had failed to distinguish him. Now, for the first
time, I was meeting him nearly face to face; for, though the walk we
occupied was not that in which the royal party were moving, it ran so
near it, and was connected by so many cross walks at short intervals,
that it was a matter of necessity for us, as we were now observed, to
go and present ourselves. What happened was pretty nearly as follows:
The king, having first spoken with great kindness to my companion,
inquiring circumstantially about his mother and grandmother, as persons
particularly well known to himself, then turned his eye upon me. My
name, it seems, had been communicated to him; he did not, therefore,
inquire about that. Was I of Eton? This was his first question. I
replied that I was not, but hoped I should be. Had I a father living?
I had not: my father had been dead about eight years. "But you have
a mother?" I had. "And she thinks of sending you to Eton?" I answered,
that she had expressed such an intention in my hearing; but I was not
sure whether that might not be in order to waive an argument with the
person to whom she spoke, who happened to have been an Etonian. "O,
but all people think highly of Eton; every body praises Eton. Your
mother does right to inquire; there can be no harm in that; but the
more she inquires, the more she will be satisfied--that I can answer
for."
Next came a question which had been suggested by my name. Had my family
come into England with the Huguenots at the revocation of the edict
of Nantz? This was a tender point with me: of all things I could not
endure to be supposed of French descent; yet it was a vexation I had
constantly to face, as most people supposed that my name argued a
French origin; whereas a Norman origin argued pretty certainly an
origin _not_ French. I replied, with some haste, "Please your majesty,
the family has been in England since the conquest." It is probable
that I colored, or showed some mark of discomposure, with which,
however, the king was not displeased, for he smiled, and said, "How
do you know that?" Here I was at a loss for a moment how to answer;
for I was sensible that it did not become me to occupy the king's
attention with any long stories or traditions about a subject so
unimportant as my own family; and yet it was necessary that I should
say something, unless I would be thought to have denied my Huguenot
descent upon no reason or authority. After a moment's hesitation, I
said, in effect, that the family from which I traced my descent had
certainly been a great and leading one at the era of the barons' wars,
as also in one at least of the crusades; and that I had myself seen
many notices of this family, not only in books of heraldry, &c., but
in the very earliest of all English books. "And what book was that?"
"Robert of Gloucester's 'Metrical Chronicle,' which I understood, from
internal evidence, to have been written about 1280." The king smiled
again, and said, "I know, I know." But what it was that he knew, long
afterwards puzzled me to conjecture. I now imagine, however, that he
meant to claim a knowledge of the book I referred to--a thing which
at that time I thought improbable, supposing the king's acquaintance
with literature not to be very extensive, nor likely to have
comprehended any knowledge at all of the blackletter period. But in
this belief I was greatly mistaken, as I was afterwards fully convinced
by the best evidence from various quarters. That library of 120,000
volumes, which George IV. presented to the nation, and which has since
gone to swell the collection at the British Museum, had been formed
(as I was often assured by persons to whom the whole history of the
library, and its growth from small rudiments, was familiarly known)
under the direct personal superintendence of George III. It was a
favorite and pet creation; and his care extended even to the dressing
of the books in appropriate bindings, and (as one man told me) to their
_health_; explaining himself to mean, that in any case where a book
was worm-eaten, or touched however slightly with the worm, the king
was anxious to prevent the injury from extending, or from infecting
others by close neighborhood; for it is supposed by many that such
injuries spread rapidly in favorable situations. One of my informants
was a German bookbinder of great respectability, settled in London,
and for many years employed by the Admiralty as a confidential binder
of records or journals containing secrets of office, &c. Through this
connection he had been recommended to the service of his majesty, whom
he used to see continually in the course of his attendance at Buckingham
House, where the books were deposited. This artist had (originally in
the way of his trade) become well acquainted with the money value of
English books; and that knowledge cannot be acquired without some
concurrent knowledge of their subject and their kind of merit.
Accordingly, he was tolerably well qualified to estimate any man's
attainments as a reading man; and from him I received such
circumstantial accounts of many conversations he had held with the
king, evidently reported with entire good faith and simplicity, that
I cannot doubt the fact of his majesty's very general acquaintance
with English literature. Not a day passed, whenever the king happened
to be at Buckingham House, without his coming into the binding room,
and minutely inspecting the progress of the binder and his allies--
the gilders, toolers, &c. From the outside of the book the transition
was natural to its value in the scale of bibliography; and in that way
my informant had ascertained that the king was well acquainted, not
only with Robert of Gloucester, but with all the other early chronicles,
published by Hearne, and, in fact, possessed that entire series which
rose at one period to so enormous a price. From this person I learned
afterwards that the king prided himself especially upon his early
folios of Shakspeare; that is to say, not merely upon the excellence
of the individual copies in a bibliographical sense, as "_tall_ copies"
and having large margins, &c., but chiefly from their value in relation
to the most authentic basis for the text of the poet. And thus it
appears, that at least two of our kings, Charles I. and George III.,
have made it their pride to profess a reverential esteem for Shakspeare.
This bookbinder added his attestation to the truth (or to the generally
reputed truth) of a story which I had heard from other authority, viz.,
that the librarian, or, if not officially the librarian, at least the
chief director in every thing relating to the books, was an illegitimate
son of Frederic, Prince of Wales, (son to George II.,) and therefore
half-brother of the king. His own taste and inclinations, it seemed,
concurred with his brother's wishes in keeping him in a subordinate
rank and an obscure station; in which, however, he enjoyed affluence
without anxiety, or trouble, or courtly envy, and the luxury, which
he most valued, of a superb library. He lived and died, I have heard,
as plain Mr. Barnard. At one time I disbelieved the story, (which
possibly may have been long known to the public,) on the ground that
even George III. would not have differed so widely from princes in
general as to leave a brother of his own, however unaspiring, wholly
undistinguished by public honors. But having since ascertained that
a naval officer, well known to my own family, and to a naval brother
of my own in particular, by assistance rendered to him repeatedly when
a midshipman in changing his ship, was undoubtedly an illegitimate son
of George III., and yet that he never rose higher than the rank of
post captain, though privately acknowledged by his father and other
members of the royal family, I found the insufficiency of that
objection. The fact is, and it does honor to the king's memory, he
reverenced the moral feelings of his country, which are, in this and
in all points of domestic morals, severe and high toned, (I say it
in defiance of writers, such as Lord Byron, Mr. Hazlitt, &c., who hated
alike the just and the unjust pretensions of England,) in a degree
absolutely incomprehensible to _Southern_ Europe. He had his frailties
like other children of Adam; but he did not seek to fix the public
attention upon them, after the fashion of Louis Quatorze, or our Charles
II., and so many other continental princes. There were living witnesses
(more than one) of _his_ aberrations as of theirs; but he, with better
feelings than they, did not choose, by placing these witnesses upon
a pedestal of honor, surmounted by heraldic trophies, to emblazon his
own transgressions to coming generations, and to force back the gaze
of a remote posterity upon his own infirmities. It was his ambition
to be the _father_ of his people in a sense not quite so literal. These
were things, however, of which at that time I had not heard.
During the whole dialogue, I did not even once remark that hesitation
and iteration of words generally attributed to George III.; indeed,
_so_ generally, that it must often have existed; but in this case, I
suppose that the brevity of his sentences operated to deliver him from
any embarrassment of utterance, such as might have attended longer and
more complex sentences, where some anxiety was natural to overtake the
thoughts as they arose. When we observed that the king had paused in
his stream of questions, which succeeded rapidly to each other, we
understood it as a signal of dismissal; and making a profound obeisance,
we retired backwards a few steps. His majesty smiled in a very gracious
manner, waved his hand towards us, and said something (I did not know
what) in a peculiarly kind accent; he then turned round, and the whole
party along with him; which set us at liberty without impropriety to
turn to the right about ourselves, and make our egress from the gardens.
This incident, to me at my age, was very naturally one of considerable
interest. One reflection it suggested afterwards, which was this: Could
it be likely that much truth of a general nature, bearing upon man and
social interests, could ever reach the ear of a king, under the etiquette
of a court, and under that one rule which seemed singly sufficient to
foreclose all natural avenues to truth?--the rule, I mean, by which it is
forbidden to address a question to the king. I was well aware, before I
saw him, that in the royal presence, like the dead soldier in Lucan, whom
the mighty necromancing witch tortures back into a momentary life, I must
have no voice except for _answers_:--
"Vox illi linguaque tantum
_Responsura_ datur." [4]
I was to originate nothing myself; and at my age, before so exalted
a personage, the mere instincts of reverential demeanor would at any
rate have dictated such a rule. But what becomes of that man's general
condition of mind in relation to all the great objects moving on the
field of human experience, where it is a law generally for almost all
who approach him, that they shall confine themselves to replies,
absolute responses, or, at most, to a prosecution or carrying forward
of a proposition delivered by the _protagonist_, or supreme leader of
the conversation? For it must be remembered that, generally speaking,
the effect of putting no question is to transfer into the other party's
hands the entire _originating_ movement of the dialogue; and thus, in
a musical metaphor, the great man is the sole modulator and determiner
of the key in which the conversation proceeds. It is true, that
sometimes, by travelling a little beyond the question in your answer,
you may enlarge the basis, so as to bring up some new train of thought
which you wish to introduce, and may suggest fresh matter as effectually
as if you had the liberty of more openly guiding the conversation,
whether by way of question or by direct origination of a topic; but
this depends on skill to improve an opening, or vigilance to seize it
at the instant, and, after all, much upon accident; to say nothing of
the crime, (a sort of petty treason, perhaps, or, what is it?) if you
should be detected in your "improvements" and "enlargements of basis."
The king might say, "Friend, I must tell my attorney general to speak
with you, for I detect a kind of treason in your replies. They go too
far. They include something which tempts my majesty to a notice; which
is, in fact, for the long and the short of it, that you have been
circumventing me half unconsciously into answering a question which
has silently been insinuated by _you_." Freedom of communication,
unfettered movement of thought, there can be none under such a ritual,
which tends violently to a Byzantine, or even to a Chinese result of
freezing, as it were, all natural and healthy play of the faculties
under the petrific mace of absolute ceremonial and fixed precedent.
For it will hardly be objected, that the privileged condition of a few
official councillors and state ministers, whose hurry and oppression
of thought from public care will rarely allow them to speak on any
other subject than business, _can_ be a remedy large enough for so
large an evil. True it is, that a peculiarly frank or jovial temperament
in a sovereign may do much for a season to thaw this punctilious reserve
and ungenial constraint; but _that_ is an accident, and personal to
an individual. And, on the other hand, to balance even this, it may
be remarked, that, in all noble and fashionable society, where there
happens to be a pride in sustaining what is deemed a good _tone_ in
conversation, it is peculiarly aimed at, (and even artificially
managed,) that no lingering or loitering upon one theme, no protracted
discussion, shall be allowed. And, doubtless, as regards merely the
treatment of convivial or purely _social_ communication of ideas,
(which also is a great art,) this practice is right. I admit willingly
that an uncultured brute, who is detected at an elegant table in the
atrocity of absolute discussion or disputation, ought to be summarily
removed by a police officer; and possibly the law will warrant his
being held to bail for one or two years, according to the enormity of
his case. But men are not always enjoying, or seeking to enjoy, social
pleasure; they seek also, and have need to seek continually, both
through books and men, intellectual growth, fresh power, fresh strength,
to keep themselves ahead or abreast of this moving, surging, billowing
world of ours; especially in these modern times, when society revolves
through so many new phases, and shifts its aspects with so much more
velocity than in past ages. A king, especially of this country, needs,
beyond most other men, to keep himself in a continual state of
communication, as it were, by some vital and _organic_ sympathy, with
the most essential of these changes. And yet this punctilio of
etiquette, like some vicious forms of law or technical fictions grown
too narrow for the age, which will not allow of cases coming before
the court in a shape desired alike by the plaintiff and the defendant,
is so framed as to defeat equally the wishes of a prince disposed to
gather knowledge wherever he can find it, and of those who may be best
fitted to give it.
For a few minutes on three other occasions, before we finally quitted
Eton, I again saw the king, and always with renewed interest. He was
kind to every body--condescending and affable in a degree which I am
bound to remember with personal gratitude; and one thing I _had_ heard
of him, which even then, and much more as my mind opened to a wider
compass of deeper reflection, won my respect. I have always reverenced
a man of whom it could be truly said that he had once, and once only,
(for more than once implies another unsoundness in the quality of the
passion,) been desperately in love; in love, that is to say, in a
terrific excess, so as to dally, under suitable circumstances, with
the thoughts of cutting his own throat, or even (as the case might be)
the throat of her whom he loved above all this world. It will be
understood that I am not justifying such enormities; on the contrary,
they are wrong, exceedingly wrong; but it is evident that people in
general feel pretty much as I do, from the extreme sympathy with which
the public always pursue the fate of any criminal who has committed
a murder of this class, even though tainted (as generally it is) with
jealousy, which, in itself, wherever it argues habitual mistrust, is
an ignoble passion. [5]
Great passions, (do not understand me, reader, as though I meant great
appetites,) passions moving in a great orbit, and transcending little
regards, are always arguments of some latent nobility. There are,
indeed, but few men and few women capable of great passions, or
(properly speaking) of passions at all. Hartley, in his mechanism of
the human mind, propagates the sensations by means of vibrations, and
by miniature vibrations, which, in a Roman form for such miniatures,
he terms _vibratiuncles_. Now, of men and women generally, parodying
that terminology, we ought to say--not that they are governed by
passions, or at all capable of passions, but of _passiuncles_. And
thence it is that few men go, or can go, beyond a little _love-liking_,
as it is called; and hence also, that, in a world where so little
conformity takes place between the ideal speculations of men and the
gross realities of life, where marriages are governed in so vast a
proportion by convenience, prudence, self-interest,--any thing, in
short, rather than deep sympathy between the parties,--and,
consequently, where so many men must be crossed in their inclinations,
we yet hear of so few tragic catastrophes on that account. The king,
however, was certainly among the number of those who are susceptible
of a deep passion, if every thing be true that is reported of him. All
the world has heard that he was passionately devoted to the beautiful
sister of the then Duke of Richmond. That was before his marriage; and
I believe it is certain that he not only wished, but sincerely
meditated, to have married her. So much is matter of notoriety. But
other circumstances of the case have been sometimes reported, which
imply great distraction of mind and a truly profound possession of his
heart by that early passion; which, in a prince whose feelings are
liable so much to the dispersing and dissipating power of endless
interruption from new objects and fresh claims on the attention, coupled
also with the fact that he never, but in this one case, professed any
thing amounting to extravagant or frantic attachment, do seem to argue
that the king was truly and passionately in love with Lady Sarah Lennox.
He had a _demon_ upon him, and was under a real _possession_. If so,
what a lively expression of the mixed condition of human fortunes, and
not less of another truth equally affecting, viz., the dread conflicts
with the will, the mighty agitations which silently and in darkness
are convulsing many a heart, where, to the external eye, all is
tranquil,--that this king, at the very threshold of his public career,
at the very moment when he was binding about his brows the golden
circle of sovereignty, when Europe watched him with interest, and the
kings of the earth with envy, not one of the vulgar titles to happiness
being wanting,--youth, health, a throne the most splendid on this
planet, general popularity amongst a nation of freemen, and the hope
which belongs to powers as yet almost untried,--that, even under these
most flattering auspices, he should be called upon to make a sacrifice
the most bitter of all to which human life is liable! He made it; and
he might then have said to his people, "For you, and to my public
duties, I have made a sacrifice which none of you would have made for
me." In years long ago, I have heard a woman of rank recurring to the
circumstances of Lady Sarah's first appearance at court after the
king's marriage. If I recollect rightly, it occurred after that lady's
own marriage with Sir Charles Bunbury. Many eyes were upon both parties
at that moment,--female eyes, especially,--and the speaker did not
disguise the excessive interest with which she herself observed them.
Lady Sarah was not agitated, but the king _was_. He seemed anxious,
sensibly trembled, changed color, and _shivered_, as Lady S. B. drew
near. But, to quote the one single eloquent sentiment, which I remember
after a lapse of thirty years, in Monk Lewis's Romantic Tales, "In
this world all things pass away; blessed be Heaven, and the bitter
pangs by which sometimes it is pleased to recall its wanderers, even
our passions pass away!" And thus it happened that this storm also was
laid asleep and forgotten, together with so many others of its kind
that have been, and that shall be again, so long as man is man, and
woman woman. Meantime, in justification of a passion so profound, one
would be glad to think highly of the lady that inspired it; and,
therefore, I heartily hope that the insults offered to her memory in
the scandalous "Memoirs of the Duc de Lauzun" are mere calumnies, and
records rather of his presumptuous wishes than of any actual successes.
[6]
However, to leave dissertation behind me, and to resume the thread of
my narrative, an incident, which about this period impressed me even
more profoundly than my introduction to a royal presence, was my first
visit to London.
FOOTNOTES
[1] My acquaintance with Lord Westport was of some years' standing. My
father, whose commercial interests led him often to Ireland, had many
friends there. One of these was a country gentleman connected with the
west; and at his house I first met Lord Westport.
[2] "Sir," said the emperor to a soldier who had missed the target in
succession I know not how many times, (suppose we say fifteen,) "allow me
to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown
in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials,
argues the most splendid talents for missing."
[3] _France_ was at that time among the royal titles, the act for
altering the king's style and title not having then passed. As connected
with this subject, I may here mention a project (reported to have been
canvassed in council at the time when that alteration _did_ take place)
for changing the title from king to emperor. What then occurred
strikingly illustrates the general character of the British policy as to
all external demonstrations of pomp and national pretension, and its
strong opposition to that of France under corresponding circumstances.
The principle _of esse quam videri_, and the carelessness about names
when the thing is unaffected, generally speaking, must command praise and
respect. Yet, considering how often the reputation of power becomes, for
international purposes, nothing less than power itself, and that words,
in many relations of human life, are emphatically things, and sometimes
are so to the exclusion of the most absolute things themselves, men of
all qualities being often governed by names, the policy of France seems
the wiser, viz., _se faire valoir_, even at the price of ostentation.
But, at all events, no man is entitled to exercised that extrem candor,
forbearance, and spirit of ready concession _in re aliena_, and, above
all, _in re politica_, which, on its own account, might be altogether
honorable. The council might give away their own honors, but not yours
and mine. On a public (or at least on a foreign) interest, it is the duty
of a good citizen to be lofty, exacting, almost insolent. And, on this
principle, when the ancient style and title of the kingdom fell under
revision, if--as I do not deny--it was advisable to retrench all obsolete
pretensions as so many memorials of a greatness that in that particular
manifestation was now extinct, and therefore, _pro tanto_, rather
presumtions of weakness than of strength as being mementoes of our
losses, yet, on the other hand, all countervailing claims which had since
arisen, and had far more than equiponderated the declension in that one
direction, should have been then adopted into the titular heraldry of the
nation. It was neither wise nor just to insult foreign nations with
assumptions which no longer stood upon any basis of reality. And on that
ground _France_ was, perhaps, rightly omitted. But why, when the crown
was thus remoulded, and its jewelry unset, if this one pearl were to be
surrendered as an ornament no longer ours, why, we may ask, were not the
many and gorgeous jewels, achieved by the national wisdom and power in
later times, adopted into the recomposed tiara? Upon what principle did
the Romans, the wisest among the children of this world, leave so many
inscriptions, as records of their power or their triumphs, upon columns,
arches, temples, _basilicae_, or medals? A national act, a solemn and
deliberate act, delivered to history, is a more imperishable monument
than any made by hands; and the title, as revised, which ought to have
expressed a change in the dominion simply as to the mode and form of its
expansion, now remains as a false, base, abject confession of absolute
contraction: once we had A, B, and C; now we have dwindled into A and B:
true, most unfaithful guardian of the national honors, we had lost C, and
that you were careful to remember. But we happend to have gained D, E,
F,--and so downwards to Z,--all of which duly you forgot.
On this argument, it was urged at the time, in high quarters, that the
new re-cast of the crown and sceptre should come out of the furnace
_equally_ improved; as much for what they were authorized to claim as for
what they were compelled to disclaim. And, as one mode of effecting this,
it was proposed that the king should become an emperor. Some, indeed,
alleged that an emperor, but its very idea, as received in the Chancery
of Europe, presupposes a king paramount over vassal or tributary kings.
But it is a sufficient answer to say that an emperor is a prince, united
in his own person the _thrones_ of several distinct kingdoms; and in
effect we adopt that view of the case in giving the title of imperial to
the parliament, or common assembly of the three kingdoms. However, the
title of the prince was a matter trivial in comparison of the title of
his _ditio_, or extent of jurisdiction. This point admits of a striking
illustration: in the "Paradise Regained," Milton has given us, in close
succession, three matchless pictures of civil grandeur, as exemplified in
three different modes by three different states. Availing himself of the
brief scriptural notice,--"The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of
them,"--he causes to pass, as in a solemn pageant before us, the two
military empires then coexisting, of Parthia and Rome, and finally (under
another idea of political greatness) the intellectual glories of Athens.
From the picture of the Roman grandeur I extract, and beg the reader to
weigh, the following lines:--
"Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see--at
What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
Pretors, proconsuls, to their provinces
Hasting, or on return in robes of state;
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
Legions or cohorts, turns of horse and wings;
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits on the Appian road,
Or on the Emilian; some from farthest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroë, Nilotic isle: and, more to west,
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor Sea;
From India and the Golden Chersonese,
And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane,
--Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed;
From Gallia, Gades, and the British, west,
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, north,
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool."
With this superb picture, or abstraction of the Roman pomps and power,
when ascending to their utmost altitude, confront the following
representative sketch of a great English levee on some high solemnity,
suppose the king's birthday: "Amongst the presentations to his majesty,
we noticed Lord O. S., the governor general of India, on his departure
for Bengal; Mr. U. Z., with an address from the Upper and Lower Canadas;
Sir L. V., on his appointment as commander of the forces in Nova Scotia;
General Sir ----, on his return from the Burmese war, ["the Golden
Chersonese,"] the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet; Mr. B.
Z., on his appointment to the chief justiceship at Madras; Sir R. G., the
late attorney general at the Cape of Good Hope; General Y. X., on taking
leave for the governorship of Ceylon, ["the utmost Indian isle,
Taprobane;"] Lord F. M., the bearer of the last despatches from head
quarters in Spain; Col. P., on going out as captain general of the forces
in New Holland; Commodore St. L., on his return from a voyage of
discovery towards the north pole; the King of Owhyhee, attended by
chieftains from the other islands of that cluster; Col. M'P., on his
return from the war in Ashantee, upon which occasion the gallant colonel
presented the treaty and tribute from that country; Admiral ----, on his
appointment to the Baltic fleet; Captain O. N., with despatches from the
Red Sea, advising the destruction of the piratical armament and
settlements in that quarter, as also in the Persian Gulf; Sir T. O'N.,
the late resident in Nepaul, to present his report of the war in that
territory, and in adjacent regions--names as yet unknown in Europe; the
governor of the Leeward Islands, on departing for the West Indies;
various deputations with petitions, addresses, &c., from islands in
remote quarters of the globe, amongst which we distinguished those from
Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from, the Mauritius,
from Java, from the British settlement in Terra del Fuego, from the
Christian churches in the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands--as
well as other groups less known in the South Seas; Admiral H. A., on
assuming the command of the Channel fleet; Major Gen. X. L., on resigning
the lieutenant governorship of Gibraltar; Hon. G. F., on going out as
secretary to the governor of Malta," &c.
This sketch, too hastily made up, is founded upon a base of a very few
years; _i.e._, we have, in one or two instances, placed in juxtaposition,
as coexistences, events separated by a few years. But if (like Milton's
picture of the Roman grandeur) the abstraction had been made from a base
of thirty years in extent, and had there been added to the picture
(according to his precedent) the many and remote embassies to and from
independent states, in all quarters of the earth, with how many more
groups might the spectacle have been crowded, and especially of those who
fall within that most picturesque delineation--
"Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed"!
As it is, I have noticed hardly any places but such as lie absolutely
within our jurisdiction. And yet, even under that limitation, how vastly
more comprehensive is the chart of British dominion than of the Roman! To
this gorgeous empire, some corresponding style and title should have been
adapted at the revision of the old title, and should yet be adapted.
_Apropos_ of the proposed change in the king's title: Coleridge, on being
assured that the new title of the king was to be Emperor of the British
Islands and their dependencies, and on the coin _Imperator Britanniarum_,
remarked, that, in this remanufactured form, the title might be said to
be _japanned_; alluding to this fact, that amongst _insular_ sovereigns,
the only one known to Christian diplomacy by the title of emperor is the
Sovereign of Japan.
[4] For the sake of those who are no classical scholars, I explain: Voice
and language are restored to him only to the extent of _replying_.
[5] Accordingly, Coleridge has contended, and I think with truth, that
the passion of Othello is _not_ jealousy. So much I know by report, as
the _result_ of a lecture which he read at the Royal Institution. His
arguments I did not hear. To me it is evident that Othello's state of
feeling was not that of a degrading, suspicious rivalship, but the state
of perfect misery, arising out of this dilemma, the most affecting,
perhaps, to contemplate of any which _can_ exist, viz., the dire
necessity of loving without limit one whom the heart pronounces to be
unworthy of that love.
[6] That book, I am aware, is generally treated as a forgery; but
internal evidence, drawn from the tone and quality of the revelations
there made, will not allow me to think it altogether such. There is an
_abandon_ and carelessness in parts which mark its sincerity. Its
authenticity I cannot doubt. But _that_ proves nothing for the truth of
the particular stories which it contains. A book of scandalous and
defamatory stories, especially where the writer has had the baseness to
betray the confidence reposed in his honor by women, and to boast of
favors alleged to have been granted him, it is always fair to consider as
_ipso facto_ a tissue of falsehoods: and on the following argument, that
these are exposures which, even if true, none but the basest of men would
have made. Being, therefore, on the hypothesis most favorable to his
veracity, the basest of men, the author is self-denounced as vile enough
to have forged the stories, and cannot complain if he should be roundly
accused of doing that which he has taken pains to prove himself capable
of doing. This way of arguing might be applied with fatal effect to the
Duc de Lauzun's "Memoirs," supposing them written with a view to
publication. But, by possibility, that was not the case. The Duc de L.
terminated his profligate life, as is well known, on the scaffold, during
the storms of the French revolution; and nothing in his whole career won
him so much credit as the way in which he closed it; for he went to his
death with a romantic carelessness, and even gayety of demeanor. His
"Memoirs" were not published by himself: the publication was posthumous;
and by whom authorized, or for what purpose, is not exactly known.
Probably the manuscript fell into mercenary hands, and was published
merely on a speculation of pecuniary gain. From some passages, however, I
cannot but infer that the writer did not mean to bring it before the
public, but wrote it rather as a series of private memoranda, to aid his
own recollection of circumstances and dates. The Duc de Lauzun's account
of his intrigue with Lady Sarah goes so far as to allege, that he rode
down in disguise, from London to Sir Charles B.'s country seat, agreeably
to a previous assignation, and that he was admitted, by that lady's
confidential attendant, through a back staircase, at the time when Sir
Charles (a fox hunter, but a man of the highest breeding and fashion) was
himself at home, and occupied in the duties of hospitality.