NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CLXX. JANUARY, 1856. ART. I. Elements of international Law, by HENRY WHEATON, LL.D. Sixth Edition. With the last Corrections of the Author, Additional Notes, and Introductory Remarks, con- taining a Notice of Mr. Wheatons Diplomatic Career and of the Antecedents of his Life. By WILLIAM BEACH LAW- RENCE~ formerly Charg6 dAffaires of the United States at London. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1855. 8vo. Tuis is a greatly improved edition of a work now become classical in both hemispheres. The first edition of Mr. Wheatons Elements of International Law the first ele- mentary compend of the~ entire subject of the law of nations in our language appeared in London, in 1836. It was reprinted in Philadelphia the same year, and shortly after- wards reviewed in this journal.* A third edition was pub- lished at Philadelphia in 1844. Editions in the French lan- guage, prepared by the learned and lamented author, with his latest revisions and emendations, were published at Leipzig and Paris in 1848 and in 18523, 50 that the present highly improved edition, published under the able superintendence of Mr. W. Beach Lawrence, is the sixth of this standard work. * North American Review, Vol. XLIV. p. 16. vOL. LXXXII.No. 170. 1 2 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. So rapid a succession of editions of a work of this kind is of itself a sufficient testimony to its value. The leading journals of Europe, both English and Continental, have been emphatic in its praise, and the authority of our countryman as a wise and safe expounder of the public law is established by the general consent, abroad and at home, of those most competent to form an opinion on the subject. We scarce know another instance of a reputation so solid and so generally admitted, which has been as promptly built up as Mr. Wheaton s in a great department of moral science. When it is considered how much of the professional intellect of the nineteenth cen- tury has been employed, at the bar and on the bench, in de- fining the rules of the public law, what vast interests public and private have been affected by the application of those rules during the great wars of the French Revolution, and how many able men have undertaken as text-writers to dis- cuss the principles on which questions affecting those interests have been adjudicated by the tribunals, it may well be deemed a rare distinction for our honored countryman, to have won for himself the reputation of the leading elementary writer in this department, at once the earliest and the ablest com- mentator on the Law of Nations in the English language. The last hundred years may be well regarded as a Seculurn ]Jlirabile of public law; more and greater questions having presented themselves for discussion and adjudication, than in the whole period which had elapsed from the consolidation of the modern European system down to the seven years~ war. It is sufficient for the justification of this remark to refer to the rule of 56, to the right of colonies to assert their inde- pendence and of foreign states to recognize it, to the armed neutralities, to the questions of the provision trade and of con- traband which grew up in 1793 and the following years, to the doctrines asserted in the Orders in Council and the French Decrees, to the general readjustment of the balance of power by the Congress of Vienna, to the right of search attempted to be set up in time of peace for the suppression of the African slave trade, to the extent and limitation of the right of inter- vention in the concerns of other states, and now lately to the new principles of neutral trade, which have received the sane- tion of the belligerent powers during the present war. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 3 In reference to most of these questions the United States have been the power most deeply concerned, as they have often been the only neutral power, and at all times the neutral whose interests were of the greatest magnitude. To this cir- cumstance it is no doubt to be ascribed, that the professional mind of the country has shown itself so well prepared for the discussion of questions of public law, and that the tribunals of the United States exhibit on the bench and at the bar a greater array of names that have shed light on this depart- ment of jurisprudence, than any other country. What country in Europe can produce within one generation six names as distinguished in this department as those of Marshall, Story, Kent, Webster, Pinkney, and Wheaton, not to name some who still live? One other general remark forces itself upon us. Of all the principles of public law asserted by the great powers of Eu- rope during the last century, enforced by their courts of ad- miralty, and maintained by their governments, even by the aid of the ultima ratio regum, by far the most important were those by which the British and French governments, through their Orders in Council and Decrees, sought to extend their jurisdiction over the neutral trade of the world, and to com- pel all nations to range themselves on one side or the other of the mighty contest they were waging with each other. After a diplomatic juggle between the two great powers, of which history will not readily produce the parallel, these conflicting orders and decrees produced a destructive war between the United States and Great Britain; the two nations in the civilized world connected by the strongest bonds of natural affinity, commercial interest, and general sympathy. This war, like all other wars between powerful states, was attended by a frightful sacrifice of property and life. That the decrees of France were mere acts of despotic power, resting on no basis of justice and right, was always ftiaintained by England, as the counterpart of this proposition was always maintained by France. A Declaration on the Orders in Council, dated Westminster, April 21, 1812, states that the government of France perseveres in the assertion of principles and in the maintenance of a system, not more hostile to the maritime 4 LIFE, SERVICES, AM) WORKS [Jan. rights and commercial interests of the British empire than inconsistent with the rights and independence of neutral na- tions. It must be admitted that the course adopted by Great Britain in consequence of this state of things was a most ex- traordinary violation of the rules of state logic and public morality. She denounced the French decrees only to justify herself in imitating them; as if a retaliated wrong became a right. She went further than this, and declared her purpose of maintaining those very principles and adhering to those practices as her undoubted maritime rights, which, as set forth and practised by France, she declared to be infractions of the law of nations. Such was her doctrine in 1812, such was the language of the throne, of Parliament, and of the Courts of Admiralty, even with a judge like Lord Stowell on the bench; and we now read from the highest British author- ity, that the Orders in Council were grievously unjust to neutrals, and it is now generally allowed that they were con- trary to the law of nations and our own municipal law. * is true that, as late as 1839, a respectable English author (Mr. Manning) continued to justify the Orders in Council, on the ground of retaliation, and on the assumption that the neutral powers, that is, the United States, failed to oppose any resist- ance to the Berlin Decree of 1806, which he considers the first step in the Continental system. With regard to the justice of the case, he remarks, I hope that it is not national preju- dice which inclines me to believe that our country is not liable to much reproach. Our measures were strictly retali- atory. At the time of the publication of the Berlin Decree, nothing had been done by our government to warrant such aggression.~ Impartial history, however, will give a different version of the facts of the case, and in the same chapter in which he pronounces the opinion, Mr. Manning narrates facts which show that the Berlin Decree was itself a retaliatory measure. But supposing this to be otherwise, it must be a case of unquestioned, long-continued acquiescence on the part of the neutral in the wrong-doing of one belligerent, * Lord Campbells Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. VII. pp. 218, 301. I Mannings Commentaries on the Law of Nations, p. 347. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 5 which would authorize the other belligerent to break down the most important provisions of the public law under pre- tence of retaliation. The Berlin Decree bears date on the 21st of Nov2mber, 1806, and the first measure of retaliation on the part of the British government was an Order of Coun- cil of the 7th of January, 1807, at which time the news of the Berlin Decree had not probably reached the United States. Besides, if every act of injustice and violence on the part of one belligerent is to be retaliated, especially on innocent third parties (against whom the very word retaliation is a con- tradiction in terms), a long-continued war between powerful states would end in an iniquitous emulation of wrong. It is monstrous to suppose, says Lord Stowell, that, because one country has been guilty of an irregularity, every other country is let loose from the law of nations, and is at liberty to assume as much as it thinks fit. * But it is unnecessary to pursue this argument Later and higher authorities than Mr. Manning abandon the point. In addition to the remark of the present Lord Chief Justice of England which we have just quoted, the general sentiment of the enlightened public at the present day is, we believe, ex- pressed by Mr. Wildman in his valuable work on International Law, when he says, in the passage to which we have already referred~, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council -were an innovation of the right of every neutral state to carry on its own lawful trade with a belligerent. They assumed the power of a single state to vary interna- tional rights by its private ordinances, and to impose the penalties of a breach of blockade, where no actual blockade existed. They assumed, in contravention of the clearest principles of public law, a right to create blockades by proc- lamation. We will only observe, in passing from this topic, that much that was claimed by Great Britain in the Declaration relative to the Orders in Council of April 21, 1812, as an ordinary and indisputable right of maritime war to which she was determined to adhere, such as the validity of paper block- * Wildmans Institutes of International Law, Vol. U. pp. 183185. 1* 6 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. ades and the right of the belligerent to capture enemys prop- erty in neutral vessels, has been either formally abandoned by her or suspended for the present war. Of another preten- sion of Great Britain, which entered largely into the causes of the war of 1812, that of impressing her subjects from neutral vessels, although no formal renunciation of it has ever taken place, it may be safely assumed that no attempt will ever be made to revive it. It is probable that the practice of manning the Royal Navy by impressment even at home has been de- finitively abandoned; but whether this is the case or not, the attempt to renew the practice in reference to American ships would be simply to add the United States to the number of her antagonists, in any war in which she might be engaged. We are wandering, however, from our purpose at this time, which is to invite the attention of our readers to the present edition of Mr. Wheatons Elements of International Law, prepared by his friend, Mr. W. Beach Lawrence, who has substantially increased the value of the work by his own con- tributions. These consist of an introductory memoir on the life, career, and writings of Mr. Wheaton, and annotations on the various topics discussed in the body of the work. In these annotations Mr. Lawrence has collected from the subsequent legislation and diplomacy of Europe and America, whatever is calculated to throw light upon his authors text. The In- troduction, which occupies more than a fourth part of the volume, consists of a compendious narrative of Mr. Wheatons career, with appropriate comments on his various writings, on his diplomatic services, the questions discussed, and the con- ventions and treaties negotiated by him. We are pleased to be able to regard it as the earnest of a larger biographical work, which Mr. Lawrence permits us to expect from him at some future day, narrating Mr. Wheatons honorable career in ample detail, with a selection from his public despatches, his voluminous correspondence with eminent contemporaries, and his miscellaneous writings. Such a work, executed with the ability of which in the present publication Mr. Lawrence has shown himself master, will form at once an imperishable monument to the memory of one of whom the country is justly proud, and a valuable contribution to the literature of our common language. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 7 Few of his contemporaries, as we have already hinted, have run so successful a career, or achieved so enviable a reputa- tion, as Mr. Wheaton. His writings have become text-books throughout Europe and America. They are in fact too well known to need analysis or comment on our part; and we have thought our pages might be best employed, on this oc- casion, in presenting, in a condensed form, those biographical notices which are contained in Mr. Lawrences Introduction, some of which we presume will be new, as they must all be interesting, to most of our readers. Mr. Wheaton was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 27th of November, 1785, the son of Seth Wheaton, a distin- guished merchant of that city, and the nephew of Dr. Levi Wheaton, afterwards his father-in-law, distinguished as a physician, and eminent for literary culture, as well as for pro- fessional attainments. Mr. Wheatons mother is represented to have been a woman of strong intellect, and rare delicacy and refinement; and the family has been identified with the State of Rhode Island from its earliest colonization. The influences under which his childhood and youth were passed were favorable to the development of his mental powers, and to the early formation of a taste for knowledge, so that he was prepared to enter the College of his native State at the age of thirteen, and was graduated in 1802. He passed immediately to the study of his profession, under Nathaniel Searle, a prom- inent lawyer of the day, and at the age of twenty was pre- pared for admission to the bar. His studies from his school- boy days were well adapted to form the future publicist. Besides his proficiency in the usual elementary branches, he evinced from the earliest period a fondness for general litera- ture, and especially for historical research and the investiga- tion of the political annals of the principal modern States. After completing his academic and professional education in this country, he was enabled by the liberality of his father to enjoy the advantages of a residence in Europe. At the age when so many of our young men cross the ocean with no fixed views, but principally to indulge an ill-defined curiosity to see the world, too often in search of the dangerous gratifi- cations of the dissipated capitals and watering-places of the 8 LIFE, SERVIcES, AND WORKS [Jan. European continent, Mr. Wheaton took up his abode in the quiet rural city of Poitiers, where, besides the French lan- guage, the mastery of which contributed so much to the suc- cess of his career, he acquired the foundations of that knowl- edge of the French law, which was not less useful to him as a publicist. His residence in France took place at an impor- tant period in the history of French jurisprudence. He wit- nessed the formation of the imperial codes and the reduction of the written and unwritten law of France to a uniform text, a work in which Napoleon I. took not only a deep interest, but an active part, frequently attending the meetings of the commission charged with the preparation of the codes, and mingling in the debates.* Mr. Wheaton fully appreciated the importance of this great revision of the law of France, and prepared a translation of the codes for publication in this country, which was prevented from taking place only by the accidental destruction of the manuscript. A witness, says Mr. Lawrence, of the transition from the droit coutumier, and from a system composed of the Roman civil law and of royal ordinances and local regulations, to a uniform written law, he was preparing himself to exercise an enlightened judgment on codifica- tion, a subject which, as a Commissioner of New York, under the first law passed by any State of the Union for the liberal revision of its statutes, he had twenty years afterward occasion to discuss with a view to its practical application. Mr. Wheatons residence in Europe lasted four years, during which time events of the greatest importance took place in its political system, and changes the most alarming and extraor- dinary were attempted in the theory and administration of the public law. It was the period in which the imperial govern- ment was established in France; in which a renewed general war succeeded the short-lived peace of Amiens; in which the French ascendency was extended over the continent of Eu- rope, and employed by Napoleon as much as possible to crip- ple the trade, and in that way to undermine the power, of his great rival. England thought herself justified, as we have seen, on the principle of retaliation, in arrogating a universal * See North American Review, Vol. XX. p. 393. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 9 dominion over the sea, analogous to that of Napoleon on the land. She revived the rule of 56, which had slumbered through the war of the American iRevolution; she asserted the princi- ple of paper blockades, which swallowed up whatever re- mained of neutral rights, and entered with her Orders in Coun- cil on that course of emulative injustice of which the Berlin Decree, as she alleged, set the unhappy example. Mr. Whea- ton remained in Europe from 1802 to 1806, and witnessed the early stages of this p6licy. He possessed the friendship and confidence of our Ministers in Paris and London, Messrs. Armstrong, Monroe, and Pinkney, and was acquainted through his intercourse with them with the efforts of our diplomacy to rescue the rights and interests of the United States from the grasp of violence, injustice, and legalized plunder that was establishing itself in Europe. Not less calculated to fix the attention of an intelligent American were the political and military events of the day, both in England and on the Continent, the death of Mr. Pitt and the formation of the ministry of his great Parliamentary competitor, which produced but little change in the foreign re- lations of the counfry, the great battles of Austerlitz and Traf- algar, the absorption of half the independent governments of Europe into virtual dependencies on France, the collection at Paris of the wonders of art which had adorned the Museums of Italy and Germany, in a word, the apparent consolidation of a power which seemed to equal that of Imperial Rome in the palmiest days of her ambition. Thus, at the most inter- esting juncture of modern history, Mr. Wheaton beheld, with every opportunity for intelligent observation, the fierce antago- nism of the two elements between which the mighty struggle was waged, the military autocracy of France, instinct with the fiery life of the Revolution, and the indomitable energy of constitutional government anchored to the traditions of ages, too seldom restrained by regard to neutral rights, but clothing their violation with the gravest solemnities of judicature, and hurling a brave Parliamentary defiance at the most fearful military array which the modern world had seen. How rich the momentous crisis of affairs in lessons of political experi- ence for the youthful but well-instructed American! 10 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. On his return to America in 1806, Mr. Wheaton commenced the practice of the law, in his native town of Providence; but the character of the business usually intrusted to a young law- yer, in a provincial capital, is not such as to call into exercise the abilities of a man of talent, or to enable him to display the fruit of superior advantages of education and general cul- ture. It was also a period at which, owing to the existence of the restrictive system, the commerce of the country was reduced to comparatively narrow limits, the number of con- tracts proportionally diminished, and with them the amount of professional business. The state of affairs was in other re- spects unsatisfactory. Party politics ran high, and the ques- tions on which men differed related principally to the foreign relations of the country, exposed as it was to the cross fire of the two great belligerents, each seeking which should do the other the most harm, unconcerned for the rights of neutrals, both looking at the United States as a feeble power that might be safely insulted. There was just cause of war against both or either of them, and there was a very proper desire, on the part of the government, to avoid a resort to this extreme remedy as long as national honor and safety would permit. As an alternative for war the restrictive policy was adopted, first a general embargo unlimited in its terms, and in fact lasting about a year, and then non-intercourse. As the severity of these measures fell in the first instance upon the navigating and commercial interests of the North, the party division as- sumed to some extent a sectional character, towards which indeed ou~arty divisions have unfortunately always gravitat- ed. The measures of restriction were generally, but not uni- versally, condemned by the merchants, and their constitution- ality was questioned by some jurists of eminence, who did not allow their opinions to be controlled by party, as, for instance, by Mr. Samuel Dexter. Mr. Justice Story also, though the ablest of the Northern leaders of the Democratic party, and a warm supporter of the government, gave utterance to such views of the restrictive system, while a member of Congress in 1809, as caused him to be stigmatized, by President Jeffer- son, as a pseudo-Republican. Mr. Wheatons political sym- pathies, like those of his family, the circumstance which 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATOK. 11 usually decides the party attachments of young men on enter- ing life, were with the Administration, and its measures were supported by him with equal earnestness and ability in the columns of the Democratic journal of Providence. In those labors he was associated with the present venerable Judge Pitman, and with Mr. Jonathan Russell, with whom he kept up a continual correspondence during his diplomatic residence in Europe. In 1811 he appears to have contemplated a re- moval to New York, for the purpose of engaging in the practice of the law in that city; which he was prevented from doing by the onerous novitiate of three years, which was at that time rigidly enforced in the courts of New York, and was abro- gated only by the Constitution of 1846. At the close of the year 1812, this contemplated removal took place, and Mr. Wheaton established himself at New York, as the editor of a political newspaper entitled The Na- tional Advocate. In this capacity he proved himself an able and enlightened champion of Mr. Madisons administration. The great questions of our violated neutral rights were dis- cussed with the pen, not only of a jurist, but of a gentleman and a scholar. Mr. Wheatons long residence abroad had given him peculiar opportunities for understanding the controversies of the day. The new liabilities and duties created by the war, then recently declared, were elucidated by him with the learn- ing of an accomplished publicist and the zeal of a sincere patriot. Several topics of international law were discussed in the columns of the Advocate with an ability which fore- shadowed his future eminence in this department. Among these was a vindication, on the authority of Vattel and Byn- kershoeck, of the right of expatriation, in answer to Mr. Gou- verneur Morris, an eminent statesman and diplomatist of the Federal party. Questions of niaritime law were of course among those which most frequently presented themselves. In the Advocate first appeared the opinion of his friend, Mr. Justice Story, then recently elevated to the bench of the Su- preme Court of the United States, affirming the illegality of the trade under enemys licenses, which had been extensively resorted to for the supply of the British armies in Spain. Mr. Wheaton as a journalist enjoyed the entire confidence of the 12 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORE~ [Jan. Administration, and his columns were sometimes the vehicle of semi-official expositions of its policy. In the autumn of 1814, he received the appointment of Division Judge Advocate of the Army, his nomination to that office being unanimously confirmed by the Senate. The year following, he retired from the editorship of the Advocate, on being appointed one of the Justices of the Marine Court of New York, a tribunal of lim- ited jurisdiction, and now shorn of much of its former consid- eration, but which has been presided over by some of the most eminent men at the New York bar. Mr. Wheaton filled this place four years. In 1815, under the modest title of A Digest of the Law of Maritime Capture and Prizes, Mr. Wheaton published his first systematic work. He had naturally turned his attention to this subject on the breaking out of the war of 1812. This unpretending treatise contains a full analysis of the adjudica- tions of the tribunals of different countries, and especially of England and the United States, on questions of prize. Such a survey and digest necessarily involved a review of all those debatable points of maritime law, which had been the subject of our diplomatic discussions with foreign governments. Thirty years after its publication, this work was pronounced by Mr. Reddie, a writer of great accuracy and good judgment, in point of learning and methodical arrangement very superior to any treatise on this department of the law which has pre- viously appeared in the English language. Nor has it, though a youthful production, been superseded by any of the subse- quent works of Mr. Wheaton. It concerns a department of law but incidentally embraced in his more comprehensive treatises. It contains a clearer and more accurate view of the English and French edicts against neutral commerce, than can be anywhere else found; and in no other publication are they so ably brought to the test of the universally recognized law of nations. In 1816 Mr. Wheaton became the IReporter of the Supreme Court of the United States, which office he filled for twelve years, and in that capacity brought forth twelve volumes of Reports of the decisions of the dignified tribunal with which he was thus intimately associated. The length of time for 1856.J OF HENRY WHEATON. 13 which he filled the office, and the ability with which he dis- charged its duties, the eminence of the magistrates who com- posed the Court, and of the counsel who appeared at its bar, and the importance of the questions which some of them for the first time were drawn into consideration, render this one of the most important portions of Mr. Wheatons career. The manner in which he performed these new and important duties is spoken of by Mr. Lawrence in the following terms of just, but not extravagant, commendation. The character which Mr. Wheaton at once acquired as reporter was unrivalled. He did not confine himself to a summary of the able argu- ments by which the cases were elucidated, but there is scarce a proposi- tion on any of the diversified subjects to which the jurisdiction of the Court extends, that might give rise to serious doubts in the profession, that is not explained, not merely by a citation of the authorities adduced bfcounsel, but copious notes present the views which the publicists and civilians have taken of the question. Not only are Pothier and the Civil Code constantly quoted, and their conclusions compared with those of the common law, but on the introduction of a case from Louisiana, we have an explanation of the jurisprudence which prevailed in that Colony at the time of its annexation, showing how far the French and Spanish laws respectively were in force. Mr. Lawrences judgment in the foregoing sentences is en- tirely in accordance with that of Mr. Webster, as expressed in a review of the third volume of Mr. Wheatons Reports, in an early volume of our journal,~ from which a pertinent citation is made in the volume before us. Highly favorable opinions of Mr. Wheatons labors as a reporter are also quoted from a letter of Mr. Justice Story, and from the treatise of Mr. Dupon- ceau on the Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts of the United States; but the standard value of his Reports is too well un- derstood to require further comment. The somewhat costly style of the typographical execution was occasionally a matter of complaint by the profession, burdened as it is by the vo- luminous and expensive literary apparatus which the multi- plicity of European and American tribunals makes necessary; but we apprehend that few persons at the present day, desirous * North American Review, Vol. VIII. p. 63. VOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 2 14 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. either for professional use or private investigation thoroughly to explore any subject treated in Mr. Wheatons notes, would wish, by their suppression, to render the volumes containing them more compendious. Mr. Wheatons connection with the Court was not confined to the duty of reporting its decisions. He was employed as counsel in many of the most important causes which came before it. This was particularly the case in reference to the question of the constitutionality of State bankrupt and insol- vent laws, brought before the Court in Ogden and Saunders in 1824, and not finally adjudicated till 1827. In this great case Mr. Wheaton was the sole counsel associated with Mr. Webster, against a large array of the most eminent profes- sional talent of the country. But Mr. Wheatons arduous and incessant labors, whether as counsel or reporter, did not en- gross his time. His method and facility enabled him to per- form a great amount of extra-official work. In March, 1819, he furnished for the pages of this journal a very carefully pre- pared and instructive Review of the first volume of Masons (W. P.) Reports of the Decisions of Mr. Justice Story in the Circuit Court, which is valuable, among other things, for an accurate summary of the law of prize, as settled in the courts of the United States during the Revolution, and up to the war of 1812.* In 1821 a Convention was held in the State of New York for revising the Constitution; its members being chosen by an approach to universal suffrage. Mr. Wheaton was elected a delegate from the city of New York, his colleague in that capacity being Mr. Sanford, the successor of Chancellor Kent, and twice a Senator of the United States. Mr. Wheaton was an active and respected member of the body. He brought forward a proposition making it the duty of the legislature to pass general laws on the subject of private corporations, and to prohibit their creation by special acts. A call for some pro- vision of this kind arose, in the opinion of many persons of sound judgment, from the abuses connected with applications for bank charters. Mr. Wheaton s proposition did not prevail * North American Review, Vol. VIII. p. 253. 1856.] OF HENRY WIIEATON. 15 in 1821, but on a subsequent revision of the Constitution in 1846, it was revived, and became a part of the fundamental law. It is greatly to be desired, that the temptations to abuses of this kind might be effectually obviated by materially lim- iting the right of banks to substitute circulating paper for a metallic medium. The almost exclusive use of a currency possessing no intrinsic value, in addition to all its incidental evils, is unquestionably one of the greatest theoretical errors and practical mischiefs of our commercial system. It is founded on the gross delusion that paper nominally converti- ble is actually so. Its use can have no other effect than to cause an unnatural inflation of prices, and a necessary depre- ciation in the value of the real money employed with it as a circulating medium. By another proposition of Mr. Wheaton in the Constitutional Convention, it was made the duty of the legislature to require the cities and towns in the State to raise such sums as may be necessary, in addition to their dividends from the common school fund, to maintain public schools in every city or town for the instruction of all the children. In November, 1823, Mr. Wheaton came actively into public life as a member of the New York Assembly. The approacfr. ing presidential election, and the unusual number of candi- dates, gave warmth to the political struggle of the ensuing year. After a temporary lull in party politics, from the peace of 1815 to the close of Mr. Monroes administration, the ques- tion who should succeed him produced new and violent party discussions. Mr. Crawford of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, had been nominated by the Congressional caucus of the Republican (Democratic) party, as it was then usually called. That caucus, however, had failed to bring together the whole Democratic force; it was attended principally by that portion of the party who in the language of the day were called radicals. A portion claiming to be liberal, as favoring a more enlarged construction of the Constitution and a free ex- penditure of the public money, was divided between Mr. Cal- houn and General Jackson. The members of the old Federal party were about equally distributed among all the candidates. Mr. Wheaton individually favored the pretensions of Mr. Cal- houn, and was in confidential correspondence with him during 16 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. the canvass. On this subject Mr. Lawrence makes the follow- ing just and impressive remark: To advance the pretensions of the Carolina statesman to the high- est office was Mr. Wheatons motive in permitting himself to be elected a member of the New York State Assembly in November, 1823; and it is not a little remarkable, when we look to the views which Mr. Cal- houn subsequently took of our system of government, that our authors [Mr. Wheatons] original preference for him was induced by a concur- rence of sentiment on the subject of the federal judiciary. To preserve to the Supreme Court the exposition of the Constitution in the last resort, was then deemed by Mr. Calhoun, as his letters of that period show, an object of primary importance. And it may well incline us to regard with indulgence the changes which inferior minds undergo, when we find one afterwards so eminent in the liberal school of political econ- omy, and whose integrity of purpose and purity of life are unassailable, writing to his friends in the legislature of New York to suggest the pro- priety of adopting some resolutions not to support any one not known to be openly in favor of domestic manufactures and internal improvements. The adoption of such, he added, would go far to prostrate the hopes of the radicals at once in your State. These sentiments are cited by Mr. Lawrence from a letter of Mr. Calhoun to Mr. Wheaton, dated December 23, 1823. In 1825 Mr. Wheaton was appointed a member of a com- mission to revise the statute law of the State of New York. His associates were Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, afterwards Attorney-General of the United States, and Mr. John Duer, now a distinguished member of the New York Judiciary. This was a task for which Mr. Wheatons previous studies and professional tastes eminently qualified him, and upon which, in conjunction with his learned colleagues, he entered with industry and zeal. In a report to the legislature in 1826, they set forth their plan for the execution of the work, and submitted as a specimen the revision of the statutes which embraced the constitutional and administrative law of the State. This plan being sanctioned by the legislature, Mr. Wheaton and his associates engaged in carrying it into effect; but his participation in the honorable duty was brought to a close by his entrance into the diplomatic service of the country. This event took place in 1827, and terminated the strictly legal portion of his career. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 17 Notwithstanding the laborious nature of his professiomil duties, Mr. Wheaton had from the first found much time for the cultivation of general literature. He was one of the earliest and most valued contributors to the pages of this jour- nal. He delivered in 1820 a learned discourse before the New York Historical Society, On the Science of Public and Inter- national Law, which contains the elementary ideas of his subsequent works on that subject. It received emphatic commendations from the highest quarters, Presidents John Adams and Jefferson, Chief Justice Marshall, and Chancellor Kent. In 1825 Mr. Wheaton delivered an address at the opening of the New York Athenreum, in which he took a rapid survey of what had been accomplished in American literature, and presented a hopeful view of the intellectual prospects of the country. His last literary enterprise at this period of his life was his Account of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of William Pinkney. A very interesting review of this work by the lamented Dr. Greenwood will be found in a former volume of this journal.* In 1827 Mr. Wheaton received the appointment of Charge dAffaires to Denmark, being the first permanent diplomatic representative ever sent by the United States to that country. This was the first step in a career longer than that of any other person ever employed in the diplomatic service of the United States, pursued with success, crowned with reputation, and illustrated by the composition of several works of great merit, but rendered especially memorable by the production of his two standard treatises on the public law. Mr. Wheaton sailed for England on his way to Denmark in July, 1827. During his residence in London, among other celebrities, he formed the intimate acquaintance of Jeremy Bentham, and found him a charming old man, less dogmatical than he expected. The particular subject which received Mr. Wheatons oh- cial attention during his mission at Copenhagen was the claim of American citizens upon the Danish government for captures aud condemnations under the Continental system of Napoleon I. Denmark, too feeble to maintain her neu * North American Review, Vol. XXIV. p. 68. 2* 18 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. trality had she been disposed, and with little inducement to pursue a friendly policy toward Great Britain, from whom she had received affronts and injuries at once of the most offensive and serious character, had, although not formally adopting the Berlin and Milan Decrees, acted in their spirit, and allowed her privateers to prey upon the neutral commerce of the United States. Mr. G. W. Erving was sent to Copenhagen in 1811 on a special mission, the object of which was to put a stop to those depredations, which object was in a good degree effected by him. In 1818 and 1825 the Danish government was given to understand, that the United States expected her merchants to be indemnified for their losses; and on the rati- fication of a treaty of commerce between the two countries in 1826, which contained no provision for this object, a note was addressed by the Secretary of State (Mr. Clay) to the Danish Minister, expressly precluding the idea that the de- mand of indemnity was abandoned. For a limited class of cases, partial indemnity, satisfactory to the claimants, was accorded at the close of 1827, within two months after Mr. Wheatons arrival at Copenhagen. After a general negotiation carried on during the following years in reference to the mass of the claims, a commission was appointed, consisting of the aged and respectable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Schimmelman, and the Minister of Justice, Mr. Stemann, to discuss with the American Minister all the matters in controversy. This arrangement took place at the close of Mr. Adamss administration. That event was followed by a change in all our other foreign missions; but General Jackson in this instance wisely disregarded the claims of party, and retained Mr. Wheaton at his post. It would take up too much space to review the discussion between the American and the Danish Commissioners, which terminated on the 28th of March, 1830, by the conclusion of a Convention, by which, including what had been already allowed, as before stated, in 1827, about three quarters of a million of dollars were stipulated to be paid to the merchants of this country. If this sum was less than the amount of losses actually suffered, it was considerably more than Mr. Wheaton had been instructed to accept. The success of the 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 19 negotiation was no doubt materially owing to the respectable character and amiable personal qualities of the American Minister, which came powerfully in aid of his diplomatic skill and his familiarity with the questions of public law involved in the dispute. Some of these were connected with the im- portant topic of belligerent convoy, to which the judgment of Sir William Scott in 1799 has given historical celebrity.* The expedient of paying a gross sum, to be apportioned by the American government, precluded the necessity of pursuing the investigation of individual cases on the part of the nego- tiators at Copenhagen. Mr. Wheaton had greatly strengthened his position in Den- mark by the prompt acquisition of the language of the coun- try, by entering into friendly relations with its men of letters, and devoting himself to the successful study of its history and antiquities. The result of these studies was communicated to the public, in part, through a series of articles of great value and interest in the volumes of this journal. In the first of these articles, written after he had been but a twelvemonth in Copenhagen, he reviewed Professor Schlegels work on the public law of Denmark, explaining not only the constitution of that realm, but its political connection with the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, which in 1850 became the subject of a controversy that threatened the peace of Eu- rope. This was followed in successive numbers of our journal by an Essay on Scandinavian Mythology, Poetry, and History, in a notice of the third volume of Professor Finn Magnusen s edition of the Poetical Edda, and of the first volume of Pro- fessor Geijers History of Sweden, and by articles on the ancient laws of Iceland, the Anglo-Saxon Literature and Lan- guage, and the antiquities of Egypt as illustrated by th~ dis- coveries of Champollion. 1- Mr. Wheatons Essay on Scandinavian topics, prepared for this journal, formed the suitable prelude to the valuable work which in 1831 was published simultaneously at London and Philadelphia, under the title of History of the Northmen, from * Robinson, Vol. I. p. 340. t North American Review, Vols. XXVII. p. 285; XXVIII. 18; XXIX. 361; XXX. 556, 558; XXXIII. 325. 20 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. the Earliest Times to the Conquest of England by William of Normandy; a work which on its first appearance attracted extensive notice in Europe and America. In a review of it which appeared in this journal from the pen of Mr. Washing- ton Irving, it is stated to evince throughout the enthusiasm of an antiquarian, the liberality of a scholar, and the enlight- ened talents of a man of the world. * This work, enriched by the further investigations of Mr. Wheaton, was in 1844 trans- lated into French by M. Guillot, and was highly commended in that form by Baron Alexander von Humboldt, who in a letter to the translator speaks of the author as lhabile et vertueux diplornate, que je suis fier de compter parmi mes amis les plus intimes. These were but a part of the literary and historical labors of Mr. Wheaton during his residence at Copenhagen, but our limits will not admit of further specification. In 1830 Mr. Wheaton visited Paris, a vigilant observer of the dynastic revolution then in progress. His European repu- tation readily procured for him the acquaintance of Guizot, Thiers, the Duc de Broglie, Mignet, and the other statesmen and men of letters of France. He was presented by General Lafayette to Louis Philippe, and witnessed his taking the oath to the new charter. During his residences at Paris on several subsequent occasions, though never clothed with an official character, he received much personal attention from the King of the French, who conferred freely with him on the public questions of the day. A visit to London in 1831, on business connected with the Danish indemnity, furnished him the op- portunity of extending his acquaintance there, and forming friendly relations with the leading statesmen of Great Britain. In the autumn of 1833 he returned on leave to the United States, where he was received with public demonstrations of respectful attachment. At the request of the Law Institute of New York, he prepared a discourse for their anniversary in 1834, but was prevented from actually delivering it by business engagements at Washington. The principal object of Mr. Wheatons visit to the United States was the prosecution of a suit, which had reached the * North American Review, Vol. XXXV. p. 343. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 21 court of ultimate resort, against his successor in the office of Reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States, who by the publication of an abridgment of his Reports had seriously impaired the pecuniary value of the original edition, in which were embodied the fruits of twelve years of arduous labor, and to which he had looked forward as a permanent future provision for himself and his family. It would be unavailing and painful to discuss in these pages the merit of this contro- versy, which was decided adversely to the interests of Mr. Wheaton. The heavy pecuniary loss which he suffered in the greatly reduced value of his work was aggravated, we are in- formed by Mr. Lawrence, by the permanent rupture of those friendly ties which had so long existed between him and Mr. Justice Story. Leaving Denmark for the United States in 1833, Mr. Whea- ton had received from the Prussian Minister at Copenhagen, the Count Raczynsky, well known as the historian of modern art in Germany and Portugal, a communication to be trans- mitted to Washington, expressing a desire on the part of the Prussian government to reopen its diplomatic intercourse with the United States, and intimating a wish that Mr. Wheaton, whose reputation was already established at Berlin, should be sent there. In conformity with this suggestion, Mr. Wheaton was, in the spring of 1835, appointed Charg6 dAf- faires to Prussia by General Jackson, who thus performed for a second time au~ act of commendable liberality toward a functionary originally placed in office by his predecessor. The arrangement itself was entirely proper, in consideration of the greatly increased political importance of Prussia, and her con- trolling influence over the newly organized Zollverein. Taking advantage of the absence of the court from Berlin, Mr. Wh~aton made a tour in the summer of 1835 through the Hanseatic cities and the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and the Rhine. He availed himself of this opportunity to collect such local information as would enable him to enter to advantage on his negotiations with the Customs-Union. He was furnished by Mr. Ancillon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with introductions to the local authorities, who afforded him every facility for prosecuting his inquiries. Before entering 22 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. upon his negotiations, he was raised to the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. An appropria- tion for this purpose had been made at the last session of General Jacksons administration, but the nomination of Mr. Wheaton was the act of his successor, Mr. Van Buren. The President was strongly counselled to this measure by his Attorney-General, Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, whom we have already had occasion to name as the associate of Mr. Whea- ton in the revision of the laws of New York. This cordial recommendation of his ancient professional colleague, but political opponent, and President Van Burens bestowal of one of the best offices in his gift on a person who had been ten years out of the country, and who had no political claims founded on partisan service to the notice of the new adminis- tration, are acts of liberality as praiseworthy as they are rare. Mr. Wheaton received his letters of credence in his new capacity in March, 1837, but owing to the absence of the king at T~5plitz he was unable to present them till Septem- ber. He took advantage of the interval to make another tour in the Prussian provinces, with a view to complete his former examination of their commercial relations, especially in refer- ence to the question of the tobacco duties, which formed a prominent topic in his instructions. On this tour ~he visited the province of Brandenburg, :which he had not before seen, Hesse-Cassel, the other states of Western Germany, and Belgium. The information collected on this tour was of great use to Mr. Wheaton in preparing the memorial which he presented in July of the following year (1838) to the Con- gress of the Zollverein at Dresden, which he attended under the instructions of his government. His object was to procure a reduction of the duties on some of the principal articles im- ported from America, though not authorized at that time to hold out to the German league the inducement of the admis- sion of their exports to the United States on a lower duty than the competing articles from other countries. He obtained a partial success in reference to rice, but the consideration of the more important article of tobacco was adjourned to the next year. In 1840 Mr. Wheaton negotiated a separate commercial 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 23 treaty with the kingdom of Hanover, who declined on this occasion to associate herself with the Steuerverein, another Customs-Union of a more limited extent than the Zoliverein, and comprising, besides Hanover, the duchies of Brunswick and Oldenburg. In 1841 a communication was made to Congress from the Department of State, the materials of which, Mr. Lawrence informs us, were derived from Mr. Wheatons despatches, with respect to the commercial rela- tions of the United States with the Zollverein and the Sound duties. In this paper the Secretary of State (Mr. Webster) distinctly recommends a treaty with the states united in the Commercial Union, with a view to the extension of our trade, and the abolition of the droit daubaine and droit de detraction. Meetings of the Zollverein Convention were held at Stutt- gart in July, 1842, and at Berlin in September, 1843. These meetings were attended by Mr. Wheaton, and every effort was made by him to prosecute to a successful issue the negotiation for a diminution of duties on articles imported from the United States into Germany. He was met, however, by the objection, that those articles were already received in Germany on more favorable terms than in England or France, without any cor- responding preference given to German products in the ports of the United States. It was also objected, that by our tariff of 1842 the duties on some articles of German produce had been raised. During the session of the Congress at Berlin in 1843, it was intimated to Mr. Wheaton that a reduction might be made in the duties on tobacco imported into the states of the Zoll- verein, provided some equivalent were given by the United States in the reduction of duties on German products. This overture assumed the form of an official communication from Baron Bulow to Mr. Wheaton, and was by him transmitted to Washington. Mr. Wheaton was immediately authorized by the Secretary of State (Mr. Upshur) to negotiate a treaty on the proposed basis, and the Presidential Message of December, 1843, con- gratulated Congress on the prospect of an arrangement for the reduction of the duty on tobacco, and the continued ad- 24 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. mission of cotton duty-free, and of rice on the reduced duty which had been lately adopted. The equivalent in the United States was to be the reduction of the duties upon silks, look- ing-glass plates, toys, linens, and other articles not coming into competition with those of American growth and manu- facture. On this basis Mr. Wheaton found no further difficulty in bringing his protracted negotiation to a successful result. The treaty was signed on the 24th of March, 1844, and embodied in detail the principles just set forth. It was promptly trans- mitted by the President to the Senate, and referred in that body to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, who, after a re- committal, finally reported against it. On the 15th of June it was ordered to lie on the table by a vote of 24 to 18. The objections made to the treaty are thus expressed in the report of the committee: In the judgment of the commit- tee,* the legislature is the department by which commerce should be regulated and laws of revenue passed. The Con- stitution in terms communicates the power to regulate com- merce and to impose duties to that department. It communi- cates it in terms to no other. Without engaging at all in an examination of the extent, limits, and objects of the power to make treaties, the committee believe that the general rule of our system is indisputably, that the control of trade and the function of taxing belong without abridgment or participa- tion to Congress. Upon this single ground then the commit- tee recommend that the treaty be rejected. The committee did not confine themselves, however, to the constitutional objection, but proceeded to deny the importance of the stip- ulated concessions in comparison with those which were of- fered as an equivalent. Before the fate of the treaty had been thus adversely decid- ed, the Secretary under whose auspices it had been negotiated (Mr. Upshur) had lost his life, by the deplorable catastrophe caused by the bursting of a gun ~n board the Princeton. He was succeeded by Mr. Calhoun, who fully shared the * Messrs. Archer of Virginia, Berrien of Georgia, Buchanan of Pennsylvania, Tailmadge of New York, and Ohoate of Massachusetts. The report was made by the last-named gentleman. 1856.1 OF HENRY WHEATON. 25 views of public policy under which those orders were drawn up, and who, in an interesting private letter to Mr. Wheaton of June 28, 1844, strongly expressed his disappointment and regret at the result, which he ascribed to calculations of elec- tioneering expediency on the part of the friends of Mr. Clay as a candidate for the Presidency. Too much weight must not, of course, be attached to opin- ions of this kind, pronounced in the heat of a canvass in which judgments were as likely to be biassed by party views on one side as on the other. We apprehend, notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Calhoun to the contrary, that the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1844 were correct in stating the general rule and practice of the government, to which but few and limited exceptions had taken place. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 is a much more important exception, and, as Mr. Law- rence intimates, may perhaps be regarded as an abandonment, on the part of the last Congress, of the constitutional objec- tion. We should not ourselves be disposed to regret such a result, and we conceive it to be in the spirit of the Constitu- tion, which imposes no express limitations on the treaty-mak- ing power. It is highly desirable, for the influence and credit of the government with other States, that the department charged with conducting our relations with them should be clothed with large powers. When it is considered that this department consists of the President and the Senate acting only by a vote of two thirds, there is but little danger of the conclusion of treaties against the sense of a majority of the House of Representatives. The republican principle, however, we take beyond all question to have been, to restrain, and not to enlarge, the treaty-making power. But whatever opinion might be entertained on this point, or of the policy of the Zollverein treaty as a practical ques- tion, there. can be but one opinion of the ability evinced by Mr. Wheaton in its negotiation. It required much diplomatic experience and skill, a familiar knowledge of the German lan- guage, a mastery of the elements of the question on both sides of the water, and amiable personal manners. All these quali- fications, not too often met with singly in an eminent degree, were possessed by Mr. Wheaton in rare combination. von. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 3 26 LIFE, SERVIcES, AND WORKS [Jan. Mr. Wheaton, as we have observed, besides the more impor- tant object of procuring a reduction of the duties on tobacco, had been instructed to obtain, if possible, the abrogation of the droit daubaine and droit de d6traction. These duties oper- ated with severity on the emigration to the United States. By the droit de d~traction a duty of not less than ten per cent was levied on the sales of property effected by those who were about to leave their native country. The droit daubaine amounted to a similar tax on all property which might accrue to emigrants to the United States on the death of relatives at home. These oppressive duties were done away with in treaties negotiated by Mr. Wheaton with Hanover, Wurtem- berg, Hesse-Cassel, Saxony, Nassau, and Bavaria. These treaties included the customary provision of the trea- ties of the United States, giving to the citizens and subjects of each of the confracting parties all the rights of native citi- zens with respect to the disposal and inheritance of personal property, but with respect to real property reserving only a limited or reasonable time to dispose of it. This distinction between real and personal property has of course grown out of that feudal principle of the English Common Law, which attaches a peculiar importance to the tenure by which land is held. But as creating a necessary limitation on the treaty- making power of the federal government, it proceeds on a strange confusion of ideas, as if the feudal system were a part of the Constitution. That instrument provides as follows: All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the author- ity of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- withstanding. There is nothing here which reserves to the State governments any peculiar control over land tenures, or which establishes any distinction between real and personal property. It is also obvious to remark, that if the treaty- making power cannot give to aliens an absolute right to hold and inherit real property, it cannot give them a right to hold it for a limited period. Although the general practice of the United States in their treaties has been as above stated, it has not been uniform. 1856.] OF IIENRY WHEATON. 27 The treaties with France in 1778, with Holland in 1782, with Sweden in 1783, and with New Granada in 1847, make no distinction between real and personal property. Jays treaty with England in 1794, made no such distinction as far as con- cerned real property already in possession. The treaty with Bavaria, as negotiated by Mr. Wheaton in 1845, made no dis- tinction, but the Senate struck out the words and real, which accordingly appear in parentheses as the treaty is printed. A similar indication, and probably for the same cause, appears in the text of the Mexican treaty of 1831. The Austrian treaty of 1829 and the Neapolitan treaty of 1845 made no provision whatever for the rights of aliens in real property, but the Austrian treaty of 1848 conforms to the usual practice. This provision, that is, allowing to the alien the full citizen~ s right in personal property, but granting him only a limited or a reasonable time to dispose of real property, was first intro- duced in 1785 in the treaty with Prussia negotiated by John Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, and was continued in all the other treaties, with the exceptions just named, concluded and ratified, to the number of twenty-eight, down to the year 1853. How the practice has been in the more recent treaties, we have not at this moment the means of ascertaining. In the consular convention negotiated with France in 1853, a new course was adopted. As the law of France gives to aliens the same rights as to native subjects in reference to both kinds of property, the French government deemed itself au- thorized to expect, and was extremely desirous to obtain, the corresponding privilege for its subjects domiciliated in the United States. It was not doubted by the negotiator on the part of the United States, that, if the treaty-making power could grant to the alien a right to hold real property for a cer- tain time, it could grant him a full right to take and hold. In~ asmuch, however, as a different principle had been acted upon in the great majority of cases, and there was no hope of the concurrence of the Senate in any other, it was decided to in- troduce into the convention a provision, that, when the laws of a State did not permit an alien to hold real property, the President would recommend to such State to modify its laws in favor of the subjects of France. The event justified this 28 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. view of the subject. The convention with France was con- firmed, while serious objections were interposed to the Swiss convention, negotiated two or three years before, and contain- ing only the ordinary provisions. The negotiation of the Zoilverein treaty was the last of the more important official labors of Mr. Wheat6n. NThe follow- ing year, however, (1845,) he concluded a convention with Prussia for the mutual extradition of fugitives from justice, which, though it failed at the time to be confirmed by the Senate, was revived under Mr. Fillmores administration, and extended to several of the minor German states. He contin- ued also to give much attention to the Sound duties paid to Denmark, as well as to the duties levied by the Hanoverian government at Stade on the passage of foreign vessels up the Elbe. Besides his strictly official duties, Mr. Wheaton em- ployed himself in the elaborate investigation of almost every important question of a political character which was suggest- ed by the events of the day. The conclusion of the quintuple treaty of December 20, 1841, drew from him a carefully pre- pared treatise on the right of search. An incident arising in his own legation at Berlin led to a very able discussion of the extent of the exemption of foreign ministers from the local jurisdiction of the governments to which they are accredited, the substance of which is recorded in the work before us.* The positions assumed by Mr. Wheaton in this discussion were maintained with great ability, and to the general satis- faction of the diplomatic body in Europe. The seizure of the Caroline, and the affair of the Creole, were the sub- jects of essays prepared, by Mr. Wheaton, for the Revue du Droit Fran~ais et Etranger; and in an article in the Prussian Staats- Zeitung, (the official paper at Berlin,) he vindicated the government of the United States from the imputations cast upon it, in consequence of the neglect of some of the individ- ual States to pay their debts. In these ways, and through every other channel of influence afforded by his official posi- tion and personal intercourse, he labored with untiring dili- gence to maintain the character and define the position of his country, and to defend her from misrepresentation. * Page 287. 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 29 From the intimations which Mr. Lawrence has given us of the contents of several of Mr. Wheatons unpublished despatches, it will be seen that he performed with singular fidelity that part of the duty of a foreign minister which re- quires him to keep his government well informed of every oc- currence of public moment, political, statistical, or commercial, which falls within his observation. Elaborate despatches upon over-land communication with the East, by the way of Egypt, and across the Isthmus of Panama; upon the resources of China, on occasion of the opening of that sealed empire to the intercourse of the world in 1842; upon the claims of the representatives of Paul Jones on the government of Den- mark, for prizes sent into Norway and delivered up to Great Britain, during the Revolutionary war; upon the anomalous relations of the Prussian government with its Catholic subjects; and other important questions and subjects, are referred to by Mr. Lawrence. These brief indications of the contents of Mr. Wheatons despatches authorize us to anticipate a rich harvest of instruction in the comprehensive publication, which Mr. Lawrence permits us to expect from his pen. We have in the introduction to this article spoken of the first publication of Mr. Wheatons great work, of which Mr. Lawrence now presents to us this much improved edition. In 1841 the first edition of the History of the Progress of the Law of Nations in Europe from the Peace of Westphalia to the Congress of Vienna, prepared as a prize essay for the Institute of France, was published at Leipzig, in French. Two successive and greatly improved editions were published on the Continent, and an English translation appeared at New York in 1845. This work forms the pendant to the elementary treatise, and, though from the nature of the subject not admit- ting the same methodical treatment, is filled with a learning not to be found collected in any other volume. It was the subject of an honorable notice in France from the pen of Mr. Pinheiro-Ferreira, the learned and acute editor of Vattel and Martens, and furnished the text of an elaborate article on the law of nations by Mr. Senior, in the Edinburgh Review (Vol. LXXVII. p. 303), in which a well-deserved tribute is paid to 3* 30 LIFE, SERVICES, AND WORKS [Jan. Mr. Wheatons character as a lawyer, historian, statesman, and publicist. It is scarcely necessary to state that the talents and learn- ing thus displayed by Mr. Wheaton acquired for him a distin- guished name in Europe. He was elected, during his residence at Berlin, a foreign member of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences; and in 1842 received the same compliment from the French Institute, of which he was chosen a corresponding member, of the Section of Jurisprudence. Thus honored abroad, he was not less appreciated at home, and he enjoyed the distinction almost solitary in the diplomatic service of the United States of having during a period of twenty years, without intermission, been employed to represent the country, to the entire satisfaction of several successive administrations, and through two political revolutions involving a general change of public officers at home and abroad. In this state of things, and, to borrow the language of Mr. Lawrence, at the height of his celebrity, and when he might justly have looked for a transfer to one of the great courts of Paris or London, where his experience and peculiar acquire- ments might have been more useful to his country, he received an intimation from the Secretary of State (Mr. Buchanan) of President Polks intention to terminate his mission to Berlin, with a view to the appointment of a successor; and the op- portunity was afforded him of anticipating his removal by a voluntary resignation. As a general principle, we do not object to short terms of diplomatic service. They may be at- tended with some inconvenience in particular cases, but there are counterbalancing advantages. Whether desirable or not, no other system is practicable in this country. But surely ex- ceptions to the general rule should be made in cases of distin- guished merit, and the removal of Mr. Wheaton, under all the circumstances of the case, was a most discreditable sacrifice to the exigencies of party. It excited astonishment in Europe, but happily wrought no injury to the reputation of Mr. Whea- ton, at home or abroad. He was received with merited honors on his return to his native country, and was soon invited to a lecturership on International Law in the Law School of the University at Cambridge. This appointment would no doubt 1856.] OF HENRY WHEATON. 31 have resulted in his establishment as a permanent professor of the Law of Nations in the Dane Law School; but all calcu- lations of this kind, as far as Mr Wheaton was concerned, were speedily disappointed by his death on the 11th of March, 1848. We have done little more in the preceding pages than to condense the interesting account given by Mr. Lawrence of the professional and diplomatic career and labors of Mr. Wheaton, necessarily limiting ourselves almost wholly to a narration of the leading facts, and omitting much matter of interesting detail. We have left ourselves no space for any further analytical notice of the work of which the title is given at the head of our article, and which, as we have observed, was reviewed in our journal on the appearance of the first edition. It now appears, as we have stated, in a highly im- proved form, containing not only the latest revisions of the distinguished author, but the careful and learned annotations of Mr. Lawrence. In the latter portion of the Introduction, he has incidentally adverted to events bearing upon the great questions of public law discussed in the work, and which have occurred since it received the last corrections of its author. The most important of these are the occupation of Rome by a French army; the Hungarian revolution, and the right claimed by the United States to inform themselves of its progress by a confidential agent; the overture of France and England to the United States to join in a tripartite conven- tion relative to Cuba; and the pending contest in Eastern Europe. In the annotations upon the text in the body of the work, Mr. Lawrence has carefully pointed out the incidents which have occurred within the last seven years, illustrative of his author, and especially the important changes in the maritime law of nations which have been made since the commencement of the present war, the recognition by the belligerents of the principle of free ships, free goods, with- out its antithesis, the abstinence from privateering, the respect paid to the property of one belligerent found within the jurisdiction of the other at the breaking out of the war, and the encouragement given to the continued prosecution of commerce within lawful channels, both by the belligerents and neutrals. 32 LIFE AND WORKS OF HENRY WHEATON. [Jan. In the Appendix to the work Mr. Lawrence has brought together much valuable matter. The first article is a very learned and instructive note upon the subject of naturaliza- tion. To this succeeds the act of the last session of Congress to remodel the diplomatic and consular system of the United States, a law containing some valuable provisions, and making desirable changes in the present system, but standing itself in need of careful revision and amendment, as is sufficiently seen in the report of the Attorney-General upon its construc- tion. The next article of the Appendix consists of the impor- tant debate in the House of Commons on the 4th of July, 1854, the chief value of which lies in the learned and manly speech of Sir William Molesworth. This is followed by some addenda to the notes, the most important of which refer to our relations with Cuba. Of the present edition of Mr. Wheatons work, about a third part is from the pen of Mr. Lawrence, who has discharged the office of editor and commentator with signal fidelity, in- telligence, and success. He not only shows himself familiar with the subject as treated in the pages of his author, but also well acquainted with the entire literature of the law of nations. Whatever is furnished by the English and Continental writers who have succeeded Mr. Wheaton, by Phillimore, Wildman, Manning, Reddie, and Polson, by Ortolan, Hautefeuille, and Fcelix, is judiciously drawn upon by Mr. Lawrence. The diplomacy and legislation of our own and foreign countries are carefully examined, and, in short, the work is made in his hands we think it not too much to say what its lament- ed author would have made it, had he lived to thee present time. 1856.] 33 BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. ART. II. Pictures of Europe, framed in Ideas. By C. A. BARTOL. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1855. l2mo. pp. 407. FOREIGN travel is getting to be so common an experience, and one which consumes so much muscle and money, that it is high time more attention were paid to the means of making it profitable to the minds, as well as easy to the bodies, and economical to the purses, of the nomadic tribe. Almost every traveller, indeed, drops his tribute of sober counsel into the public ear, but it usually goes in with so much else that he has brought home for the same worthy channel, that neither the particular contributions nor the general sum of advice can be found at the time when we are in actual want of them. Americans have a special call to travel. It is the peculiar privilege of their birth in the New World, that the Old World is left them to visit. The European can have no sympathy with the ardor of their longings to see what their whole edu- cation has been occupied with teaching them about. The spirit of travel is in the very bones of our countrymen, and usually bursts out much too early for their own good. A foreign tour is the dream and purpose of every educated man and woman on this side the Atlantic. And yet little has been said respecting the subject of foreign travel, as one admitting of general consideration; little attention has been given to the inquiry how to travel, in what company, at what age, for how long a time, with what aims, and in what spirit. We propose to set some more competent teacher the example of supplying this deficiency, by laying out in a gossiping way, and under cover of the very interesting work before us, to which in the course of this article we shall ask careful attention, some of our own views of travel. We claim no experience, and shall affect no oracular wisdom; but the foreign tourist who has so far suppressed his vanity as not to trouble the public with a volume, has an indefeasible right to inflict an article upon them, if he can manage the editor of the quar- terly that gives it birth. Travelling, and making books of travel, are so nearly iden

1856.] 33 BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. ART. II. Pictures of Europe, framed in Ideas. By C. A. BARTOL. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1855. l2mo. pp. 407. FOREIGN travel is getting to be so common an experience, and one which consumes so much muscle and money, that it is high time more attention were paid to the means of making it profitable to the minds, as well as easy to the bodies, and economical to the purses, of the nomadic tribe. Almost every traveller, indeed, drops his tribute of sober counsel into the public ear, but it usually goes in with so much else that he has brought home for the same worthy channel, that neither the particular contributions nor the general sum of advice can be found at the time when we are in actual want of them. Americans have a special call to travel. It is the peculiar privilege of their birth in the New World, that the Old World is left them to visit. The European can have no sympathy with the ardor of their longings to see what their whole edu- cation has been occupied with teaching them about. The spirit of travel is in the very bones of our countrymen, and usually bursts out much too early for their own good. A foreign tour is the dream and purpose of every educated man and woman on this side the Atlantic. And yet little has been said respecting the subject of foreign travel, as one admitting of general consideration; little attention has been given to the inquiry how to travel, in what company, at what age, for how long a time, with what aims, and in what spirit. We propose to set some more competent teacher the example of supplying this deficiency, by laying out in a gossiping way, and under cover of the very interesting work before us, to which in the course of this article we shall ask careful attention, some of our own views of travel. We claim no experience, and shall affect no oracular wisdom; but the foreign tourist who has so far suppressed his vanity as not to trouble the public with a volume, has an indefeasible right to inflict an article upon them, if he can manage the editor of the quar- terly that gives it birth. Travelling, and making books of travel, are so nearly iden 34 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. tical in these days, that we cannot speak of one without in- volving the other. We do not complain of this connection. We have little sympathy with the jealousy of many books, which it is now considered so very ~vise to exhibit. We are thankful for any small favor in the way of amusement and instruction, and rarely meet with a volume of travels which does not amply repay perusal. Yet in nothing is there such a difference as in this department of literature, in which no one fails to be interesting, but in which so few attain any- thing more. A permanently valuable book of travels is as rare as a poem that outlasts its authors life, or a play that pleases two generations. But there is not a greater difference in Travels than in travellers; and how often has the tourist to wish he could get rid of the one, as easily as he can of the other! It is with this topic of fellow-travellers a dangerous one we are aware that we break ground; for the first thing usually considered in a foreign tour is, who shall be our company. Nothing brings out a persons character more thoroughly than a long journey. Novices in foreign travel are therefore to be warned how they endanger their friendships safe enough under the milder trials of home by essaying the grand tour in company with their intimates. If no man is a hero to his valet, no friend is a saint to his compagnon de voyage. A fortnight at sea in the same state-room will betray the selfishness of the most consummate actor of disinterest- edness; and three hundred and sixty-five breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, in three hundred and sixty-five different places, must try the amiability, test the self-control, and reveal the quality, of the most practised vis-a-vis. Whether or no the modern fashion of a Continental journey for the honey-moon be not a rude device of the enemy for dissipating the illusions of love, we will not peril our good name with the fair readers of this journal by deciding; but we would seriously warn all inexperts in travel, how they rashly implicate themselves at the start with their pleasant acquaintances. Tried friends, whose moods and infirmities we are at the least incapable of being surprised by, are the only safe travelling-companions. 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. ~35 And it is not well to have too many steady companions of any sort. To go abroad in a knot of neighbors or country- men, in whose company the whole time passes, is to carry the means of dispensing with the society of the very people we go to see, and to provide against the novelty of the inter- course without which travelling is no better than staying at home. Like the man who complained he could not see the city on account of the houses, the American traveller in a crowd of countrymen and friends might well feel that he could not see the Old World, because so much of the New stood in his way. We have only to extend a little the surroundings of accustomed conveniences, society, cookery, language, in which some stately travellers make their way through foreign lands, by imagining them to carry a mile square of their own estate about them, to complete the absurdity of these self-indulgent modes of journeying. Whether we seek the gratification of new sensations or the improvement of fresh experiences, travelling with those who share or reflect our prejudices, or who interpose their companionship between us and foreign society, or who keep up, by their ministry to our affections or our habits, the atmosphere of home, and relieve the necessity for throwing ourselves by a little wholesome exertion into the new scenes and customs we visit, is fatal alike to both these ends. High and peculiar pleasures require about as much energy and resolution as high and rare duties. The indolent, self-indulgent traveller, who falls back on his travel- ling-companions for his chief society, whose greatest satisfac- tion consists in momentarily forgetting that he is not in his own country, who makes no effort to speak the languages, to eat the national dishes, to share the ordinary life, of the na- tions he visits, will return home no wiser than he starts, after having sacrificed the chief pleasures as well as the chief ad- vantages of his tour. What old Donne says of the victims of stupid habit is equally applicable to such dullards Who makes the past a pattern for next year, Turns no new leat, but still the same things reads, Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear, And makes his life but like a pair of beads. Very Soothing it is, upon a rainy day, at an inn in a foreign 36 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. land, to shut ones self up in a private parlor, with a quartette of kindred or countrymen, and play at cards all day long, with occasional choruses of thanksgiving that such a remedy for loneliness is at hand ; but the true traveller knows a better use of his opportunities, and a better cure for his solitude. He hails the friendly necessity of the storm, the confinement and the limited range of his resources, as strong incentives to en- terprise. He breaks into the reserve of the peasants about him; he explores the traditions, practises the vocabulary, observes the domestic ways, examines minutely the furniture, the husbandry, the cattle, any and every thing peculiar to his prison, and perhaps warmly regrets when the storm is over that he is obliged to leave it. Travelling in company is obviously unfavorable to the flexi- bility, the enterprise, and the variety of a foreign tour. Two is company, three is a crowd, is almost as true of travel, as it is of conversation. We even doubt the expediency of any stated companion; although we must say of this doctrine what the Apostle says of single life in general, not all are able to bear it. The real, experienced traveller, who makes a sci- ence both of the pleasure and the profit ofjourneying, will have no companion but such as he can pick up on his way and drop at a moments choice. He knows that if it takes four eyes to see anything truly, he has two in the back of his head, worth a dozen in anybodys else forehead, wherewith to square the pair he wears before. Doubtless your exclamations ! ! those small cannon with the balls ever flying from their invert- ed muzzles go off with more effect when not aimed at the ground. It is charming to explode ones superlatives amid the Alpine heights with more intelligent echoes than theirs; un- deniably sweet it is to turn from the blushes of the Rosenlaui to a face that blushes without freezing, and to sigh with rap- turous equivocation, How beautiful! and finer yet, hoarsely to whisper into beautys ear, as she trembles and clings to our heroic arm, How sublime! as the Jungfrau thunders her cataracts of snow down the precipice that fronts the Wengern Alp. But if the beauty and sublimity will not hold longer than it takes to speak them into a sympathetic ear, they will not have sunk very deeply into the soul of the beholder. The 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 37 indolent desire to substitute the easy and short-lived pleasure of a superficial sympathy for the real but painstaking and disciplined delight of senses trained to observation, and a mind and heart kept patiently open to beauty and grandeur, ac- counts for the little permanent advantage, and the small amount of real satisfaction, which the majority of travellers find in their journeys. There is scarcely anything which most travellers so much need to learn as the endurance of their own society. He who has not found his own thoughts and his in- tercourse with nature and art the best society, and his solitary hours his busiest and most social seasons, has yet to learn the principal lesson of travel. The habit of giving immediate ut- terance to all we think and feel, is one of the most weakening processes to which a constant companionship exposes us. It is the great peril of the talking professions, that their represent- atives, like improvident farmers who sell their crops off their soil and impoverish their estates, do not keep their emotions and experiences for home consumption. And thus the traveller who wastes himself in an hourly dripping of sympathetic ex- pression, may expect to find himself as empty of the feelings he has poured forth, as a sponge is of water at the end of the bath. All great scenes, all great objects, all great people, are better visited alone. One hour of solitude in a gallery of pic- tures is worth a day of gabbling companionship there; one hour alone upon the Fauldhorn, or among the temples at Pa~s- tum, or with the Apollo, or in the Colosseum by moonlight, gives birth to thoughts and feelings more likely to enrich the soul and to leave permanent impressions on the heart, than days passed with these wonders in the most instructive and sympathetic society. In the present rush of travel, there need be no fear of loneliness among those who start unaccompanied for any interesting part of the European or Asiatic world. And one of the disadvantages of a fixed companion is, that it takes away the opportunities of joining chance parties of new and interesting people for a few days upon special jaunts. It is the experience, we suppose, of most travellers, that their own countrymen, no matter what the country is, are the least profitable of all persons to associate with. We lay it down as an invariable rule, Find out where your countrymen re voL. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 4 38 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. sort, and do not go there. Go not to their favorite hotels and restaurants. Employ not their cast-off valets and vetturinos. Seek not their advice. Have nothing to do with their consuls and ministers. Be as unpatriotic and denationalized as pos- sible. Associate with a heathen rather than a Christian, an Oriental sooner than an Occidental, an Asiatic before a Euro- pean. Farthest off, quickest attended to; least acquainted, most interesting; poorest at home, best abroad. From outside companions, let us look next at the company a traveller ought to find in himself; which depends very much on his age and experience, and therefore involves the consid- eration of the proper age for foreign travel. In his first essay, Mr. Bartol endeavors to show that ordinary, daily life, with its customary cares, affections, and experiences, has richer and more blessed lessons for us, than the most propitious journey; and that amidst the most enchanting and instructive scenes abroad, we feel a constant sense that our real business and happiness are left behind us. Perchance outlandish ground Bears no more wit than ours. Yet the important and undeniable truth here indicated is not offered, as we understand it, as an argument against the uses or delights of travel. Indeed, this new sense of the value and hap- piness of stated toil and fixed responsibility is one of the most precious fruits of a vacation from labor and a removal from the scene of our cares. The traveller in foreign lands who leaves no profession, no responsibility, no kindred, no important duties, behind him, carries very little dignity of character, discipline of powers, or quantity of being with him, for new scenes and ex- periences to act upon. He has no standards of measurement; no main interest to which to refer his observations; no special use to which to put his new thoughts; no acquaintance with toil to make his leisure sweet; no habits of steady and forth-putting exertion to render a season of passive receptivity for incoming thoughts delightful. The mind that is vacant, undisciplined, and inactive at home, will be no less so abroad; and this should help to settle the question as to the proper age for a foreign tour. The more the traveller carries with him, the more he will bring home. The more of a man he is, the more he will 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 39 see, learn, and enjoy. This furnishes a strong argument against the growing habit of sending young people of both sexes abroad to finish their education by the grand tour. With little acquaintance with their own country, feeble power of reflection, and no experience of life, the utmost benefit they can derive from foreign travel is the pleasure of a superficial excitement. But the injury they are likely to receive from the dissipating effect which journeying has upon all minds, met at the very period when they should be fastening their roving and feeble attention upon the drudgery of lifes apprenticeship, is one from which thousands never recover. If, at the completion of an academic and professional course, the young man does not at once, and before there is any break in his habits of order and obedience, devote himself to the career he intends ulti- mately to pursue, there are a hundred chances to one that he will never again have the resolution to attempt it. There can be no worse preparation for any active profession in our coun- try, than a year or two of self-indulgent wandering over the face of the European continent. It is putting one of the great rewards of a stern and patient devotion to professional labor into hands that have done nothing to earn or to deserve it. It is placing the rest before, instead of after, the toil, the ease and enjoyment at the very beginning of life, and -expecting him who has drunk it deeply, to retain zeal and readiness for a task quite difficult and repulsive enough to one animated by all the rewards dependent on his victory over it. There are of course exceptional cases. Artists who go abroad are rarely travellers. They settle down in some one place, and, with costly sacrifices of comfort and inclination, pursue their ap- prenticeship to the great masters. Their example is no war- rant for young men without specific aims in view. In the same way students in theology or medicine, who go to Ger- many or Paris to push particular inquiries, do not come under our rule. But even young men of these last-named classes take a doubtful method of self-improvement. If results are to govern our judgment, we must say that very rarely have we seen any such fruits from very youthful studies abroad, in any department, as to change our decided opposition to the prac- tice of expatriation even for a year or two at the forming 40 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. period of life. It may perhaps be said, that it is commonly the sons and daughters of wealth who seize this privilege, and that it is their general condition, and not foreign travel, which softens and debilitates their tastes and energies. We can only reply to this, that foreign travel is just so much of the same kind added to the disadvantageous influences they suffer from; that it enhances the great difficulties under which they labor in making of themselves something positive, useful, and safe. The best time to travel abroad is after one has fairly and strongly taken root at home, acquired position, fixed habits, decided opinions, and mature judgment. Such a man carries ballast. He possesses the materials for wide and useful com- parison; he has the power of generalizing his observations; he knows what to look for, and the bearings and importance of what he sees. Instead of being overwhelmed, confused, or stunned by the quantity, variety, and rapid succession of scenes and experiences through which he passes, and bringing home a character dissipated, unhinged, and unsettled, he carries the discipline, order, and force of his own character into the chaos of emotions and affairs, sights and sounds, which a foreign tour presents, and clothes himself with new strength, wisdom, and beauty from the riches about him, There is, however, a limit to the period when one travels with most advantage. It must be before the senses have lost their keenness, or the mus- cles their pliancy and endurance; before the sensibility to what is novel and amusing, and the taste for variety and enterprise, have declined. Foreign travel fails to be an advantage when it ceases to be a pleasure; and one may by mere lapse of time become so wedded to certain modes of life and ways of thought and occupation, as to find nothing but annoyance and antagonism in what most charms and amuses a younger and fresher mind. Indeed, the chief use of foreign travel is to prevent this hardening process from commencing; and if a man would stay at home as long as he could keep himself im- pressible and growing, nimble of mind and limb, open to new thoughts and apt at new things, and only start for foreign countries the first moment he felt any incipient stiffening of the bodily or mental faculties, h~ would choose the precise mo- ment for securing the richest and most sanative influences of 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 41 travel. Not by any means that an invalid state is the condi- tion in which to leave home. Probably the poor fruits of foreign journeying are largely attributable to the unhealthy stocks on which they grow. Doubtless travelling is an excel- lent thing for certain kinds of chronic illness; but no illness of any kind is a good thing for travelling. Travelling to the highest advantage demands vigorous health, sound muscles, good lungs, healthy senses, and elastic spirits. And if, after ten or a dozen years of severe professional toil, men still in health would journey to preserve the blessing they enjoy, it would prolong lives which five years more of equal labor break up beyond the power of any travelling to restore. There is a malady partly mental, partly physical, which often assails the constitutions of men of fine nervous organization and high intellectual and moral activity in middle life, for which a year or two of Transatlantic exile seems the only adequate rem- edy. The French call it la maladie de quarante ans. When, by incessant toil and unsparing pains, the thoughtful and con- scientious spirit has won that high table-land which a fixed position, competency, and settled relations in life may be said to form, the stimulus which has animated the journey thus far suddenly loses its power. A breathing space is allowed to look about, back upon the mountainous way that has been climbed, forward upon the monotonous plain in view. The sensitive, ambitious, and thoughtful heart exclaims, And is this all? Is it for this prospect I have toiled so long, and is this dusty, easy way before me the great reward of my strivings and pains?~ World-weariness, sadness of heart and countenance, doubts if the play be worth the candle, im- patience and restlessness, seize upon the soul, and spread out- ward to the sympathizing body. The world looks dark, affec- tions grow cold, and the chosen profession of ones life is stale and flat. Then is the time to break loose from country, call- ing, and home, and, in a perfect vacation from accustomed du- ties, faces, and aims, to give ones self up to the novelties, incite- ments and refreshings of travel. It carries the soul over the dead-point in its revolution; it gives the heart time to adjust itself to a new order of circumstances, to take a fresh start, with new and higher motives, and to recover a youth and a goal 4. 42 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. which no future experiences can take away, or render unin- viting. Few, however, can indulge themselves in so long a period of absence even as a whole year, and the book before us sufficiently proves, in the extent and value of the thoughts and impressions a half-year of travel furnished to its accomplished author, how much may be done, in a mind prepared to condense its expe- rience, towards seeing Europe in six months. In similar cases much satire has been pointed at the presumption which under- takes to report, as a contribution of any value to the public, so superficial a seeing of so broad a territory, as if such reports must needs be nine parts imagination and one part mistake. But those are the fitter objects of ridicule who think that im- pressions owe their value to the time employed in receiving them, and not rather to the keenness with which they are first struck, and the accuracy with which they are observed and communicated. Lord Brougham has somewhere remarked, that the child learns more, and what is more valuable, in the first five years of his life, than during all the remainder of his existence. It is certainly true, that the traveller learns more in the first five months of his residence abroad, if he be in active motion, than in the next five years. The first five minutes before a great picture or a great wonder of nature, the first five hours in a new city, the first five days in a strange coun- try, the first five months in a new hemisphere, impart more vivid emotions, and awaken newer and more valuable thoughts, than all the rest of the time spent with them. Every one must have observed that foreigners rarely speak the language of our country any better after ten years residence, than after one or two. They may extend their vocabulary, but they improve neither their accent nor their idiom. The ear reaches very soon the utmost extent of its sensibility to the new sounds, the tongue of its limberness, the mind of its discrimi- nation. And it is precisely so with travellers. After a short period, the eye grows dull to what was at first strange, the mind indifferent to what was lately exciting. The vividness of the contrasts between ones own country and the foreign land is lost. We do not go to a resident in a strange country to learn its manners and customs. He does not know in 1856.1 BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 43 what points we lack information, nor is he sufficiently inter- ested in what is so familiar to him, to be able to give us a lively conception of what would be new and strange to us. The intelligent traveller through a country no matter how rapid his journey tells us just what we want to know, and with a vividness generally proportioned to the quickness of his glance, the shortness of his stay, and the immediateness of his report. Lord Byron stayed less than a fortnight in Rome, and has said more graphic and memorable things about its miracles of art and history, than any traveller who ever visited it. The custom of journalizing at night the im- pressions of the day is a very useful one to the traveller, if it be not carried to the extent of a tyrannical habit. Short and pithy records of actual feelings and impressions are invalu- able helps to the recollection of moods and judgments, which even the repetition of the experiences that begot them might fail to reawaken. If the record of rapid and short journeys even over the trodden ground of Europe be valuable in proportion to the genius and talent for observation and reporting which belong to the traveller, so the journey itself is none the less desirable for being hurried and brief. To one to whom the ocean pre- sents no dreaded obstacle to the repetition of a foreign tour, we should decidedly recommend that the first journey be confined within six or eight months, and that these be spent in passing rapidly from country to country, embracing as wide an area as possible within the shortest period of time. Let the whole panorama of Europe roll in rapid procession before the eye. Stay nowhere longer than the keenest appe- tite for the place lasts. Crowd into a narrow space as many intense feelings and vivid contrasts as possible. What the traveller wants at first is that glance which in a moment confirms, corrects, illuminates, or shades the mental impres- sions about places and things which have been accumulating for years and years. All the description in the world, after a certain point of information is attained, fails to convey any further ideas. Every man has his defects of imagination, his failure of conception, his own method of confusing the points of the compass, and getting a certain falseness into his picture 44 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. of things unseen. A moments actual view of them puts him all right, brings all his previous knowledge to its bearings, and, like an acid poured upon an alkali, sets the dull mass of facts and feelings in his mind into a foam of sparkling vivacity. It is often amusing to watch conscientious travellers wait- ing before cathedrals, statues, waterfalls, to give them time to produce their effect! After a wearisome patience of survey, they think themselves entitled to say that they have seen the wonder. But a rusty gun without priming pointed steadily at an enemy, is quite as likely to do execution as these duty- looks. It is the quick spirit within, the prepared senses, the hearty appetite for beauty, the keen curiosity for novelty, the wide openness to impressions, which are wanted, and these will not come with any fixedness or duration of gaze to dull people. It is fortunate for those who must hurry through Europe, that the things best worth seeing lie upon the beaten track, and require no special pains in finding or visiting them. No mistake could be greater than to depart, on any grounds of originality, from the familiar and ordinary tour. He would pay dear for his daintiness of tastes, who should avoid the usual routes as vulgar and worn. There are ten things in Europe better worth seeing than any other hundred. The old geography story of the seven wonders of the ancient world is founded in sober fact. What should we think of the Euro- pean traveller in this country, who should return home without seeing Niagara, ascending Mount Washington, going down the Mississippi, visiting Mount Vernon and the neighboring Capitol, walking in Broadway, crossing the prairies and the lakes, and staying a week on a Southern plantation? It would be equally preposterous to visit Europe and not see London and Paris, the Rhine, Chamouni, the Simplon and Splugen, St. Peters, the Apollo, the Colosseum, the Bay of Naples, the Dresden Madonna, and the Antwerp Gallery. And he who has seen these things is not ignorant of Europe, except indeed he be incapable of forming acquaintance with it. These are the things to see, and after them we fall on matters quite secondary. We would earnestly advise travellers to rid their minds of the common fallacy, that they shall return to 1856.] BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 45 places that have deeply interested them. While a city or neighborhood continues to charm, it is best to stay there; for, be very sure, that in the scale with absolute novelty Rome itself, seen for a fortnight and left with intense regret, will not outweigh Pa~stum yet unvisited, nor Paris, Amsterdam. It is a wise rule to leave nothing behind one to pick up on returning, and nothing to see then that might have been seen going. If for the sake of being useful to actual novices, we may venture to descend to any practical details, we will here insert a few paragraphs which we advise sensitive and travelled readers to skip, imitating in this the author of the volume before us, who in reference to his opening chapter says: If any, with Horatio, think t were to consider too curi- ously to consider so, omitting the graver discourse in which I discharge my conscience, they must even enter the grounds of my field of observation, without minding the sentinel. What is necessary on the voyage itself, is all that an Amer- ican traveller should carry to Europe outside his skin. Clothes of every description are so much cheaper and better made on the other side of the water, that the traveller has every oppor- tunity and temptation to replenish his wardrobe there; and to leave ones self the necessity of bargaining with the people of a strange land, is one of the best means of understanding their customs. Be it remembered too, that every pound of baggage beyond a very small weight has its extra tax, and that a constant rummage is going on in custom-houses, and then the advantage of having as little as possible becomes very obvious. If one desire an equal mind, he will take care to carry nothing contraband in his trunks, and thus to retain an absolute indifference as to custom-house searches. They are very annoying to the petty smuggler, who, to avoid a few shillings duty, and to have the dubious gratification of evading the laws, carries a bit of his nerves in each parcel of his lug- gage, and spends an hour of trembling miser~r at the frontier of each petty state in Europe. A great many little purchases of virtu, liable to duty, every tasteful traveller will needs have. Let him put them all into one trunk, and everywhere present that as his offending member. In the end he will be a great 46 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. gainer in comfort, self-respect, and even purse; for the most skilful packing will not always escape practised inspectors, and every now and then deceit pays a treble tax. Next to luggage, expense is the ordinary travellers sorest point. And Americans, with their mingled pride and thrift, are peculiarly exposed to chagrin in this direction. In the first place, they are not educated to talk of money as unre- servedly as other people. It has too deep a place in their affections and purposes, and is associated too much with the cunning and ambition of their lives, to be a theme for easy and unembarrassed discussion with strangers. Caring more for it than others, they must affect to care less. Exceedingly sensitive to cost, they cannot economize except in the most painful and secret ways, for fear of betraying their thrift; and consequently they are ever incurring unnecessary expenses. They cannot openly consider the cheapest way of accom- plishing their object, nor show a wise solicitude about their outlays; and their magnificent ways, all the while pinching terribly their concealed feelings, are taken advantage of by the numerous tribe of highwaymen known as innkeepers, guides, curiosity-venders, and vctlets-de-place, to whose stand and de- liver travellers are a constant prey. A countryman of ours, of somewhat rude appearance, walking in the Strand in London early in May, saw his favorite dish of strawberries and cream blushing at him from the counter of a restaurant. Entering, he carelessly called for a bowl, to the marked surprise of several persons present, who knew the extravagance of the luxury, and rightly presumed that the American was ignorant at what cost he was gratifying himself. He had not finished his repast before the curious looks of the company suggested his mistake, and aroused all his latent pride. What s to pay? inquired he, as he laid down his dish, not without a glowering side-look at the triumphant wiseacres who waited for his chop- fallen aspect when the victuallers reply should fall upon his ear. A guinea, sir. Tossing down the coin from a not over-full purse, and bridling up, with an air of assumed indif- ference, I 11 take another, was the Arrrericans only re- joinder. How many American travellers cover their igno- rance and pride at a similar expense! 1856.] BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 47 Another cause of money irritation grows out of the uni- versal specie currency of the Continent. Archdeacon Paley compelled his wife and daughters to pay their shop-bills in gold and silver, as a check on their disposition to expense, rightly saying that a bank-note for five pounds was no larger, and sensibly no more restraining to the imagination, than one for a pound. The constant paying out of gold is frightful to the novice in that habit, and it requires a little reflection to overcome the imaginary sense of ruin which it produces. Moreover, a state of travel being one of ceaseless outgo, in which the mind finds no relief, as at home, from concentrating the anguish of payment in a monthly or quarterly account, the time spent in the actual misery of transferring coin is sufficient to make the deepest impression of expense on the feelings. The hand for ever forced into the pocket acquires a rheumatic dread of the movement. The number of calls upon the purse, each perhaps small, but together making an unin- terrupted demand, seems the result of a sudden and dreadful conspiracy for reducing the traveller to a state of impecu- niosity. We know no remedy for this complaint, more painful than sea-sickness, and as incurable, but patience until one acquires familiarity with the unusual motion. It will perhaps be consoling to the traveller, on footing up his expenses at the end of the week, to find that he has spent not a sous more than he calculated upon, and that gold and silver are really no more precious than their representatives, the bank- bills or the checks he so philosophically pays away at home in settlement of his quarterly expenses. It is, however, worth while to advise novices of this peculiar liability, and to recom- mend some previous schooling of the imagination and the judgment in regard to the necessary expenses of travel. It is pretty generally agreed, that a pound or half-eagle per diem is ~ a fair estimate of necessary expenses to a traveller making a rapid tour on the Continent. In England it is more costly. Of course it is much more expensive to keep in motion, than to stay long in chosen places. One may go abroad and live in almost any city in Europe as cheaply as at home; not more cheaply, that is reserved for those acquainted with the ways of the place as only natives can be. But the traveller 48 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. who stays only long enough to satisfy his strong curiosity, and sweeps the Continent in six months, can do it without pinching on five dollars a day. And the wise traveller will not expect to get along with less. He had better economize somewhere else than on his journey. The wear of mind and the waste of time which a rigid economy and a strict self- guardianship from imposition necessarily produce, peril too seriously the objects and pleasures of travel to make it judi- cious to practise them. Let the first estimate of cost be as generous as one can prudently make it. Include inexperience, imposition, and pre-occupation of mind in the estimate at twenty-five per cent of the whole cost; and then let the vam- pires suck away, without notice or regret. Give the beggars their baiocchi and half-pence, their centimes and kreutzers, with a ready smile; pay the innkeepers their charge for candles, as if wax were the first necessity of your life; grudge not the intrusive nuisance who has dogged your steps and gabbled in your ears all day, under the name of a valet -de-place, his five-franc piece. As with the organ-grinder who plays for a shilling, but never moves on for less than a half-crown, you should feel that you are paying these folks at a high rate, but for the great service of a good riddance. All the little savings which a churlish, irritating, and time-losing economy can make in a years journey, are not in the end worth a weeks expenses. It is not the most jealous and penurious traveller who always comes off with the fattest purse; for such men must have their reactionary moments, when lavishness, forget- fulness, the necessity of vindicating their pride, or else the cunning of those who are piqued by their meanness and caution, gets the better of them, and makes clean work with their savings. It is better to travel six months with a mind easy about the cost, than a year with an anxious economy. We cannot advise those who must practise a severe system of saving to journey abroad, except it be for some specific object, not coming under the head of pleasure. Better to wait and earn the means of going comfortably and with a generous outlay, than to go earlier on the pinching system. In regard to couriers, valets-de-place, guides, & c., we have only one word to say. Do not expect to save anything by 1856.J BARTOLS PIOTURES OF EUROPE. 49 dispensing with their aid. In travelling with a party, or with ladies, a courier is a great convenience in saving time, run- ning to custom-houses and foreign offices, and caring for baggage. But the education got in attending to this business is more than an offset to the trouble, if one have only himself to look after. In respect to guides and valets, take them; or else feel like a fool, spying out your own way, blunder- ing away your time, dodging their attention, and sputtering an unintelligible lingo in the ears of innocent citizens. In regard to the greatest of all conveniences in foreign fravel, an acquaintance with foreign languages, most of our countrymen for here our young countrywomen have a decided and growing advantage most patriotically keep our recent ministers~abroad in full countenance and company. It is not too much to say, that an ignorance of the language is precisely equivalent to deafness and dumbness, in its hinder- ance to intercourse, ease, understanding, pleasure, and profit. The sense of wasted advantages can never come more ruorti- fyingly over an educated man, than on finding himself in Paris without French, in Berlin without German. We cannot advise any expectant traveller to hope to repair his deficien- cies in this respect in a year or two, for nothing can be more useless for intercourse with people than the crammed knowl- edge of a foreign tongue to be obtained by a winters study. The real lesson to be gathered from the painful experience of our generation of travellers, is the education of the rising race who in their turn are to become pilgrims from in- fancy in the command of those tongues, French, German, and Spanish, which are every day growing more important at home and abroad, both for commercial, social, and literary purposes, and which might be so readily acquired by proper means without any sense of painful fatigue, when the ear has the quickness, the tongue the pliancy, the memory the strength, the spirit the docility, and the time the freedom, which belong to the season of childhood. We have reserved the most important matter connected with foreign travel for the last, because it is so successfully and strikingly illustrated by Mr. Bartols book, namely, the spirit in which we should travel. He has not only a great VOL. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 50 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. deal of the highest value to say on this point, which indeed may be defined as the principal aim of his work, but he has furnished the best example of his doctrine. We remember once hearing a clergyman who was going abroad playfully describe his object to a friend, as being to relax his morals. His jest, we fear, is too often a sorry earnest with our countrymen, whose notion of the freedom of travel appears to consist very much in emancipation from the usual restraints of morality. Seeing the world seems often to be thought to lie in seeing its vices, and the better to see them, in practising them a little, or a great deal. The unhappy truth is, that the vices of the world are much the same every- where, and that nothing is less new or strange, and nothing so wholly useless, as an object for the trave~rs research, as the follies and wickedness of mankind. The cabin of a Western steamboat is as good a school for those who want to feel the excitement of gambling, as the hells of London, or the sa- loons of Ems and Baden-baden. The brothels of Paris can add nothing to the experience of the debauchee of New York, and it ought to be no more respectable for him who will not pollute his mind and person by visiting places of such dan- gerous degradation at home, to go, under the plea of curiosity, into equally fascinating and depraving places abroad. We have very little faith in the value of that thirst for knowledge, which makes a duty of sipping every poison and wading into every puddle in search of experience. There is indeed nothing that a man can less afford to leave at home, in an extensive journey, than his conscience or his good habits. There is far more reason for tightening the girth of duty many holes, than for letting it out one. For it is not to be denied that travel is, in its immediate circumstances, as all times of varied and engrossing pleasure or continued excitement are, un- favorable to habits of self-discipline, regulation of thought, sobriety of conduct, and dignity of character. Indeed, one of the great lessons of travel is the discovery how much our virtues owe to the support of constant occupation, to the influence of public opinion, and to the force of habit. And this discovery is a very dangerous one, if it proceed from an actual yielding to temptations resisted at home, and not 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. from a consciousness of the increased power put forth in withstanding them. So many men of all ages return from over the water with a lower tone of character, a painful know- ingness of air, and a looser habit of speech, leaving beyond the Alps faith and respect to God and man, that we feel bound solemnly to protest against the counsel sometimes given by good men to travellers, to allow their moral fastid- iousness and gravity a temporary vacation, and to take advan- tage of their incognito to see what they cannot see at home. Our counsel would be the very opposite to this. Where you are not known, remember that you have a double part to play, your own and that of the community that ordinarily protects you. If you go not into temptation at home, go directly away from it abroad. Where you are not known, you are in double danger from vice; the greater the immu- nity for folly, the more perilous its practice. But the relaxation of personal morals is not the only form of softened virtue of which foreign travel admits. Many men who preserve the strictness of their conduct abandon the strictness of their moral standards, in going through foreign countries. They seem to mistake for that easy temper, readi- ness to be pleased, and engaging disposition so essential to the traveller, a looseness of moral estimates, a dulness of moral discrimination, and an indifference to truth and duty, which are neither right nor useful, neither philosophical nor Christian, at home or abroad. True charity of judgment implies the existence and maintenance of an absolute standard of right; and in judging the manners, customs, and character of the most unprivileged and least civilized people, we have only the same measuring-rod to apply which we use toward the most favored and advanced community. As geometry uses but one rule in getting the altitude of an Alp or a hillock, so morality has but one standard for France and Turkey, St. Giless and Beacon Street. The traveller who fancies himself cosmopolitan in seeing little to choose in customs, creeds, and countries, is merely careless and indiffer- ent, and much like the sailor who owes his impartiality for place to his having no home anywhere. Cosmopolitanism has its universal ethics, universal religion, and universal laws 52 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. of well-being; but because they are all-comprehending, it is not to be inferred that they are any less definite or strict than the most distinctly local morality and piety. Right and wrong are not, thank God, accidents of place and time. Human nature is not the child of circumstances, nor their slave. It has its own indestructible type, its own inherent and essential laws, its unchangeable conditions of well-being, its normal development. And the traveller who carries with him a loose and shifting idea of humanity, who travels to see what varying circumstances have made men, with a natu- ral or cultivated indifference as to the degree in which they approach, or deflect from, a true and universal idea of hu- manity, has lost the only key to their several conditions, and the only means of deriving any advantage to him self, or communicating any to the world, from his observations. An intellectual laxity is as unfavorable to advantageous travel, as personal vice or moral indifference. And yet nothing is more common than to commend the traveller for throwing aside his theories, sinking his philosophy, and paying atten- tion only to the report of his eyes. What we want, says the philosophical reader, is facts, clean, unembarrassed, colorless facts; and he is the true traveller who knows how to collect and report them. There can be no greater fallacy than this popular and wise-sounding apothegm. What we want is not facts, but selected facts, facts as they appear to a thoughtful, discriminating mind, facts important to the student and observer of his race, facts reported in that clear and disentangled way which none but he who makes himself a judge of their value, and is guided by a theory and an aim, knows how to use. Otherwise, we should wisely follow the practice of sending abroad, according to the well-known fable, our eyes alone, keeping our brains, our memory, our aspirations, our philosophy, and our religion, at home. Provide YOU manlier diet, you have seen All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts; But ask your garners if you have not been In harvests too indulgent to your sports. To be a stranger lath that benefit, We can beginnings, but not habits, choke. Go, whither l Hence; you get, if you forget; New faults, till they prescribe in us, are smoke. 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 53 Our soul, whose country is heaven, and God her father, Into this world, corruptions sink, is sent; Yet so much in her travel she doth gather, That she returns home wiser than she went. * The volume before us illustrates the uses, methods, and results of travel with singular success. In the first place, it introduces us to a traveller of rare intelligence and culture, and of a still rarer elevation of spirit, to a mind disciplined by an acquaintance with the best literature, but infinitely more disciplined by habits of original thought and obedience to the highest standard of character. Endowed with a lofty imagination and a comprehensive understanding, humane sympathies and profound reverence, keen senses, vigilant curiosity, and intense meditativeness, the author of this volume presents a rare combination of the qualities that are best fitted to reap the advantages of travel. The only dis- couragement about his work is, that to follow the method of seeing Europe which it recommends and illustrates, supposes a mind and heart of the amplitude, beauty, and vivacity that mark the writers own preparation, which, it is not flat- tery to say, can be very seldom had. Indeed, it is not pictures of Europe, so much as pictures of his own rich and cultivated mind, illustrated by sketches of Europe, which the remarkable book before us presents. Europe is far less new, fresh, and instructive to most readers, than our authors luxuriant and original na.ture; and the light which he throws upon his themes from his own brilliant orb is far more copious than that which is reflected from the objects he describes. The relative amount of thought and fact, of meditation and de- scription, in this record of a European tour, is immensely dis- proportioned to the popular expectation from such works. Coming from an ordinary person, we should exclaim, 0 monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intoler- able deal of sack! But no one who reads this work will doubt that the author has selected his mode of conveying and perpetuating his experience of travel with the instinct of genius, and has justified his strikingly original and perilous method by an entire and most satisfying success. * Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere. 5* 54 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan; To take the great themes of permanent and universal inter- est to man as a Christian wayfarer and pilgrim through life, and treat them in a series of essays with a kind of exhaustive completeness, merely gathering the illustrations from a recent rapid but extensive European tour, xvould not be generally thought a promising programme for a popular book of travels, though a bold and original one. Charges of prosi- ness, indefiniteness, and literary smuggling would be a priori objections to the plan. But when a Christian poet and philos- opher undertakes to harvest the ripeness of many years of observation and thought on the beauty and spiritual import of the world, of nature and man, of art and religion, of govern- ment and society, into a volume, and then flings into the garner of native products such precious fruits as he has recently gathered in foreign lands, we need not be surprised at the richness of the store. We might leave out every word that has relation to Europe, and have a charming and instructive book still left; but the European experiences and impressions impart a freshness, a coloring, and an atmosphere to the volume, which raise it to a work of art. Indeed, we can give our readers no better idea of the book, than to call it a prose-poem. We have been reminded in reading it of nothing so much as of Wordsworths Prelude. A poetic feel- ing has manifestly controlled the conception, arrangement, development, and style of the volume. It is an organic whole, a living creature, with harmonious and necessary parts; a prose-poem, having for its master-plot the souls life- journey through nature, art, society, with an underplot of a travellers tour through Europe. If we ask ourselves, what are the great doctrines of this poem, we answer, the mean- ing and beauty of the visible world, and its secret relations to the soul of man; the richer meaning and beauty of art, as an improved and perfected nature; and finally, the still higher significance and glory of the soul itself, as that for which nature and art both exist. We account this book a very subtile and effective defence of Gods providence in the plan of the universe. It would prove to us the dignity and glory of human existence, the vast educational and beautifying influences of art, the leaning of 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 55 all history toward a beneficent conclusion, the eternal grounds of love and confidence towards God and towards man, and the immovable basis of faith, hope, and charity. It is plain that the vindication of Gods justice and goodness in our cre- ation, government, and destiny, is the authors innermost aim; that he carries this purpose habitually in his heart; that it went abroad with him, came home with him only enlightened and encouraged, and now becomes the triumphant and inspiring theme of his book. The intense religiousness of this work is its most original and most valuable characteristic. It is the ruling spirit of its author. Religion is his highest philosophy and his most practical science. He sees God everywhere, feels him always, and can enjoy nothing till he has laid it with him- self down at his Fathers feet. If there were any stiff dog- matic theology, any professional sanctity, any apparent effort, in this all-pervading piety, it would be wearisome and com- monplace; but coming, as it does, clothed in freshness, beauty, and infinite variety from the authors very being, it is neither obtrusive, chilling, nor formal, but constitutes the highest charm and refreshment of his work. It is publicly rumored that the contents of this volume were first communicated in the form of sermons to the authors own flock. We should not suspect it from anything that appears in the work itself; and yet we know nothing that could better occupy the hour of a Sabbath meditation than any one of these essays. The rare charm of them considered as serious and religious papers is, that while piety is the toning and pervading element, it does not in the least impair the truth, the variety, the playfulness, of the other sentiments. Indeed, we know not that our high- est valuation of this work does not rest upon its serviceable- ness to the general cause of spirituality, by developing with such exquisite skill the universality of religion, as the life of beauty, the inspiration of art, the interpretation of history, the clew, support, and illumination of daily life, the travellers guest, guide, and goal, and the food and rest, the business and pleasure, of the universal pilgrim, man. In his first essay, if we ought not rather to say canto, our author shows the prime advantage of travel abroad to be contentment at home. He returns to J~iis country, his 56 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. home, his post of duty, from wandering over the earth, view- ing its scenes of highest interest and enjoying a vacation from all labor, to open his mouth first, not with expressions of ad- miration and astonishment at what he has seen and enjoyed, but with the praises of what he returns to, the beauty and glory of that which it needs no travelling to see, but which travelling only takes us from, the familiar, the domestic, and the obligatory. There are perhaps readers so simple as to mis- take the drift of this original and artful introduction, as though it were a dissuasive from travel, or an expression of disappoint. ment in it; whereas the author here gives in an inverted form the highest praise and ascribes the largest utility to it, by set- ting over against it the noblest and best things which life pos- sesses, to balance its fascinations and outdo its lessons. Next, under the title of the Beauty of the World, we have, first, a general essay on the office of beauty, its common- ness and universality, which is full of instructive and charm- ing thought; and this is followed by four sections, devoted to the Mountains, the Rivers, the Lakes, the Sea. In these origi- nal essays we have the spiritual meaning and moral value of these grand features of Nature, set forth in a way which has, perhaps, never been excelled. The authors genius never finds itself more at home than in this symbolism. He has a science of correspondences in his soul as exact as Swedenborgs, and infinitely more poetical. What is most valuable in these delightful essays comes not from abroad. The author has not gone to Europe to learn the significance and glory of Nature. There are mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas in his soul, which neither Mont Blanc, nor Rhine, nor Leman, nor Atlantic can surpass. What he sees abroad of these glories seems only to furnish occasion for pouring out the fulness of a lifes love and admiration upon these counterparts of our humanity, in which deep calls unto deep and mountain replies to mountain. The most strikingly original of these four papers is that upon the Sea, with which the author is evidently most familiar. We know not where to point to more subtile and bolder treat- ment of the sea than in the following passages. But, once more, the landsman sees only part of the seas beauty, to leave out which would be to omit half the portrait. Yet it is, in great 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 57 part, a terrible kind of beauty. Its monstrous look softens, and its mo- tion grows caressing, as it runs into the inlets of the shore. Most gra- ciously it courts the humanity on its borders with invitations to its broad and cool mansions, and coaxes it out upon its open floor, to treat it, alas! too often with savage inhospitality; and yet, sometimes, after fierce storms, that have roughly handled the sailor on either of its sides, it will smile, as in my own experience, with halcyon days dropped down betwixt the watery poles to tempt one out upon the deck, where he will swing as gently as the hang-bird in its nest, or seek refuge from the warm sunshine in the shadow of the mast. Beauty, in general, seems to lurk chiefly in the lines where diverse or opposite elements meet to- gether, as with the sky and earth at the horizon, or the land and sea upon the beach. Yet are there peculiar charms only to be caught far out at sea. The huge cup, turned from above upon the liquid ball be- low, with their flue assorting of mutual colors, blue and gray, as some- times in smooth embrace meet these mighty curves; the golden disk of the sun, rising, a solitary show of unrivalled sublimity, from behind the one convex into the other concave; or of the moon, with her splendid silver pillar cast in section athwart the dusky waves; the infinite grace with which the ocean makes a ship bow to its power, the mysterious witchery of which particular spell never wears out or tires the medita- tive mind, all these things make vastness of scale and grandeur of movement fall into the idea and feeling of beauty. pp. 137, 138. And the sea, which has required so much courage to cope with itself, has it not taught man to be courageous under every kind of trial on the ocean of life? It has taught us, that, if we yield to fear and foreboding on the voyage of our existence, we are like the sailor who should lie cowardly and darkly down in the bottom of his boat, and let her drift towards the rocks before the breeze; or, at the first stroke of the wind or lowering of the sky, hasten back spiritless and afraid to his corner, and, with all his means and opportunities, bring nothing to pass. It has taught us, on the roughest tide of affairs, to steer calmly and bravely on through the wild commotion. The worst way a ship can behave in a gale of wind is, in the technical term of the nautical dictionary, to broach to and lose the command of her rudder; for, so placed, she is at once roughly tossed about, torn asunder, and soon sinks in the awful hollow, which is called the trough of the sea. Our self- prostration under disappointment is that dreadful hollow, that fatal trough of the sea. It sucks up how many! God from on high, by his billows, calls on us, beneath whatever pressure of temptation or pain, to rise and stand at the helm. Beside only sin, he hates nothing as he does despair. If the pilot surrender, all is gone. What port at all can be reached ? pp. 144, 145. 58 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. The Superiority of Art to Nature follows next; an essay whose title will seem profane to many readers who will after- wards be compelled to acknowledge the truth, humility, and devoutness of the authors doctrine. Take the following as a sample of it: Let me refer to perhaps the grandest of these passages on the globe, that of the Stelvio, being the highest practicable carriage- road in Europe, running over the Tyrolese Alps at a point nearly two miles above the level of the sea. The scene which it traverses might, one would think, well take off all attention from any work of human hands. Enough to amaze and delight are even the entry and bare ap- proach through deep gorges and along rocky beds, furrowed with often raging torrents, their sides ploughed with descending avalanches, across whose recent stony deposits, perhaps at the moment of your passing laced with mountain cascades, horse and vehicle must be carefully sup- ported and led. Gazing up, you see the lofty ramparts of nature wreathed in pale or in lurid vapor, as though parks of a celestial ordnance had been opened in the recent storm; and hostile signals still displayed, as from a fort against a coming foe. In some places the track has been swept away; but the inhabitants have rushed forth with peaceful weap- ons of husbandry to shape a new line, or throw over the current a safer bridge. Looking down into the river that dashes far below, you may observe its banks guarded with fortifications of floating timber or solid walls, to keep these inland waves from ravaging some adjoining nook of cultivation or more distant field. But, forward, you behold the path, like a living creature, climbing undaunted still, scaling the steep, or, where the rise is too sudden, traversing from side to side, as a vessel tacks to make headway against the wind, till, as it steadily gains upon the monstrous hulk of the upheaved earth, the sharp peaks and oval summits of the upper air, white as Puritys own form, begin to peer down upon your vision. But, right up, in the face of unmelting frosts and eternal snows, glides your road so smoothly, that your pace is with- out a break or jar. And now, your eye, reaching on, catches sight of its farther, higher progress on the main, central elevation you are to sur- mount. It shines zigzag afar, like the teeth of an enormous saw, that, from underneath, has cleft the hills. It hangs still farther beyond for miles up and down the awful brow, thinned by distance, as though the spiders web were spun from point to point to glimmer in the beams of heaven, or the everlasting rocks were sharpened to a cimeters edge along the front of every beetling precipice with which the countenance of the giant of the range is seamed. But forth you fare, and find the 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 59 airy thread continually becoming your convenient path. Terraced on foundations swelling at the base to resist the sap of the elements, and the crush of falling matter from above; roofed in some places where the slides are wont suddenly to come, that the mighty weight of ice and earth may shoot, possibly over the very head of the passenger, into the tremendous vale below; boring its way through the stubborn rock, out of whose fissures the stalactites drip; winding by the feet of glaciers and beside banks of midsummer snow; standing a moment on the top to command the glorious view; and then plunging, the traveller with it, in the same absolute security, down the awful transalpine gullies, from whose bottom he looks back in astonishment to see where he has de- scended without terror, his wonder not ceasing till, by the bright streams and clear skies and soft verdure, and perhaps rare fruits, of Italy, he is taken into an embrace as mild as the elemental grasp before has threat- ened to be severe and dreadful. pp. 163166. The essay styled the Testimony of Art to Religion ex- hibits the necessity under which art has found itself of seeking its great subjects, finding its present inspiration, and achieving its most costly triumphs, in religion. In this chapter are found some descriptions which exhibit the authors enthusiasm, taste, and piety in most favorable connection with his rhetoric. Take the following passage So I felt, especially before one delineation of the holy mother and her child Jesus, which makes the pride and glory of the German city of Dresden, and, like the other great pictures in their several places, is set there so that it cannot be removed, if I should not rather say, it is the honor of Europe and the world. The spectator feels, at first, a little curious and puzzled to account for its effects; for this astonishing picture does not seem to have been elaborated with the patient pencil that has wrought so unwearied upon many other famous subjects, but rather to have been thrown off, almost as though it had been in water-colors, by an inspiration of divine genius, in a sudden jubilee of its solemn exer- cise, with a motion of the hand, at the last height and acme of its attain- ment. The theme of the Saviour of the world, a babe on his parents bosom, is of interest not to be surpassed. The dim shine of a cloud of angels flows from behind a curtain into the room, which is equally open to earth or heaven. All heaven indeed, through the artists wondrous hinting of innumerable eager faces, seems crowding there to see. These things the angels desire to look into. All earth waits dumbly expectant and mysteriously attentive below. The mother is discovered 60 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. standing upon the globe with her offspring in her arms. The Pope, an- ticipated impersonation of the highest human authority, bends his knees with the half-bald, half-hoary head, sending from his lowly posture only an upward, revering glance, while he lays his mitre on the ground, and, as well he may, there lets it lie. A saint stands at the other side, look- ing down with the humility of a heavenly countenance, yet evidently taking in, with admiring contemplation, the import of the whole scene. Little cherubs from below return their silent, loving gaze to the vision that drops downcast from above. But it is remarkable that the least and youngest figure in this company regard it from what side you will is at the head, and in command of the whole. The graybeard of ecclesiastic might, at whose waving thrones were to shake and king- doms be rearranged, is annihilated before that soft, childish face. The sanctified and mature spirit, that had flown incalculable distances from its upper seat, wears the veil of modesty, and bends into the stoop of worship, before that earthly life just begun. The angels that sang with the morning stars together over the foundations of the world, flock and crowd, as to a sight unequalled even by their old experience, in the ante- chamber, about the door, of their rightful Sovereign, shaped as infancy that cannot yet walk; while the winged seraphs, of age apparently lit- tle superior to itself, that have descended from the sky, fall yet farther down beneath the floor, and cling by their beautiful arms to the edge, as, with their sight, they seek from afar their clay-clad companion, yet somehow Lord. The mother herself, that bore what she holds upon her breast, has a countenance in which strange submissiveness mingles with maternal care, and tenderness runs into forethought of future days. The child, as though in him a thousand lines converged, is the centre and unity of the piece; yet without ceasing at all to be a child, in the ut- most extent that simplicity and innocence can reach. But, at the same time, there is in his look a majesty peculiar and unrivalled, which seems to justify and require all this angelic and terrestrial deference. In those delicate orbs, shall I ever forget them ? turned full out upon the world, and gentle and unpretending, too, as eyeballs sheathed in flesh ever were or could be, there is, in what manner I know not, by what art or inspiration painted I surely cannot tell, a supremacy of control which principalities above or below might well fear to disobey, as though that were the final authority of the universe. Never before by any like production had I been quite abashed and overcome. I could except to, and study and compare, other pictures: this passed my understanding. Long did I inspect, and often did I go back to re-examine, this mystery, which so foiled my criticism, and con- strained my wonder, and convinced me, as nothing visible beside had 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 61 ever done, that, if no picture is to be worshipped, something is to be worshipped; that is to be worshipped which such a picture indicates or portrays. But the problem was too much for my solving. I can only say, it mixed for me the transport of wonder with the ecstasy of delight; it affected me like the sign of miracle; it was the supernatural put into color and form; for certainly no one, who received the suggestion of those features, the sense of those meek, subduing eyes, could doubt any longer, if he had ever once doubted, of there being a God, a heaven, and, both before and beyond the sepulchre, an immortal life. No one, who caught that supernal expression of the whole countenance, could believe it was made of matter, born of mortality, had its first beginning in the cradle, or could be laid away in the grave, but rather that it was of a quite dateless and everlasting tenure. I would be free even to de- clare, that, in the light which played between those lips and lids, was Christianity itself, Christianity in miniature for the smallness of the space I might incline to express it, but that I should query in what larger presentment I had ever beheld Christianity so great. Mont Blanc may fall out of the memory, and the Pass of the Stelvio fade away; but the argument for religion, argument I call it, which was offered to my mind in the great Madonna of Raphael, cannot fail. pp. 201 204. The Enduring Kingdom contrasts the permanency of Christs dominion with the short-lived influence of the greatest dynasties. We extract the following: I suppose Napoleon Bonaparte presents the greatest instance, not of creative genius, though that too in him was wonderful, but of strictly personal power, power of an overmastering will, ever known. I forget not that Alexander overran the world; or that Ca~sar, later, ruled the mistress of the world. But the world, in the time of Cvesar and Alexander, was an easier thing to overrun and rule than in the time of Napoleon; and I must consider it at least an unsurpassed example of military prowess, strength of will, and intellectual resource for action, when the Corsican held the modern states of European civilization so widely subject to his control; when the old empire of Ca~sar himself fell before his scarce bearded youth, and the distant Asia, where Alex- ander, the Macedonian, trod and vanquished, shook at the tread of his diminutive figure; when England, more than any other nation inheritor of Greek and Roman supremacy, feared him as she never feared aught beside; and this Western world, from aged men to children, wondered and whispered, as the earthquake-wave of his might struck on our shore, what he would do even here. But what was his kingdom, of which, VOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 6 62 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. in this connection I make a mere representative use, in its duration what was it, compared with that of Christ? I will say nothing of Waterloo or St. Helena, to insult his memory or aggravate the contrast; I will repeat no profane words instituting a likeness between these two personages, such as I heard from the mouth of an Englishman, in a pic- ture-gallery in England, as we together gazed at Napoleons portrait; I will not quote even Napoleons own oft-cited words, owning the vast inferiority of his kingdom to Christs. I will only set over against each other, very slightly sketched, the pictures of their respective kingdoms as I beheld them standing in their signals now, selecting the best that can be found for the military hero in the case. Of Napoleon I must say, that no man like him has left the print of his foot throughout the Old World. The fields of his battles are the great fields; the bridges he desperately crossed amid smoke and fire, as bullets flew by and banners were rent over him, are the most famous bridges; the Alpine passes he traversed or engineered as roads for his troops are in fame, so far as I know in all nature, the marked passes; the towns he entered or slept but a night in, distinguished, to this day, for his presence and momentary passing; the inscriptions to his honor still held forth, grandly memorable and inviolate, from the column on the banks of the Seine, where he wished his ashes to repose, made from the molten cannon he captured, to the stone tablet in the Monks Hospice of the Great St. Bernard; the rooms where he dictated submission to magistrates, in every carving and hanging kept as they were, to be dis- played for a fee to the traveller; the tree in one of the Borromean Islands on whose bark he wrote with his knife the Italian word, Bat- taglia, oh, how he wrote that word deep and wide over the world with his sword I likewise guarded for exhibition; the sword and hat and coat and very boots he wore in one or another engagement, arrayed in ostentatious order; the pictures of his battles lining the walls of many a magnificent gallery; the engraved scenes in his life, to his death-bed, suspended within the chambers of mean houses as well as aristocratic palaces, even in the countries he subdued and disgraced; a tomb, un- doubtedly among tombs the most splendid and costly in all the world, occupying the nave of the church where the tottering remnants of his once-unequalled army abide and worship. And what shall I say more? Amid images of golden bees, betokening empire, the mark N. upon the shining relics, in the Louvre, of his reign, to which N. has been added the numeral I., to signify Napoleon the First, at the instigation of the present pallid-looking emperor, who would thus pass for Napoleon the Third, and who has perhaps furnished the most striking of all proofs of his great relatives sway, by being able to creep, in his shadow, to his throne. 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 63 But all this imperial blazonry, this pompous and particular com- memoration, is of something past, of a man departed, of an empire gone, of a dominion once indeed advancing, but pressed back and reduced, from all its advances, into its original bounds; of a ruler, as I heard from French and Belgic lips, less loved, by hosts even in his own land, than hated; and, if by some lauded, by many despised, or regarded as scarce himself human, rather a meteor, a dispensation of Providence, a needed whip for ancient abuses and follies, a scourge of God. Shall I now presume to go on with the comparison or contrast, and say how different, how unspeakably exalted, from this, the other picture of the kingdom of Christ? for whom there was no defeat in his darkest hour, no Fontainebleau of abdication, no far-off lonely spot of exile; who was never banished, though church and state of his time, banded together, strove to banish him; who still lives and reigns, with never- retreating, ever-widening empire, in the breasts of men; whose meek soldiers are truly, what Napoleon pretended his were, invincible; who has amazed and overcome, not a few territories and towns for a while, but is stretching the blessed captivity of his spiritual freedom through every latitude and zone; who has built a thousand temples for every fort or arsenal of the vulgar conqueror; and who is continually writ- ing his innumerable titles, not on brass or marble or cloth of gold, that shall break and crumble and fade, but on the fleshly tables of the human heart. Witness the cross, once the brand of shame, but now planted in love at the springs and along the steeps, the rugged places of the so- journers way, by its frequency indicating his direction, as though it were a guideboard over earth as well as to heaven. Witness the images everywhere, in painting and sculpture, of his life and death. Witness the poor woman I saw, one of others countless, touching her fingers to the image of the babe, and then fervently, with devotion unquestionably sincere, carrying them to her lips. Witness those parents and children, making one of a myriad of families, I observed going up the mountain, whose affectionate prayers in their alternate, manly, womanly, with boyish and girlish, eloquence fell audibly, a sort of heavenly murmur in the sunny day, on my ear as I went by. Witness ten thousand proofs, to which I cannot now even allude, that the kingdom of Christ is strengthening; while Napoleons, though but yesterday it rose, is well- nigh sunk to-day. Were I seeking the emblem of an enduring force, I should not select the bronze figure of the emperor, with his glass eyeing the fortunes of the battle; but another work of art, by a modern hand, yet destined to a lasting fame, called the Light of the World, in which Jesus is represented at dusk, in his hand a lantern, whose beams fall 64 PREPARATIQN FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. upon his features, and light up his soft ruddy hair and delicate counte- nance, and make fruit and flower glow on the soil near his feet, as, while the darkness gathers and night hovers all around out of the sky, with wistful face of infinite tenderness, he proceeds to knock, with the other hand, at a cottage door. May we hear him at our gate! For the dwelling and the portal, which the painter intended, where are they but within? pp. 227232. Under the heading of the The Church, Mr. Bartol dis- cusses the appearance of religious institutions abroad, more particularly those of the Romish Church, with a poetic sense of the merits of other systems, but with a steady preference for our own. The paper which follows, Society, gives the author an opportunity which he well improves to show the superficialness of social distinctions, and to rebuke the sourness and arro- gance which they often engender. We quote this striking passage Two scenes in one of the cities of Great Britain occurred in my sight almost simultaneously, as if designed to show this. One scene was humble, the other royal. Let the humble one come first. It was a parting between some emigrants and those of their kindred and friends who were to stay at home. I counted it a piece of good fortune, that, seeing often the arrival of the emigrant here, I could thus witness his departure there. The place was a railway station. Such as were tak- ing their leave were already seated in the cars. In the raw wind and wet, their nearest relatives waited without. The two companies being thus cut off from each other, wistful faces, weeping eyes, and waved adieus still bound them together. Where was the necessity of the sep- aration? Some promising, bright-lettered advertisement, such as I had myself read, pasted up on the corners of the streets, had attracted their regard. Some big and famous ship, with a rich name, the Golden Sun, or some other poetry of fortune, painted under the horn of plenty on her stern, was to set sail for Australia the next week; and, at a cheap rate, those out of employment at home, or toiling under some hard landlord, could be transported to mines of wealth on the other side of the globe. Yet, now they have made up their mind to go, their dear old native land clings to them closer than they had ever thought; and they find the process painful, of drawing out their roots from the spots where they have lived, if not flourished, so long. The train waits long, the damp breeze blows, the clouds threaten; still the remnants of the broken households linger round the windows 1856.] I3ARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 65 and doors, through which, to and fro, eager hands are stretched, and confused glances fly. As I gazed on the band, Ii knew that one of them was a father, the next a mother, a third a sister or brother; for nature is eloquent to tell such things, without any special inquiry or information beside. When human beings live in the affections belonging to the re- lations they mutually sustain, we need not search the family record or town register to ascertain what the relations are. We shall know very well whether you are husband or wife, son or daughter, lover or faith- fully betrothed, by your conduct describing you; that is, we shall know if you are such more than in name. So I knew, and seemed to see the bonds that ran there, invisible to eyes of flesh, from bosom to bosom. The signal of starting is given. One and another from the crowd leap forward for a farewell grasp or last earthly salutation; the young ear- nestly tearful, aged men and women, who cannot quite bear the sight, turning their heads away. A quarter of a mile glides the train on the rails, and unexpectedly stops; whereupon the forsaken ones rush forward again to speak other final words, or look other speechless looks, for which the few minutes delay gives further opportunity. Back a little way, the locomotive pushes its long burden; back goes the social throng, as though it were a living attachment to the dead vehicles. Thus to and fro repeatedly, the almost mingling feet and wheels passed together, every pause filled with affectionate tokens, till, in the warmth and contagion of this sustained emotion, I felt almost I was one of the kins- men, and had a brothers right to give and take greeting and blessing with the rest. So the ties of kindred take hold of those of humanity. As I remarked the contrast between the dumb, unsympathizing mechanism of iron and wood, rolling hither and thither, and the vital interest of the persons assembled, I reasserted in my heart the dignity of human nature, above all material things, in the affections that may kindle its humblest forms. Ay, such affections will not be quenched by the rains and snows that shall beat on those emigrant heads, nor be blown away by the tempestuous gales of the middle sea, nor be frozen by the black frosts of the Southern cape, but yearn back all the more for distance and hardship and privation, and peradventure save from sin, with the fond memories of that declining, gray-headed parentage, and pure, fair-haired sisterhood, which those departing sons and brothers left behind; or shall touch them with sad consolations, as possibly they sit disappointed over the fruitless dusty heaps where they dig, their golden visions, like broken bubbles, scattered into gloomy emptiness; or, in their success and fortunate thriving, shall draw them, as the im- migrant Irish on these shores, in noble loyalty to their own hearts best promptings, in the year of famine, were drawn, with charity, exceeding 6* 66 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. even that of missionary societies, to send of their gain to the needy in their unforgotten homes. pp. 254 257. The essay styled Country is of a more commonplace character. The patriotic suggestions touching our own na- tional faults and dangers are serious and \Veighty, but, alas! are so deeply needed as to have wrung the same eloquent warnings from almost every sober lover of his country for twenty years past. Mankind, the next chapter, is a vigorous defence of hu- man nature from the depreciation of it which travellers so commonly undertake; and is one of the noblest and most inspiring parts of the work. How it contrasts, in its healthy, honest, discriminating tone, with the ordinary sickly twaddle about man of travelled moralizers! We quote, however, as more pertinent to the present state of public opinion, the authors remarks, at the close of this essay, on the Woman Question. It is sometimes, by the professed advocates of womans rights, said that a woman may do all that a man may; but, to him who sees what men do in this world, this is a two-edged maxim. Thanks to God and the tenderness of the human heart, that woman in our day is commonly excused from doing many things that are thought to become a man; that she is not called to fight, or walk on the midnight patrol, or mingle in the angry conflicts of the bar and the caucus; but is kept secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues, and from all the corrupt en- counters of the open world. For a principle, let us rather say that woman may do all she can do, without ceasing to be a woman, in that peculiar glory of her distinct nature, of all grace and loveliness, with which the Maker has clothed her, not for time only, but for immortality. I will maintain, he is not a true man who has never seen the very flower, to his eyes, of humanity in the shape of a woman, and who does not believe that flower will for ever, in heavenly regions, bloom with a special beauty not belonging to the other harmoniously related, manly nature; whether, by special, outward revelations, such a truth be hinted at in the different celestial orders of seraphim and cherubim, or not. To every traveller, at home or abroad, one thing is clear, that we have got men enough already. We do not want any more, a greater proportion, of them on earth. We do not want any of our sisters to unsex themselves, and come over to our rude ranks; for we love them better and more purely than we do ourselves or one another. Let them 1856.] BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 67 do everything that is possible, without ceasing to realize the true type of womanhood. Let them teach and train the young; sing inspired songs, as so many of them vanquish almost all men in doing; be elo- quent, if they can be so and not fall into our hard patterns of eloquence; minister to the sorrowful, and heal the sick; even, as in the elder lands, wear crowns and sit on thrones, where the honor of a nation shields them, and keeps their womanhood untouched from whatever is coarse in popular criticism or personal assault; and, in a thousand ways, exert that influence which is worth more than all our power. But everybody who has taken many steps in this world will say, Let them be women still! For those of them who scorn the least leaning on the arm of manhood, and assert their absolute independence, have evidently broken somehow the divine model after which they were fashioned, or are men in disguise, with all the real properties of a man wrapped up under their soft skin, and therefore possibly have a right to act as the men they essentially are. She certainly is no true woman for whom every man may not find it in his heart to have a certain gracious and holy and honorable love; she is not a woman who returns no love, and asks no protection. pp. 313 315. The next essay, styled History, illustrates the authors hopeful estimate of the drift of the race, in an ingenious and satisfactory manner. He makes the Earth herself the witness of what the nations and the ages have been doing with her and for her, and adduces the advanced and improved condi- tion of her surface as the proof of the progress of mankind in all that is valuable. How heartily do we respond to the con- vincing and comforting argument of this chapter! And in the present solemn and anxious crisis of our mother conutry, when her American children are many of them expressing such unfilial indifference to her sorrows, and such an ungra- cious estimate of her merits, it delights us to copy the authors discriminating tribute to England. How well I still remember my own somewhat proud amazement, in returning from the wide Continental reaches, at the evidences of superior power in that narrow compass of England, as though her insect body had limbs to reach round the world! Truly a rich yield of nourishment for mankind has come from her little space. But, after all, we are not astonished at large and splendid products from a small garden which has been plenteously enriched for ages. Behold the blood that has been so lavishly poured out to fertilize the soil within 68 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. that water-walled bulwark! See tribe after tribe, from distant parts of the earth, laying down their spent bodies in that little space, hedged in with the main! What a mixture of stimulating and produc- tive powers from the valor and genius, the heroism and martyrdom, the barbarian force and the delicate affection, that have consecrated those fields, and prepared them for the growth of all that is best in humanity! Even England, however, chief of nations as she is, comes far short of the idea of a perfect people. The respect she pays to rank and wealth hurts the honor supremely due to intellect and virtue. The shows of things still beguile her from the worship of reality. The noble is more to her than the saint. She looks to this world, not to the better. Her pride exceeds her dignity, her independence is more than her freedom, the external standard she rears for human rights is loftier than her inward humanity, and her formal worship deadens the vital acknowledgment of God; while the prudential virtues of the past threaten to extinguish the flames of aspiration and the immortal light of genius in her breast. But we shall not be amazed at her actual attainments, or inclined to over-praise the trophies of the transcendent renown she sets against her manifest defects, when we consider the loamy depth where she grows, and the choice roots of manhood out of which she has sprung. Englands practical power for good, in which she has so long led the civilization of the globe, is her best reply to all criticism. To the commander of our steam-ship, one of the noblest that ever swam the seas, I said that I had been warned against taking passage in his vessel, it being alleged to me that the force of her engines had strained her timbers. They see her come and go! was all he deigned for answer. Might not the same answer be made to every complaint of the nobler mistress of the seas? Beneficently to the world she holds her way over the floods of time. Nowhere did I feel what a conqueror she has been, in an intellectual as well as mate- rial way, as I felt it at the meetings of the British Academy of Arts and Sciences, in which earls from ancient seats of power, representing olden deeds of valor, and admirals from their dauntless cruising towards the dim and frosty pole, and geographers from Oriental explorations, and geologists from their travels into the earth as well as round it, and chemists from their laboratories, and experimenters in metallurgy and botany and building and enginery, in short, the professors and practitioners of every branch of human knowledge, vied together in their efforts to advance the information and comfort of mankind. The whole scene, exhibiting the results of thousands of years of toil and study, pictured the nation itself as embodying more of what we mean by history than does now any other on the face of the globe.pp. 338 340. 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 69 The final essay is called Destiny, and predicts the peace, virtue, and piety which are ultimately to crown society and the race. Here the authors humanity and faith alike shine out in a triumphant blaze. On the entablature of an ancient gateway, leading towards a resting- place for the dead, I read an inscription, in which the soul is sublimely celebrated as superstes corpori caduco, surviving the frail body. The inscription itself was old; its line in the stone was crumbling away; but it transferred itself to my mind as fresh as it first fell centuries ago from the gravers chisel. Day after day it repeated its simple words, and rose up in my recollection thousands of miles from the spot it hal- lowed with honor for mortal dust, and hope for mans spirit. Unnum- bered times since, at home, it has been the mental refrain in those pleasant, voiceless songs of faith, which, in quiet hours, we sing in our own thoughts. At the conclusion of my work, I take a hint from the antique sentence that so pursued me. The traveller passes lightly over the world, conversing with its ephemeral things; and often, in his report of his experience, he passes as lightly over his own thoughts, leaving their main current below, as the bulk of the ocean lies under his vessels keel. Beneath the gay and bantering tone of his conversa- tion, or his correspondence through the press, only glimpses may be caught of his unfathomed sea of sober feeling. He may have a boyish shame, that keeps him from telling how often his mind from afar turns homeward, and it may be heavenward too. He laughs over with us the events of his course; but has he not also mused and prayed as he paced some narrow deck, or gazed into the cloudy sky from the porch- window of some foreign dwelling, or lay in the watches of the night upon his lonely bed, while the storm swept the roof-tree? Has he not marvelled, as in broad day he rode along with his companions, to find his attention and talk with them occupied, not upon the charms and grandeurs of the way, but about friends and acquaintances living on the distant shore, or dead since he departed, their souls landed, as he trusts, on some upper coast? Among the other revelations of his journey, how surely he learns that all external things, which seize upon his curiosity, after a while loosen their hold, and a time comes when eloquence can no longer charm, nor beauty win, nor pleasure please! If sickness or sorrow fall upon him, even the grasshopper shall be a burden; and desire shall fail, unless it be fixed upon something higher than the earth. In this I do not preach a homily, but appeal to the travellers own sincere consciousness. If he be honest, how freely he will confess that whatever immortal faith and hope he finds to feed on [Jan. 70 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. in his familiar abiding-place, supply him with a more satisfying nourishment than he has derived from all the wonders of the world! If he disguise not his convictions, he will own that all the sun includes in its circle is not so much to him as the sense of these few words, Superstes corpor~ caduco. pp. 365 367. In this solemn and touching strain the concluding essay runs on, ending, as it begins, in a piety which is the great and enduring charm of this work. Indeed, we nrnst be allowed to repeat, it is religion as the guide to observation, as the philosophy of life, as the fountain of sensibility to art, as the key to human character, as the source of true sympathy with nature, as the clew to the past and the pilot of the future, which this original and timely work sets forth in a way to make it as valuable a contribution to the permanent interests of society and the Church, as it is a welcome gift to the lovers of taste or the seekers after liter- ary novelty and excitement. If the author had wished to do the best in his power for religion alone at the present period, he could not have chosen a fitter manner. For what we now want above all things is a manly piety, which we can take through the world with us, and apply and enjoy under all circumstances and in all connections. The divorce between grace and nature, the love of God and the admiration of his works, has been so completely effected by some schools of Christian thought, as to render the visible universe almost a heathen temple for those who still insist upon worshipping there, while art has been ridiculously allowed among Prot- estants to sink into much of the suspicion that attaches to its old patron, the Romish Church. He who would resist these tendencies has generally found himself in such a quarrel with the religion and sobriety of the time, as to be driven in self-defence into the arms of the world, until his pious love of nature has degenerated into pantheism, and his pious love of art into mstheticism. Christianity has thus lost the definite and direct support of numbers of the most gifted interpreters of nature, and the most sensitive devotees of beauty; so that the genius and poetry of the time, in opposition to all past experience, are outside the Church, and lend no decoration, dignity, or life to popular religion. Can there be a greater 1856.] BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 71 calamity to society, a darker augury for the Church, than when scepticism is the ordinary companion of intellectual power, and taste, sentiment, and sensibility to nature carefully lay their offerings away from the altars of Christianity? When before have we had a book of real genius, saturated with a poetic love of nature and a true feeling for art, in which Christianity has found such unaffected and inbred reverence, and her doctrines and precepts such solemn and earnest recommendations? When, in our day, has practical piety, of a scrupulous and costly kind, put on such robes of beauty? We are ready to welcome the author as the child of a new era in modern literature, in which poetry and philos- ophy shall perform their noblest achievements in the service of a practical, intelligible, and earnest faith. Our author is ad- mirably prepared, by the breadth of his nature and sympathies, and the rare balance of his powers, to do service in this high cause. He unites a philosophical and a poetic temperament, a bold independence of thought and a profound veneration of spirit, a lively sympathy with progress and a strong attach- ment to established truth. This saves him from extravagance, and makes his opinions sound, as well as original. It would be a pleasing task, did our limits allow it, to enter into a full analysis of the authors mind, as well as his volume; for when so decided a work of genius appears, we have the place and magnitude and orbit of a new planet to observe and determine. The author manifestly possesses a large, hospitable, active, and cultivated intellect. Like all the finer understandings, his leans equally to metaphysics and to practical science, and is capable alike of shrewd observation and of acute analysis. Speculative in its temper, it is evidently busy with the imme- diate problems of life, and, like the science of our age, seizes the imponderables only to move with them the affairs of the world. But perhaps his imagination is the quality that most characteristically marks him. It seems to us that, in respect of pure imaginative power, he equals any of our countrymen. The conception of the present work is itself an extraordinary proof of this quality, and, considered as a six-months task, it may be well marvelled at for the amount and value of the 72 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. pure imaginative wealth it contains. The swiftness and cer- tainty with which the author descends from the height of his most subtile thoughts to seize the precise image that mates them among the things that are made, and the soaring wings on which he mounts from the objects of sense that meet his eye, to find the truths to which they have dim but eternal relations in the spacious world of thought, make him one of the live- liest shuttles now at play between the material and the spiritual world. His thoughts harden to form, his facts dissolve into sentiment, with equal readiness. The material world is fluid, the spiritual solid, in his hands, and he makes one or the other serve its fellow with equal ease. But neither his comprehensive intellect, nor his active imagination, would do the whole work of his genius. To these he adds a loving heart, which is as essential to sagacity and insight, as imagi- nation is to sober faith, or understanding to steady and wise affection. Thus our author loves nature, man, life, the uni- verse, God, and this is the chief source of his knowledge of them all. For his soul lies open to their approaches, and is soft to their touch. He has no quarrel with any of his teachers, or with any of the facts of existence. A reverent, humble, hopeful, joyous child and pupil of life and of God, he studies all things in a believing, trusting, and cheerful spirit. And this is the true temper of philosophy as well as of relig- ion; it accepts and then adjusts and completes what is newly presented to its judgment, instead of first objecting to and then demolishing what is strange or opposed to its own past experience. Such a mind ha~ the forces of nature and Providence behind it, acting with it and through it, and thus becomes a part of the universal truth, and a co-worker with God. Language is largely developed in Mr. Bartol. His vocabu- lary is copious, exact, and choice. Expression is the irre- sistible necessity of his thoughts; and notwithstanding the elaborate and complicated frame of his sentences, you feel that they were never forged, but cast hot from the furnace of his mind. The subtilty of his thoughts occasions some ob- scurity in his style, which is owing more to complication than to indefiniteness, to crowdedness than to confusion. Unques 1856.1 BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 73 tionably, his paragraphs sometimes fall short of their mark, because overloaded with meaning and imagery. His words are thoroughly intentional, and usually possess a ballast which settles each of them into its place. At times, however, this intense significance becomes obtrusive. Indeed, the frequent use of words in their original or etymological, instead of their popular sense, though highly favorable to raciness, is inartistic, and gives both opacity and hardness to style. Mr. Bartol is much too fond of what may be called serious pun- ning, a trick by which the sense of a passage turns upon the sound or the original meaning of some word in the current of his text. Whether a decided quaintness of manner is so true a product of his nature as to be permanently characteristic of him, we are not quite prepared to say. But we think he writes best when he has least of it. With a highly musical ear, giving great rhythmic flow to his sentences, there seems a certain monotone or refrain about them, as if he had com- pelled himself always to sing in one key, and that a minor key. There is too an inversion of particles, a kind of left- handed or back-handed form of sentence, to which he is prone, which we respectfully present as a serious defect in the direct- ness, beauty, and melody of his style. In copiousness and cumulative force we hardly know the modern superior of our writer. Wilson has not more aban- donment to his thought, nor Dc Quincey more determination to wrest fit words to express it from the reluctant grasp of our tongue. The mania for short sentences, which threatens to render the universal gait of our current literature a hard trot, makes no victim of our author; nor does he indulge the indolence of his readers by bringing his meaning down to the humblest capacity. Having thoughts worthy of the highest intelligence, he demands a strict attention, and has no com- punctions about plunging his readers into the thicket of a paragraph which Jeremy Taylor could not have made more dense or more fragrant. Exuberance is the authors prime characteristic. Not content with giving us a prose-poem in the work itself, Mr. Bartol has scattered a series of verses through the volume, voL. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 7 74 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. in the character of arguments to the several chapters. These verses are generally good, but rarely excellent. Instead of sparkling like jewels upon the plainer stuff of the robe, they are fairly quenched into pebbles by the superior brilliancy of the cloth of gold to which they are attached. Mr. Bartol is one of a few highly imaginative writers of prose, in whose abstinence from verse the world may seem to have lost true poets. But his imperfect success strengthens a suspicion we have long felt in regard to this disappointment, that with such writers the choice of another form of expression is not accidental, but the result of a wise instinct. Verse is as natural and inevitable to the poet, as imaginative thought and poetic feeling. There is a music in his tongue which was never learned. It is noticeable, too, that poetic or musical prose is not a good augury for the poetry of the same author. Burns and Byron, Southey and Wordsworth, wrote admirable prose; but it was not at all rhythmic in its flow; while Wilson and Bulwer, the modern writers of distinction who aim most at music in their prose, Dickens has hardly attempted verse, are but indifferent rhymers. The poetic prose- writers those who have all the elements of poetry in their style except its measure are a class by themselves. They are not good prose-writers; we do not read Taylor and Wil- son for their style, as we do Barrow and Goldsmith. But they are admirable writers, whose style is exquisitely adapted to their own ideas and genius. True prose must not want measure, and balance, and sweetness for the ear. But it ought not to have the cadences and regular pauses of verse, and the moment its rhythm begins to give conscious pleasure, it is running into excess, and will soon give conscious pain. As a prose style we cannot recommend our authors for imita- tion, but as his own style it is admirable. The filial piety and domestic tenderness which breathe through the opening poem save it from criticism, which, indeed, it bears better than most of the verses which follow it. The author had the misfortune, on his return from his tour, to find his father rapidly sinking into the grave. This gives rise to several touching references in his work, which makes it almost elegiac in its character. We quote 1856.] BARTOL S PICTURES OF EUROPE. 75 THE TWO JOURNEYS. Forth to the East! iRevivings of the day Break, pouring promised strength upon my way; Another line thy weary footsteps pressed; Thy sun of life was lowering to the West. Ah, gracious Nature! ah, soul-cheering Art! Was it for this you did your healing part, Lengthening my lease for destiny so poor, To see his ashes carried from his door? 0 earthly father! whom the Heavenly gave, And yet can from the mortal sentence save, Thou wilt forgive the sigh that damps my songs, To think that title all to Heaven belongs. Sad tears, with joyful, dropped from me apace, While thou thy checkered history wouldst trace: Thy words sublime, my parent, oft shall rise To keep some blessed moisture in my eyes : The hirelings day I have accomplished now; The evening shadows gather on my brow; The hireling for the shadows longs, my son: They tell him that his task at last is done. Shadows of five-and-seventy years are dark, Yet Jordans stream I clearly through them mark; And, seeing little, this in death see well, No stop, but crossing, whither, One can tell. Strong in my memory thy tones abide; Deep in my heart thy gentle looks I hide; And this returning birthday celebrate With thoughts of thee, whose sojourn fixed my date. A courteous pilgrim, with a walk upright; A lowly soul, neer stooping from its height: The outer man expressed the hidden frame; Thy seeming and thy being were the same. No longer for this fleshly eye and ear That aspect so pathetic, speech sincere! Oh, in that other voice and face be found Some lingering traits of former sight and sound! 76 PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL. [Jan. In glorious reaches of my journey led, With ceaseless joy and various wonder sped, The gates of beauty opening to my glance, A constant motion in perpetual trance, I gazed oer all the mighty endless plan, Pictured and wrought by hand of God or man; Yet, as through swelling land and sea I went, Saw not the splendors of thy Orient. Something between me and the grave is gone; Plainer I can discern my own tombstone; But now more pleasant thither looks my road, To journey with thee when I drop my load. pp. 1, 2. The following is full and good Behold, but motes of animated dust, The sons of men upon this whirling ball! Yet to each mote, 0 Thou in whom we trust, Lord of the sphere so vast! dost show it alL Still brooding over beauty, thou dost bend, In thy delight dost our delight intend; Immense the scale, how graceful still thy work! In smallest things unmeasured grandeurs lurk. For no fond favors, Father of mankind! We bless thee, but for thine impartial mind: Thanks for the equal splendor of the sun; Thanks for thy love to all, respect to none. p. 84. This on the Sea if we except the seventh and eighth lines is good Beauty, terror of the world; Glorious and gloomy thing; Charms and threats together hurled In the compass of thy ring: Keen exultings on thy shore Answering anguish through thy deeps; Pleased one listening to thy roar, Which another minding weeps: Infants breathing, not so light As thy ripple on the sand; 1856.J BARTOLS PICTURES OF EUROPE. 77 Thunders, bearing no such fright As the breakers on thy strand: Measurer of old earths time, Scorning historys little date; Reckoning a~ons in thy chime, Hint of everlasting state; Robber, spoiling all below, Yet who tenfold back dost send; Shall we call thee deadly foe? No, our rough but generous friend! p. 130 The following is terse and complete: In ecstasy the human creature stands Before the world built wondrous by Gods hands; The while Gods spirit, through the creatures will, Buildeth another world more wondrous still. Art is mans nature, ere the earth he trod: Mans nature is transcendent art of God. p. 156. But this on Country is perhaps the best of all Dear soil! whose growth is mingled in my blood, To thee unebbing sets my feelings flood; Deep through most secret chambers of my mind, Engravings of thy lightest traits I find. The tints so fast on Egypts walls shall fade; But not the surer colors thou hast laid. As body joins in one with soul, no bound Between thee and my yearning breast is found. So let the precious early influence last Till Memorys self be something in the past. p. 270. Dr. Talbot of Boston has contributed to Mr. Bartols vol- ume a very pleasant paper, giving an account of his own ascent of Mont Blanc. Stripping the undertaking of many imaginary perils, he has left enough of danger to make most travellers pause at the foot of the mountain. For a candid and unexaggerated description of this formidable enterprise, we know nothing better than Dr. Talbots. Its appearance here makes an appreciable addition to the worth of this work, and that is praise enough. We honor the generosity which could 7* 78 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. transfer so valuable a property to another mans possession, and the modesty which did not disdain to mingle the rays of a borrowed interest with its own glory. ART. III. Report on Insanity and Idiocy in lJfliassachusetts, by the Commission on Lunacy, under Resolve of the Legislature of 1854. Boston. 1855. THE necessity of making further provision for the insane induced the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1854, to create a commission for the purpose of collecting information on various points connected with the subject. The duties of this commissiou were stated under the following heads To ascertain the number and condition of the insane in the State, distinguishing as accurately as may be between the insane, properly so considered, and the idiotic or non con~pos; between the furious and the harmless, curable and incurable, and between the native and the foreigner, and the number of each who are State paupers. To examine into the present condition of the Hospitals of the State for the insane, and see what number of patients can properly, with due regard to their comfort and improvement, be accommodated in said Hospitals. To see what further accommodations, if any, are needed for the relief and care of the insane. And, generally, to examine and report the best and most approved plans for the management of the insane, so far as the size and character of Hospitals, and the number of patients proper to be under one super- vision, are concerned. To examine into the present condition of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, and ascertain what kind and amount of repairs are needed, and at what probable cost, and consider the expediency of disposing of the said Hospital and the lands connected therewith, or any part thereof, and of recommending a site for the erection of a new Hospital or Hospitals. To report the estimated proceeds of the sale of the present Hospital and grounds therewith connected at Worcester, if they deem such a sale desirable. To accompany their report with plans, specifications and estimates of cost of any new Hospital which they may recommend. pp. 9, 10

78 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. transfer so valuable a property to another mans possession, and the modesty which did not disdain to mingle the rays of a borrowed interest with its own glory. ART. III. Report on Insanity and Idiocy in lJfliassachusetts, by the Commission on Lunacy, under Resolve of the Legislature of 1854. Boston. 1855. THE necessity of making further provision for the insane induced the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1854, to create a commission for the purpose of collecting information on various points connected with the subject. The duties of this commissiou were stated under the following heads To ascertain the number and condition of the insane in the State, distinguishing as accurately as may be between the insane, properly so considered, and the idiotic or non con~pos; between the furious and the harmless, curable and incurable, and between the native and the foreigner, and the number of each who are State paupers. To examine into the present condition of the Hospitals of the State for the insane, and see what number of patients can properly, with due regard to their comfort and improvement, be accommodated in said Hospitals. To see what further accommodations, if any, are needed for the relief and care of the insane. And, generally, to examine and report the best and most approved plans for the management of the insane, so far as the size and character of Hospitals, and the number of patients proper to be under one super- vision, are concerned. To examine into the present condition of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, and ascertain what kind and amount of repairs are needed, and at what probable cost, and consider the expediency of disposing of the said Hospital and the lands connected therewith, or any part thereof, and of recommending a site for the erection of a new Hospital or Hospitals. To report the estimated proceeds of the sale of the present Hospital and grounds therewith connected at Worcester, if they deem such a sale desirable. To accompany their report with plans, specifications and estimates of cost of any new Hospital which they may recommend. pp. 9, 10 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 79 The commission consisted of Levi Lincoln, Edward Jarvis, and Increase Sumner, and their report was submitted to the Legislature of 1855. Dr. Jarviss colleagues frankly state that not only was this document prepared by him, but that he also collected all the materials which give it any value. To say that he has executed his task remarkably well, would scarcely express its peculiar merit. It displays a perseverance in the pursuit of his object, a thoroughness of inquiry, and a clear- ness and precision in his ideas, not often witnessed in statisti- cal investigations. Vital statistics have hitherto possessed an equivocal value, because they have often embraced points that are not proper objects of statistical expression. Incidents and events which necessarily convey the same idea to all may be numbered and classed, but phenomena that embrace many elementary facts more or less uncertain and variable, cannot be treated in this manner. A show of accuracy where accu- racy is in the nature of things impossible, only leads to decep- tion and error. For instance, the number of deaths in a com- munity may be correctly ascertained, but when we undertake to specify and enumerate the particular diseases that produce death, we forget that we are dealing no longer with definite and tangible facts, but with matters of opinion as diverse and variable as the experience and education of the men who form theni. And on the particular branch of inquiry now before us, we may correctly ascertain the sex, age, and occupation of the insane; but respecting the causes of their disorder, or the chances of recovery, no degree of research or professional skill can lead to results more satisfactory than that of a shrewd conjecture. To give them a statistical form is to make no real advance in knowledge. The common fallacy that, imper- fect as they are, they still constitute an approximation to the truth, and therefore are not to be despised, is founded upon a total misconception of the proper objects of statistical inquiry, as well as of the first rules of philosophical induction. Facts real and indisputable facts may serve as a basis for gen- eral conclusions, and the more we have of them the better; but an accumulation of errors can never lead to the develop- ment of truth. Of course we do not deny that, in a mere matter of quantity, the errors on one side generally balance 80 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACIIUSETTS. [Jan. the errors on the other, and thus the value of the result is not materially affected. What we object to is the attempt to give a statistical form to things more or less doubtful and subjective. The reports of hospitals for the insane for the last twenty years or more abound with this description of statistics, and yet it would be difficult to point to a single phenomenon of the dis- ease in regard to which our information has been rendered thereby more definite and certain. In executing their task, the commission wisely avoided, for the most part, all debatable ground, and confined their inqui- ries to facts that can have but a single meaning and are strictly pertinent to the object in view. The value of statistical re- sults must depend very much on the authenticity of the facts and the thoroughness with which they are collected. The moment we have reason to distrust the authority, or to suspect that the investigation has been partial and limited, our confi- dence is gone. We see nothing before us but a useless array of numbers, worse than useless, perhaps, because calculated to propagate error. Warned by the failures of previous com- missions created for similar purposes, they resorted to new methods, and pursued them with a tenacity that insured suc- cess. Guided by the Massachusetts State Register, they ad- dressed a letter to every physician in every town, enclosing blank forms for recording the desired information, and soliciting their aid and co-operation. This was certainly an improve- ment on the previous practice of applying to the selectmen, or other municipal functionaries, whose acquaintance with the people is comparatively limited, and whose education and pursuits seldom fit them to collect and arrange an order of facts like the statistics of insanity. They considered that medical men had collectively every family in the State under their eye, and would be likely to know so peculiar a fact as the insanity of one of its members, while, the name of every patient being given, there was no danger of their enumerating the same case more than once. They were requested to give the names of all insane persons in their several towns, together with their sex, colQr, nativity, condition, prospects, and pecuni- ary means. It appears that nearly two thousand such letters were sent. Generally, the answers were returned early, but in 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 81 some instances a second, a third, and even a fourth letter was sent, amounting in all to eight hundred additional letters, ex- plaining more fully the objects of the commission, and urging a compliance with their wishes. Sixty-five towns were visited by one of the commissioners, who saw the physicians, and obtained by word of mouth what could not be obtained by letter. From the medical profession they received ready and valuable assistance, besides replies to their letters, one gentle- man, it is stated, having visited twelve towns to procure the requisite information. The fact that returns were obtained from every physician who was addressed, save four, leaving out of the account those who were not in practice or had re- moved, strongly illustrates the perseverance of the commis- sioners and the promptness of the physicians. Two of the four delinquents proved to be irregular practitioners, and the other two gave their reasons for not complying with the request of the commission. In many instances, clergymen, sheriffs, overseers of the poor, jailers, and superintendents of hospitals in and out of the State, were addressed, with the same satis- factory result. For some time the town of Carver was the only one from which the returns were incomplete, one phy- sician alone remaining silent. Thrice was he written to, and the aid of the postmaster and a neighboring physician in- voked, before the reply came, that there was not a single luna- tic within his range. Never, perhaps, has a statistical inquiry been pursued with such ample provisions against error and imperfection, or with results more worthy of reliance. In all those respects which render such a work of any value, accuracy, completeness, and pertinence, we doubt if it has ever been surpassed. The census of Great Britain for 1851 includes, besides the pauper insane, only those in some establishment, and those under guardianship. In a census of France, a few years since, a large space was devoted to the insane; but the facts, though apparently extensive and elaborate, are obviously very incom- plete. The census of the United States for 1840 presented the number, age, sex, color, & c. of the insane ; but it abounded with errors of so remarkable a character, as to raise the sus- picion that they were not entirely unintentional. The last 82 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. census was free from the gross faults of its predecessQr, but, for reasons common to most inquiries of the kind, it fails to create much confidence in its results. Indeed, no amount of care or perseverance will succeed in obtaining such facts di- rectly from the parties concerned. In a large proportion of cases the insanity of a person is not distinctly admitted by other members of his family, while those who are employed by the government to take the census are seldom fitted by their previous training to discern the lighter shades of mental disease. Insanity when manifested by noise and violence is easily recognized, but in a multitude of other forms it passes for only eccentricity or folly. More wisely, therefore, the commissioners employed a very different class of persons, who learned the facts they communicated, not by inquiring of others strongly disposed to conceal them, but by their own personal observation. In regard to some of the incidents re- ported, those which indicate conditions rather than object- ive facts, we will only say at present, that the returns are to be received with many grains of allowance, because here the highest degree of accuracy can be expected only from the highest professional attainments in this department of the art. From the Report, it appears that in the autumn of 1854 there were within the limits of this Commonwealth 2,632 lu- natics and 1,087 idiots, making a total of 3,719 insane persons. The whole population supposing the rate of increase be- tween 1840 and 1850, which was 33 per cent, to have since continued they estimate at 1,124,675, and this would give an average of 1 insane person to every 302 of the whole pop- ulation. This is a larger proportion than has ever before ap- peared in any census of any community, American or Euro- pean; from which we are obliged to admit one or both of the following facts, either that insanity is more prevalent in Mas- sachusetts than anywhere else, or that its dimensions have been more accurately gauged. The latter fact is undoubtedly true, but alone it will hardly account for the result in question. From the United States census of 1850, it appeared that the insane averaged 1 to 669 of the whole populatior~ of the country, and 1 to 402 of the whole population of Massachusetts. On the supposition that an equally accurate enumeration would show 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 83 the same comparative advance in other States which it did in this, then we should have in 1854, for New York, the propor- tion of 1 to 555; for Pennsylvania, 1 to 513; for New Jiamp- shire, 1 to 370; for Connecticut, 1 to 368; and for Rhode Island, 1 to 334. Now, as those States most nearly approxi- mate to Massachusetts, not only in their apparent amount of mental disorder, but in age and in density of population, we have ample ground for our assertion that insanity is more prev- alent in Massachusetts than in any other State of the Union. The cause of this unenviable distinction is not very obvious. The commissioners are disposed to account for it by the fact, that the foreign insane within the State are more numerous than the native-born insane, as compared with the same popu- lation of their respective classes. We are not perfectly satis- fied with their method of arriving at this result, which is to leave the idiots entirely out of the comparison, and consider only the lunatics. It happens that the idiots bear a much smaller proportion to the lunatics in the foreign than in the native population. In this way it is estimated that the na- tive insane, meaning lunatics, amount to 1 in 445 of the native population, and the foreign insane to 1 in 368 of the foreign population; whereas, if both forms of mental dis- order idiocy and lunacy were compared with the same population, the figures would be 1 to 293 for the natives, and 1 to 343 for the foreigners. We cannot see the propriety of separating them here, because they certainly possess the same generic character, and even if they differ more than we suppose, yet it is not likely that the distinction has been very thoroughly observed in the present inquiry. Although the commissioners were careful to indicate the difference, and enjoined it upon their informants not to confound the congenital affection called idiocy with any of those forms of mental deficiency which are the sequel of mania, yet our experience of all previous statistical undertakings leads us to believe that the popular views on this subject have shaped the returns more than the instructions of the commissioners. This suspicion is con- firmed by the fact that the idiots above sixteen years old ap- pear, in the Report, to be more than treble the number of those below that age. Even if the term of life in these persons were 84 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. equal to that of other classes, the number of the former ought to be little more than double that of the latter. Of 19,553,068, the amount of the white population of the United States ac- cording to the census of 1850, no less than 8,003,~1~ were aged fifteen years or less. But we have always supposed that idiots had a shorter lease of life than more happily or- ganized beings; and if such is the case, then the number be- low sixteen should more nearly approach the number above it. The opinion, therefore, that insanity is more prevalent among the foreign than the native population, is not fairly supported by the figures of the Report, and consequently we must seek for the cause of the large amount of insanity in Massachusetts, in some other quarter. It is a popular impression that mental disease is more rife among a mercantile or manufacturing population, peculiarly tried as it is by excessive activity of mind and frequent reverses of fortune, than in farming com- munities, where life flows on in a more regular current. Look- ing at the counties most extensively engaged in commerce and manufactures, Essex, Middlesex, Worcester, and Suffolk, the first two are found to have less, and the others more, than the average amount of insanity. On the other hand, the three counties most exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits, Berkshire, Hampshire, and Franklin, show a larger than the average proportion. If climate or atmospheric influences had any agency in this matter; we should expect to discover it by comparing the western with the eastern counties; but in fact the mountain breezes of the former seem to be no more con- dncive to mental integrity than the chilling winds of Essex, Suffolk, and Plymouth. There is much reason to believe that the prevalence of in- sanity depends, in a great degree, upon agencies which vitiate the physical qualities of the race in the very germs of life. The principles which have led to so much improvement in the domestic animals have been almost entirely disregarded in the propagation of the human species, and no organ has suffered more from such neglect than the brain. This cause of insanity has obviously been more potent in some communities than in others, and the fact is easily accounted for. In the old farm- ing towns, the growth of which is chiefly limited by the natural 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 85 increase of the inhabitants, the same families intermarry, year after year, and thus not only deteriorate the stock, but perpetu.. ate any specific morbid tendencies they may have contracted. It is a well-established fact, that in this country one third part at least of the cases of insanity have an hereditary origin. In mercantile and manufacturing communities, this kind of deterioration is counteracted, in some degree, by the frequent accession of new-comers, whereby the blood is purified and renewed. The older the community, and the more fixed its population, therefore, the greater will be it~ proportion of men- tal disease. This view of the case seems to be confirmed by the tables of the commissioners, though we place but little stress on results which are drawn from so narrow a field of observation. The principal manufacturing places, Lowell, Lawrence, Worcester, Lynn, Fall River, Taunton, Waltham, Milford, Palmer, Fitchburg, and Blackstone, with an aggregate population of 154,975, have 221 lunatics and idiots, which is equivalent to 1 in about 701; whereas in Berkshire, Frai~l~lin, and Hampshire, with a population of 122,730, less changeable probably than any other in the State, we find 472 lunatics and idiots, which is equal to 1 in 258, or nearly treble the former proportion. If the age of the community and the fixedness of the population are efficient elements in the prevalence of insan- ity, then, other things being equal, we should expect a larger proportion of insanity in Massachusetts, because she contains these elements in a higher degree than any other State. Still, we have no doubt that, if the insane of some other of the Mid- dle and of the Northern States were enumerated with as much accuracy as they have been here, very much of this disparity would disappear. Of the 3,050 native lunatics and idiots (all of whom we include under the generic term insane) in the State, 1,717 are styled independent, and are supported by their friends or their own property; while of the 669 foreign insane, 64 only are thus supported, the rest being a charge to the State or the towns. It does not follow that these persons were paupers before becoming insane, or that their friends are paupers. A considerable number of families, particularly among the for- eign part of our population, which are self-supporting when in von. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 8 86 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. health, are obliged to solicit municipal aid when afflicted by sickness so severe and protracted as insanity. After making all due allowances, however, it cannot be questioned that insanity, as well as other diseases, may be traced, in many instances, more or less directly to poverty, which is justly regarded by the commissioners as something more than an incidental, outward circumstance. Poverty is an inward principle, enrooted deeply within the man, and running through all his elements; it reaches his body, his health, his intellect, and his moral powers, as well as his estate. In one or other of these elements it may predominate, and in that alone he may seem to be poor; but it usually involves more than one of these elements, often the whole. Hence we find that, among those whom the world calls poor, there is less vital force, a lower tone of life, more ill health, more weak- ness, more early death, a diminished longevity. There is also less self- respect, ambition, and hope, more idiocy and insanity, and more crime, than among the independent Insanity is, then, a part and parcel of poverty; and wherever that involves any considerable number of per- sons, this disease is manifested Whatever depreciates the vital energies lowers the tone of the muscles and diminishes the physical force, and lessens thereby the power of labor and of production; it also lowers the tone of the brain, and the capacity of self-management. In this state the cerebral organ struggles, and may be deranged. p. 52. This kind of destitution is not common among us, and we are not inclined to regard it as a fruitful cause of insanity, among either our native or foreign population. The com- missioners themselves remark that insanity is not more preva- lent in Ireland than in Scotland or England, or even among the natives of this country; and they also advert to the well- authenticated fact, that the Irish who visit England in quest of employment, and congregate in the most unhealthy portions of the larger towns, undergoing great privations, and suffering from fevers, dysentery, and other complaints incident to such localities, are not more subject to insanity than the natives. Intemperance too, though not without its effect in deteriorat- ing the mental energies, will scarcely be regarded, by those who have had much to do with the insane, as a very prolific cause of insanity among the foreign population of the Eastern States. 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSAChUSETTS. 87 It would seem from the Report, that the disease is as cura- ble in the foreigners as in the natives. This the commis- sioners account for by the fact, that a large portion of the in- curables of the latter class are of more than a dozen years standing, while, foreigners being of recent introduction in a great measure, their incurable eases have not had the same opportunity to accumulate. However this may be, it has been observed in all the New England hospitals, that the Irish patients, as compared with the native, are pre-eminently incurable, though promptly subjected to hospital treatment. We are not aware that any explanation of this curious fact has ever been offered, beyond the conjecture that, for reasons easily conceived, the tide of emigration which rolls upon our shores bears on its waves a large portion of periodical cases, which take the advantage of a quiet interval to r~ach a more friendly shelter. We are bound to expect, therefore, a con - stantly increasing accumulation of incurable cases from this quarter, a fact that must be taken into the account in mak- ing provision for their future hospital accommodation. On this subject of the curability of insanity, the remarks of the commissioners are of so much practical importance, that we commend them to the attention of all who have any personal or public interest in the matter. The evidence that comes from our own and many other hospitals shows that there are manifold disorders of the brain, producing perver- sion of mental and moral action in numberless forms, classed under the general term of insanity. These are usually grave diseases; and yet they are among the most curable of maladies of their severity, provided they are taken in season and the proper remedies applied and continued. In recent cases, the recoveries amount to the proportion of 75 to 90 per cent of all that are submitted to the restorative process. Yet it is an equally well-established fact that these disorders of the brain tend to fix themselves permanently in the organization, and that they become more and more difficult to be removed with the lapse of time. Although three fourths to nine tenths may be healed if taken within a year after the first manifestation of the disorder, yet if this measure be delayed another year, and the diseases are from one to two years standing, the cures would probably be less than half of that proportion, even with the same restorative means. Another and a third year added to the diseas~e diminishes the prospect of cure, and in a still greater ratio than the 88 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. second; and a fourth still more. The fifth reduces it so low as to seem to be nothing. Then hope has no visible ground to rest upon; and if it still remain, it is rather founded on desire and affection than on any established principles of pathological science. After this period, insan- ity is usually deemed to be incurable; nevertheless there are few and occasional recoveries; but these are so rare and uncertain, and have such a doubtful connection with the means and appliances used for such cases, that they seem to be rather the offspring of chance than the results of rational calculation and treatment. p. 69. The consequence of neglecting the means which the intel- ligence and benevolence of the age have provided for the restoration of the insane, clearly appears in the fact reported by the commissioners, that there are 840 lunatics in the State who have never been placed in any hospital. More fortunate than their more affluent and intelligent brethren, the Irish receive the benefits of our hospitals in a much larger propor- tion than the native-born citizens, partly owing to their happy exemption from prejudice, but chiefly to their inability to take care of the suffering insane at home. They had 71.9 per cent of their insane in the curative hospitals, and 17.7 per cent more in custodial receptacles of some kind; while only 35 per cent of the natives were in the curative hospitals, and 3.8 per cent in other custodial receptacles. The causes of this remarkable difference are obvious. In a native family there is often a reluctance to place one of its members in the hands of strangers, beyond their immediate observation, at the moment when their own faithful care seems to be the most needed. So strong is this feeling in many instances as to overbear all other considerations, so that the wretched pa- tient is kept at home under circumstances directly calculated to aggravate his sufferings and to prevent recovery. If to this cause be added the vulgar prejudices against hospitals, and motives of economy that may or may not be necessary, we readily see why so few comparatively of our own people seek the benefits of hospital treatment. The foreigner is well aware that his narrow home and stinted means can furnish none of that aid and comfort which the treasury of the State and the direction of intelligent men have enabled these estab- lishments to supply, and he has no qualms of honest pride 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 89 about accepting the charity of the town or State. As these establishments are owned by the State, of course these patients, who are chargeable to the State, are immediately placed in their charge, and thus it has come to pass that our hospitals for the insane, which have been created by the efforts of philanthropic men, supported, in a great measure, by the public bounty, and regarded as pre-eminently honorable to the intelligence and liberality of the community, are used less by ourselves than by the stranger within our gates. One of the objects of the commissioners was to ascertain the condition and probable event of each particular case. The result of this inquiry is, that of the 2,632 lunatics, 1,238 were regarded as mild and manageable, 1,067 as troublesome, & c., 263 as furious, while 64 were not referred to any class. 435 were reported as curable, 2,018 as incurable, 179 were not classed at all, and 1,713 were deemed suitable subjects for a hospital. These several points, it will be observed, are not exactly objects of sense, but conditions in regard to which unanimity of opinion can hardly be expected. The same patient may appear at one time mild and docile, and at another excitable, or even furious; and he may be both mild and dangerous. Some regularly alternate between tranquil- lity and excitement. Often too the peculiar temperament or experience of the observer more than anything else will de- cide how the condition shall be reported. Indeed, the precise condition of a patient can seldom be ascertained, except by observation continued for some time and enlightened fly much knowledge of the disease. The gentlemen who made these returns judged, probably, from casual observation, or from the statements of persons whose impressions would be hardly worthy of being made the basis of a statistical report. Similar objections may be urged against the division into curable and incurable. The curability of any given case is, obviously, a matter of opinion, and a persons opinion on this or any other subject must pass for what it is worth, and no more. Before we can tell what it is worth, we must know the grounds on which it is founded. Nothing can be more uncertain than the event of a large portion of the cases of insanity. After it has continued a few years, in a pretty severe form, we may 8* 90 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSAChUSETTS. [Jan. say it is incurable, and for all practical purposes this would be sufficiently accurate. While yet recent, and unaccom- panied with much constitutional impairment, we are war- ranted in calling it curable. But between these two classes there is always a large number that cannot be referred, with any degree of confidence, to either of them. The elements of duration, severity, general health, and some others, it may be, are so complicated and conflicting, that one would scarcely venture to estimate the influence of each; and if he did, there would be less than an even chance that his results would be generally admitted. If these objections may be urged against the opinions of those who have had much practical knowledge of insanity, with whom, to use a modern phrase, it has been a specialty, they lie with ten- fold force against the conclusions of men whose observation of the disease has been confined to the few cases that can ever fall to the lot of an individual in the miscellaneous practice of his profession. The commissioners have made no inquiry into the curabil- ity of the insane when subjected to proper treatment, either because they considered it irrelevant to any purpose they had in view, or distrusted the entire correctness of the statements that have been made on this point. However this may be, their reserve indicates some advance in the true knowledge of insanity, as well as in the public sentiment connected with this subject. It is to be regretted that this kind of reserve has noi~ been oftener shown on similar occasions. In order to obtain from the public the performance of its duties towards the insane by establishing institutions expressly for their care, the friends of the cause have sometimes represented the re- coveries they effected as bearing a much higher proportion to the whole number treated, than was warranted by a careful and sober observation of results. They were amply justified in such representations, no doubt, by the published reports of our hospitals. Ninety per cent of recoveries in recent cases was not an unfrequent result of a years operation, and the public was taught to believe that it had only to establish hos- pitals for the insane, in order to cure every case as it occurred, and thus prevent any further accession to the accumulating 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 91 mass of incurables that croxvded the receptacles of pauperism and crime. Perhaps the economical consideration thus pre- sented was sometimes more potent than the benevolent; but we doubt whether the effect of such policy has been entirely good. The experiment was followed by disappointment; the public found it had been deceived, and, naturally enough, conceived a distrust of enterprises that required the aid of something over and above the unadulterated truth. It was seen that many patients did not recover, and that the incura- bles continued to accumulate. We do not suppose there was any intention to mislead, but those who reported this large proportion of recoveries misled themselves by committing the common mistake of men whose biases in favor of a certain result are stronger than the simple love of truth. Hence the fruit of their labors resembles the partial statements of a polit- ical harangue, more than the well-considered deductions of a strictly scientific inquiry. The instances are too few to place the results beyond the suspicion of accidental coincidence, but the principal objection to them is that the objects sought for are not of the kind most suitable to be reduced to statistical forms. Recovery from disease implies a double order of facts, most of which are matters of inference more or less strong, while the rest rely on evidence of a miscellaneous character. Disease is an abnormal state, many of whose con- ditions are imperfectly known, and are, probably, beyond the reach of the ordinary instruments of knowledge. Recovery, too, is a condition in regard to which very often there can be no approach to unanimity of opinion. To one it may de- note, in a given case, the entire disappearance of disease, and entire restoration of the customary health; while to another it may signify only an inconsiderable and temporary improve- ment. And even the most thorough agreement respecting the facts does not necessarily secure agreement respecting the general conditions they may be supposed to indicate. A person is sick and gets better. On these two points all are agreed. They are plain to the senses, and make the same impression upon all. But on the question whether this change shall be called recovery, or some lesser degree of amendment, the reply will be shaped by the individuals peculiar notions 92 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSAChUSETTS. [Jan. on the subject, and will probably depend upon the application of some arbitrary rules. In regard to other diseases than insanity, it has seldom been attempted to give a numerical expression to the results of treatment. Consumption, for instance, is as common as insanity, and its signs more easily and exactly discerned; but we apprehend that any attempt to class the results of its treatment, arranging them under the different heads of recovered, improved, much improved, not improved, would hardly be regarded as a valuable contribution to our knowledge. That something of this kind has seemed to be expected from our establishments for the insane, we readily admit, but venture to caution the parties concerned in thus meeting the public wishes, that they lower the dignity of their calling by statements calculated rather to win the popu- lar favor than to advance the true interests of science. Hold- ingtheseviews, we are glad that the commissioners presented to the public no inducements from this quarter for prosecuting the benevolent enterprise it had commenced. Of the 2,632 lunatics in 1~he State, 1,713 are returned as being fit subjects for a hospital; including, probably, all the 263 furious, the 1,067 troublesome, and 383 of the mild and manageable, leaving 855 who are supposed to require no spe- cial provision for their care. As this estimate serves to indi- cate the amount of hospital accommodation which the State is expected to provide, it may be well to see how it was obtained. Whether this or that insane person is a proper subject for a hospital, is a question on which intelligent physi- cians may differ. Many still share the popular belief, and the fact is plainly stated in the Report, that hospitals are intended for curative purposes only, and that those whose disorder is of too long standing to permit recovery may as well be kept somewhere else. They are well represented by the gentleman who was appointed by the Legislature of a neighboring State, two or three years since, to ascertain the condition of the pauper insane, and who reported, that of the whole number, 143, 16 only needed to be sent to a hospital. Until people are better agreed as to what makes a person a fit subject for a hospital, these statistics can have no practical value. We are not ready to believe that nearly one third of 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 93 the insane in this Commonwealth are as well off somewhere else as in an institution expressly designed to promote their cure and comfort, and furnished with all the means and appli- ances which modern science and philanthropy have devised for this purpose. Some, no doubt, may be at liberty without much, if any, risk to others, yet their number is comparatively few, much fewer, certainly, than is generally supposed, ex- cept by those who have had the opportunity of observing on a large scale the impulses and delusions, the temper and spirit, of the insane. The Bellinghams, the Hadfields, the MeNaughtons, and the Oxfords, whose deeds of violence have given them an historical notoriety, belonged to the class of mild and manageable lunatics, who may be safely allowed to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the sane! If it is supposed that such instances are of rare occurrence, the public prints might convince us of the contrary, though the parties may be satisfied with a humbler victim than a monarch or a prime minister. If society better fulfilled its duties to the insane, it would have less cause to complain of the frequent use of insanity in defence of crime, and would be less ob- noxious to the charge of visiting its own short-comings upon irresponsible individuals. The commissioners report 658 pauper lunatics as being at home, meaning, we presume, in the poor-hodses of their respective towns, and among them are many, no doubt, of those mild and manageable patients who do not need the treatn-ient of a hospital. If this matter were properly under- stood, there would be little disposition on the part of humane men to consider them suitable inmates of poor-houses. No one, with any4 knowledge of the manner in which our poor- houses are managed, will pretend that the insane can be fur- nished in them with those attentions which their peculiar condition requires. Besides, they worry their sane associates, and the latter worry them, and the result is an aggravation of their disorder, and a diminution of the general comfort. We trust the time is at hand when this intimate association of the sane with the insane, with no other bond of connection than that of poverty, will be regarded as a piece of barbarism. Any system of provision for the insane, therefore, which leaves 94 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSAChUSETTs. [Jan. a large proportion of them in the poor-houses of the towns, is clearly defective, and we hope that Massachusetts will never consider its duties to the insane as fully accomplished, so long as this fact exists. It is stated in the Report, that there are one thousand seven hundred and thirteen insane persons and sixty-one idiots who should enjoy the advantages of, or be confined in, some hospital or other; six hundred and ten of these are at their homes or in poor-houses; add to these one hundred and nine, the excess of patients in the hospitals at Worcester, Taunton, and Boston, and we have seven hundred and nine- teen who now need, but have not, these advantages. The various methods that have been suggested of providing for the insane of the State, are discussed by the commissioners, aided by all the light they could obtain both at home and abroad, having received information and counsel from many superintendents of hospitals and of alms-houses, sheriffs, and officers of jails. Whether any considerable number of the in- sane should be retained in jails and poor-houses; whether the same establishments for the insane should receive both males and females, curables and incurables, independent and pauper, foreigners and natives; or whether the several classes here mentioned in juxtaposition should be kept distinct in different establishments, these are questions that must first be settled in order to meet the requirements of the case in the best pos- siblemanner. The usual method in our State hospitals, of mixing up all the sorts and conditions of patients just named, is subject to a multitude of evils; and, though unavoidable, perhaps, in the early stages of this benevolent enterprise, it may well be doubted whether a considerable change in this respect is not required by the change of circumstances that has since occurred. The remarks of the commissioners on this subject show that they clearly apprehend the merits of the case, and we trust they will be seriously pondered by all who may be concerned in making further provision for our insane. It is desirable that the patient, as far as is consistent with the man- agement of his malady, either for its removal or its amelioration, should live in a style similar to that which he properly enjoyed when he was 1856.1 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 95 in health; he should also have associates corresponding to his former habits and tastes; and in all things he should not be required, in course of his treatment, to submit to any new and needless disturbance, disap- pointment or mortification. In general life, people associate according to their tastes and sympathies. They select their companions from among those who are similar to themselves, and shrink from such as are of a different character. Hence the refined and the coarse, the cultivated and the ignorant, the high-minded and the sensually low, the gentle and the quarrelsome, these severally are so diverse in their habits and tastes that they are unfitting and unacceptable to each other, but instinctively separate, and do not voluntarily meet, except when business or charity, or some other extraneous motive, prevails for the time. But when they desire to satisfy the wants of their hearts and find the most happiness, they select those of their own kind with whom they can sympathize. These are natural feelings and habits; they run through all society of every kind and in every country. It is not to be supposed that a man, by becoming insane, changes his character entirely in this respect, or loses all his old and healthy desires and aversions, or that he will bear crossing and disappointment, in those which are left to him, more willingly than when in health. On this account, then, there are strong objections to making microcosms of the insane hospi- tals, where persons of every kind of character and degree of develop- ment shall be associated together in the same halls, and be constant and unavoidable companions, in close if not intimate connection, day after day, and month after month.p. 146. One of the measures proposed by the commissioners, to meet the present exigency, is to provide for all insane foreign- ers, who are now a charge to the State, in establishments devoted exclusively to them. Such an arrangement would unquestionably obviate many of the evils which impair the usefulness of the present system, and is itself as free from objections as the ease will ever permit. The native and the foreigner are no more disposed to mingle in the hospital than in the ordinary walks of life, and this repugnance of tastes, habits, and faith leads to mutual dislike and irritation. While the association of races is thus productive of many evils, it would be hard to find in it a single compensatory benefit. The management and attendance, being exclusively in the hands of natives, fail to inspire in the foreign patient that kind of regard and confidence which is necessary to the 96 STATISTIGS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. restorative process. Here something more is requisite than kindness and patience; for even though they secure his respect, they may utterly fail to gain his confidence. This result is the fruit of all those arts of management which require an intimate knowledge of the patients ways and manners, his peculiar modes of thinking and expression, his local tastes and associations. Without this knowledge, the efforts of the attendant will make but little impression. His offers of ser- vice will be viewed with distrust, and the most innocent jest will be taken as an insult; while the utter want of any com- munity of feeling in politics, religion, and historical associa- tions, must prevent them from being anything but strangers to each other. If we would secure for the foreigner the highest amount of good from hospital treatment, we should place him in the charge of those whose sympathies are quickened by stronger ties than are generally produced by an abstract love of the race. On the native patient, the effect of the separation would be equally, if not more beneficial. Those whose dis- order is not so grave as to deprive them of all sense of social propriety, or to destroy their susceptibility to all moral im- pressions, must necessarily be annoyed and disquieted by per- sons whose looks and manifestations are of the most disa- greeable kind. In passing through the public hospitals of this State, one is painfully struck by the large proportion of patients presenting the most degraded and hopeless phases of insanity. The stoutest heart might quail before this sad ex- hibition of humanity, and how can it be supposed that it can be contemplated without emotion by those whose sensibilities are all heightened by disease? The present number of State lunatics is about 650, and they might be properly disposed of in two establishments. The number for each would be somewhat larger than the maximum allowed by the superintendents of hospitals, in the propositions unanimously adopted by them at one of the meetings of their association. Without distrusting at all the soundness of their reasons, we apprehend there are some con- ditions in the present case which would warrant us in fixing upon a larger capacity. In these establishments there would be comparatively few of those curable cases the management 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 97 of which occupies the thoughts and the time of the superin- tendent in a far higher degree than that of the chronic cases. By means of appropriate medical and moral treatment, the curable are to be conducted through the various stages of disease until they arrive at complete recovery, and this is a work which requires and deserves his best efforts. It is the work for which he is considered as responsible by the public, and it cannot be shared by subordinates. On the other hand, in cases of long duration, where the disease has become fixed beyond any reasonable hope of recovery, no service of this kind is required. The management which secures the great- est amount of comfort, and checks, as far as possible, the prog- ress of impairment, must always be maintained, but some- thing more is required in establishments where cure as well as custody is among the objects in view. We would not be misunderstood, however, on this point. It is a great mistake to suppose that the charge of an establishment like the last indicated needs only the grade of talent suitable for the super- intendence of a jail or a poor-house. The superiority of mod- ern management of the insane over all older methods consists in the prominence that is given to a kind of moral treatment which is essentially the same, whether the patient is Curable or incurable. Without moral and intellectual endowments of a high order in those who direct this management, it cannot be maintained at a point worthy the intelligence and philan- thropy of the age. It must also be considered, in this con- nection, that a large portion of the superintendents time is occupied with the patients friends, and, as may be readily supposed, a far greater amount of this kind of duty is required in curable than in incurable cases. In the early stages of dis- ease, the interest of friends is fresh, their sympathies warm, and the result doubtful. Consequently, their visits are frequent and protracted, and the requisite correspondence makes serious drafts on the superintendents time. With the incurables, on the contrary, all this is very different. Their disorder being fixed, and subject to but little variation from day to day, there is much less to talk or write about; and that little can be done in a greater degree by subordinates. Thus, while we recognize the correctness of the general rule which would re VOL. LXXXII.NO. 170. 9 98 STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. [Jan. strict the number of inmates to 250, we feel quite sure that 325, if not more, patients like the State paupers would be equally well managed, because the maximum must be de- termined solely by the ability of the chief to make himself acquainted with the changing phases of every patient, so far as such knowledge is necessary to promote his comfort or restoration. Two new establishments of this class would sufficiently meet the wants of the insane for the present, as the hospitals already existing would accommodate all others that would probably be offered. As the State, however, might decline so large an undertaking, following close upon the hospital at Taunton, the commissioners preferred to recommend the erec- tion of another hospital in the western part of the State, for 250 patients. Whatever plan may be ultimately adopted, this would, unquestionably, form a very proper part of it, and therefore might as well be undertaken first. The hospital at Worcester, in consequence of original faults of construction, and the necessity for extensive repairs, was found to be so defective, that the commissioners recommend its abandon- ment as soon as the new one is opened, proposing that an- other shall be erected in the neighborhood of Worcester. Of the propriety of giving up the present establishment, there can scarcely be a question; for it would be impossible to find a position less suited for the purpose, encircled as it is by rail- ways, and embraced \vithin the arms of a young and growing city. The increased value of the property would save the State from much loss, while it would gain a new institution provided, in some degree at least, with the improvements of the time, in exchange for one needing an immense outlay to render it tolerably comfortable. In regard to the selection of a site for the new hospital, the commissioners give one piece of advice which, it is to be hoped, will be implicitly followed. The practice of offering to the highest bidder the privilege of providing sites for our charitable institutions, is so far beneath the honor and dignity of a community like that of Massachusetts, and so prejudicial to its true interests, that we most earnestly wish it may never be repeated. 1856.] STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 99 The commission would advise, therefore, that in selecting a loca- tion no regard be paid to inducements that may be held out by towns, by the offer of lands or of subscriptions, to aid in the purchase, and that no gifts be accepted that will imply any obligation of the State to continue the Institution in a place when it may seem expedient to re- move it, and no lesser present interest be allowed in any way to com- promise the greater and future interests of the State and the lunatics for whom the whole Institution is to be created. Like discreet indi- viduals, the State should go into the market, make its selection with the sole view of effecting the final purpose, purchase its lands and pay the usual price, and then be independent of all further obligations. p. 188. The State has now another opportunity of establishing a hospital for the insane creditable to its intelligence and wealth, and if its authorities are governed by any regard to public sentiment, such must needs be their action. In the magnitude of its enterprises for advancing its material interests, Massa~ chusetts ~tands without a rival. The higher distinction of out- stripping its sister States in the unexceptionable excellence of its institutions for the relief of suffering, it has yet to achieve. T~he young community in the South or West about to enter upon a career of benevolence sends its building committees to examine our establishments for the insane; but they find nothing so thoroughly embodying the results of modern im- provement as to be worthy of being copied. Are we willing to hold this subordinate position when it may be so cheaply exchanged for unquestionable pre-eminence? In the prose- cution of the new undertaking, this first step, to which we have called the attention of our readers, was rightly directed and admirably accomplished. In the second, the appoint- ment of a committee for selecting a site and erecting a build- ing, there has not been, we fear, the same exclusive regard to the great object in view. The public had a right to expect that such a committee would embrace among its members the author of this Report, who, by the able performance of the duty assigned him, had strong claims for further employ- ment in a service for which his studies, habits, and tastes have so well prepared him. We shall rejoice, however, if the event falsifies our apprehensions, and enables us, at last, 100 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. to point to a hospital for the insane, second to no other in the country in all those qualities that indicate the high est degree of efficiency for the performance of its destined work. ART. JV.A Memoir of REV. SYDNEY SMITH, by his Daugh- ter, LADY IIOLLAND~ with a Selection from his Letters, by MRS. AUSTIN. In two volumes. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1855. THE memoir and correspondence of a man who, for twenty years, was prominent in London society, and pointed out to strangers as eminently noteworthy, must give a reliable insight not only into his personal gifts and character, but into the tendencies and the traits of the circle in which he held so con- spicuous a place. In both regards, these volumes justify the anticipation they excite. Here we see portrayed, without ex- aggeration, the best side of the Churchman,one of the high- est places open to clerical ambition in England, its lustre enhanced by intelligence, its exclusiveness redeemed by genial- ity, and its validity vindicated by uprightness and public spirit. We recognize the influence and the happiness that may be attained by a kindly, conscientious, fearless, candid dignitary of the Establishment, whose nature is leavened by a rich and persuasive humor, whereby his office, conversation, letters, and presence are lifted from technicality and routine into vital relations with his fellow-beings and the time. Pleasant and suggestive is the record, fall of amenity, and bright with cheerful traits. It is refreshing to meet with so much life, so much liberality, so much humane sentiment, where the conven- tional and the obsolete so often overlay and formalize mind and manner. Yet there is a distinct limit to this satisfaction. The vantage-ground which ecclesiastical prestige gave to Sydney Smith, his talents and agreeability confirmed; but his sympathies, with all their free play, had a conservative rebound. Those who would derive a complete idea of the modern English development from these memorials, err. He

100 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. to point to a hospital for the insane, second to no other in the country in all those qualities that indicate the high est degree of efficiency for the performance of its destined work. ART. JV.A Memoir of REV. SYDNEY SMITH, by his Daugh- ter, LADY IIOLLAND~ with a Selection from his Letters, by MRS. AUSTIN. In two volumes. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1855. THE memoir and correspondence of a man who, for twenty years, was prominent in London society, and pointed out to strangers as eminently noteworthy, must give a reliable insight not only into his personal gifts and character, but into the tendencies and the traits of the circle in which he held so con- spicuous a place. In both regards, these volumes justify the anticipation they excite. Here we see portrayed, without ex- aggeration, the best side of the Churchman,one of the high- est places open to clerical ambition in England, its lustre enhanced by intelligence, its exclusiveness redeemed by genial- ity, and its validity vindicated by uprightness and public spirit. We recognize the influence and the happiness that may be attained by a kindly, conscientious, fearless, candid dignitary of the Establishment, whose nature is leavened by a rich and persuasive humor, whereby his office, conversation, letters, and presence are lifted from technicality and routine into vital relations with his fellow-beings and the time. Pleasant and suggestive is the record, fall of amenity, and bright with cheerful traits. It is refreshing to meet with so much life, so much liberality, so much humane sentiment, where the conven- tional and the obsolete so often overlay and formalize mind and manner. Yet there is a distinct limit to this satisfaction. The vantage-ground which ecclesiastical prestige gave to Sydney Smith, his talents and agreeability confirmed; but his sympathies, with all their free play, had a conservative rebound. Those who would derive a complete idea of the modern English development from these memorials, err. He 1856.] SYDNEY SMITH. 101 moved in a circle of the most active, but not of the highest intellectual range. We should never discover from this chron- icle that Coleridge also talked, Carlyle reasoned, Lamb jested, Hazlitt criticised, and Shelley and Keats sang, in those days. Within the sensible zone of English life, as that term is usu- ally understo~d, Sydney lived. He often ignored what was boldly original and radically independent. His scope was ever within the Whig ranks in politics and the Established Church pale in religion. What could be beheld and experi- enced therein we see, and all that excites admiration without is unrevealed. The iron horizon of caste is the framework of this attractive picture. The charm it offers is the manliness which a true soul, thus environed, exhibits. To us Trans- atlantic lovers of his rare humor, it is the man rather than the priest, the companion rather than the prodigy, that wins attention. We have seen, again and again, genius utterly perverted by self-love, usefulness marred by fanaticism, wit poisoned by malevolence, health shattered, existence abridged, vanity pam- pered, confidence destroyed, by the erratic, unprincipled, weak use of intellectual gifts. This tragic result is the staple of literary biography, so that prudent souls have blessed the fate which consigned them to harmless mediocrity. The rare and sweet exceptions to so general a rule are therefore full of satis- faction and redolent of hope. In the case of Sydney Smith we witness the delightful spectacle of a mind that bravely regulates the life which it cheers and adorns. humor was the efllorescence of his intellect, the play that gave him strength for labor, the cordial held by a kindly hand to every brothers lips, the sunshine of home, the flavor of human intercourse, the music to which he marched in dutys rugged path. By virtue of this magic quality, he redeemed the daily meal from heavi- ness, the needful journey from fatigue, narrow circumstances from depression, and prosperity from materialism. He illus- trated simultaneously the.power of content and the beauty of holiness. Did Portland stone, instead of marble, frame his hearth? Innocent mirth and a clear blaze made those around it oblivious of the defect. Must a paper border take the place of a cornice? Laughing echoes hung the room with more 9* 102 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. than arabesque ornament. Were the walls destitute of pre- cious limning? He knew how to glorify them with sunshine. Did he lack costly furniture? Children and roses atoned for the want. Was he compelled to entertain his guest with rustic fare? He found compensation in the materials thus furnished for a comic sketch. Did the canine race interfere with his comfort? He banished them by a mock report of law-dam- ages. Was his steed ugly, slow, and prone to throw his rider? He named him Calamity or Peter the Cruel, and drew a farce from their joint mishaps. Was his coach lumbering and ancient? Its repairs were for ever suggestive of quaint fancies. Was a herd of deer beyond his means? He fastened antlers on donkeys, and drew tears of laughter from aristocratic eyes. Did the evergreens look dim at Christmas? He tied oranges on their boughs and dreamed of tropical landscapes. Was a lady too fine? He discovered a porcelain understanding. Was a friend too voluble? He enjoyed his flashes of silence. Were oil and spermaceti beyond his means? He illuminated the house with mutton lamps of his own invention. A fat woman, a hot day, a radical, a heavy sermonizer, a dandy, a stupid Yorkshire peasant, people and things that in others would only excite annoyance, he turned instinctively to the account of wit. His household at Foston is a picture worthy of Dickens. Bunch, Annie Kay, Molly Miles, heraldry, old pictures, and china, in his atmosphere became original char- acters and bits of Flemish still-life, which might set up a novelist. He turned a bay-window into a hive of bright thoughts, and a random walk into a chapter of philosophy. To domestic animals, humble parishioners, rustic employ6s, to the oppressed, the erring, the sick, the market-woman, and the poacher, he extended as ready and intelligent a sympathy as to the nobleman and the scholar. He was more thankful for animal spirits and good companionship than for reputa- tion and preferment. He reverenced material laws not less than the triumphs of intellect; esteemed poor Richards max- ims as well .as Macaulays rhetoric; thought self-reproach the greatest evil, and occupation the chief moral necessity of ex- istence. He believed in talking nonsense, while he exercised the most vigorous powers of reasoning. He gave no quarter 1856.] SYDNEY SMITH. 103 to cant, and, at the same time, bought a parrot to keep his servants in good humor. If warned by excellent and feeble people against an individual, he sought his acquaintance. His casual bon-mots wreathed the town with smiles, and his faithful circumspection irritated the officials at St. Pauls. He wielded a battle-axe in the phalanx of reform, and scattered flowers around his family altar. He wakened the sinners heart to penitence, and irradiated prandial monotony; educated children, and shared the counsels of statesmen; turned from literary correspondence to dry an infants tears, and cheered a paupers death-bed with as true a heart as he graced a peers drawing-room. It is the human, catholic range and variety of such a nature and such a life, that raises Sydney Smith from the renown of a clever author and a brilliant wit to the nobler fame of a Christian man. In this biography we have another signal instance of the effect of blood in determining character. The Gallic element permeated Sydneys Anglo-Saxon nature; and in him it was the vivacity of Languedoc that quickened the solemn ban- quets of the Thames. By instinct no less than from principle, he encouraged cheerfulness. He thoroughly appreciated the relation of mind and body, and sought, by exercise, gay talk, and beneficent intercourse, while he avoided self-reproach and systematized business, to lessen the cares and to multiply the pleasures of daily life. The minor felicities were in his view as much a part of human nature, as the power of reasoning and the capacity of usefulness. In his endeavor to make the most of life as a means of enjoyment, he was thoroughly French; in loyalty to its stern requirements and high objects, he was no less completely English. In practical wisdom he resembled Dr. Franklin, in the genuine benignity of his spirit, Bishop Berkeley, and in the power of colloquial adaptation, Burke. He sublimated Poor Richards prudence by tact and wit; and called himself an amalgam from the facility with which his genial tone fused the discordant or reserved social elements around him. Some sulk, he observes, in a stage; I always talk. He was no abstract scholar or isolated sage, but read and wrote in the midst of his family, undisturbed by children, servants, or visitors. His idea of life and duty was 104 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. eminently social; and in this also we recognize the influence of his French descent. The names of friends, acquaintances, and correspondents in these volumes include a remarkable variety of illustrious characters; first, the famous Edinburgh coterie, Playfair, Stewart, Brougham, Scott, Alison, Jeffrey, Homer, and their associates; then, the authors and statesmen he knew so intimately in London, such as Lord Holland, Lord Grey, Mackintosh, Rogers, and Moore; then his Continental friends, Madame de Stael, Pozzo di Borgo, Talleyrand, the King of Belgium, and many more; besides the domestic and clerical associates incident to his position and family connec- tions. Imagine a good, cheerful, wise, and endeared man, for thirty years, mingling in such spheres, dispensing words of cheer and humor, yet always in earnest as a divine, and always faithful as a reformer, and you have a picture of intellectual usefulness and enjoyment, of a healthy, active mind, which suggests a living worth but inadequately described in these vol- umes. Scotchmen and Quakers have been staple themes with the English wits for a century; Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb were memorably comical about them; and Sydney Smith continued the merry warfare with credit. In each of the coteries represented by these idols of society, we find that the mutual admiration principle, so natural to special frater- nities, holds sway. Johnson over-estimated, while he brow- beat, his literary confreres; Lamb betrays a childlike devotion to Coleridge and his disciples; and Sydney Smith praises Jeffreys articles, Homers character, and Mackintoshs talk with like partiality. This is but the instinct of the love and honor drawn out by intimate association; but such verdicts, in a critical point of view, are to be taken with due allowance, not so much in regard to the merits of the individuals thus warmly regarded, as of contemporaries not belongin gtothe same clique, yet, in an intellectual aspect, having equal and often superior claims upon the lover of genius and worth. As a representative man, Sydney Smith was more endeared for his liberal, frank, and mirthful nature than for its refine- ments. He lacked that profound sense of beauty, and that patient love of art, which constitute poetical feeling. He felt no interest in Wordsworth, thought Madame de S6vign6s 1856.] SYDNEY SMITH. 105 letters beneath their reputation, and declared himself satisfied with ten minutes of Talmas acting and fifteen of observation at the Louvre. His passion for roses seems to have been rather a keen sense of their vital freshness, than a delicate per- ception of their beauty. They were precious in his sight chiefly as emblems of the spontaneous grace of nature. He delighted in transitions both of scene and of employment. He read with great rapidity, skimming as with hasty glances the cream of literature. He had the ingenuous want of ar- tificial elegance so often noticed as characteristic of manly genius. Sydney, said one of his friends, your sense, wit, and clumsiness always give me the idea of an Athenian carter. The combination most devoutly to be wished is an alert mind and an easy temperament; but the two are seldom found together. Quickness of conception and aptness of fancy are often embodied in a mercurial frame, and the ner- vous and sanguine quality of the body is a constant strain upon vital force, and tends to produce the irritability of a morbid or the grave errors of an animal enthusiasm. Hence the most famous wits have seldom proved equally satisfactory as intimate companions and judicious allies in a serious en- terprise. Imprudence, impulse, and extreme sensitiveness, thus united to uncommon gifts of mind, are liable to make the latter more of a bane than a blessing; while the same endow- ments blended with a happy organization are the prolific source of active usefulness and rational delight. Seldom have these results been more perfectly exhibited than in Sydney Smith, a pioneer of national reforms without ac- rimony or fanaticism; prompt to set the table in a roar, yet never using self-respect or neglecting the essential duties of life; capable of the keenest satire, yet instinctively consid- erate of the feelings of others; familiar with the extremes of fortune, yet unhardened by poverty and unspoiled by success; the choicest of boon companions, yet the most impressive of clergymen; the admired guest and the recipient of permanent and elegant hospitality, yet contented in domestic retirement; born to grace society, and, at the same time, the idol of home; feasted and honored in the highest degree, yet true to his own 106 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. axiom, that the secret of felicity is to make the day happy to, at least, one fellow-creature; with a deep-seated disgust at hypocrisy, while recognized as the bravest advocate of Christian charity in the Church; impatient to the last degree of the irksome and commonplace, yet unwearied in his en- deavor to assimilate the discordant and to enliven the dull. In him, the soul and the body, the family and the fete, labor and pastime, criticism and hilarity, wit and wisdom, virtue and intelligence, priesthood and manhood, the pen and the life, the friend and the disputant, the mysteries of faith and the actualities of experience, worked together for good. Though comprehensive and facile as an intellectual man, he had the insular stamp, the honest alloy of British preju- dice, frankly confessing that he thought no organized form of Christianity worthy to be compared with the Establish- ment, no beauty or genius equal to that which the best London circle includes, no physical comfort like a good fire, no restorative like a walk, and no talkers superior to Mackin- tosh, Macaulay, and the rest of his own coterie, His praise of good edibles and well-written books, his thorough honesty, his manly self-assertion, his want of sympathy with foreign associations, his keen appreciation of dinner, tea, argument, and home, mark the genuine Angloman. Yet he had a clearer sense than most of his countrymen of native pecu- liarities. Have you observed, he asks, that nothing can be done in England without a dinner? And elsewhere he observes, Mr. John Bull disdains to talk, as that respected individual has nothing to say. With the courage of his race he passed his life in minorities, and, on principle, fought off the spleen. Never give way to melancholy, he writes to a friend; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. His love of knowledge was strong and habitual; and he sought it, with avidity, in social intercourse, observation, and books, reproducing what he gleaned with ease and acuteness. His style partakes of the directness of his whole nature; he goes at once to his subject, whether the exposition of religious truth, a definition in moral philosophy, a business epistle, or a word spoken in season. Without circumlocution, and with the prompt brevity of a man of action, the thing to be 1856.] SYDNEY SMITH. 107 expressed is given out, interrupted only by some merry jest or humorous turn of thought, never by an elaborate or dis- cursive episode. His letters are singularly brief and to the point; they indicate character by their kindly spirit and quaint vein, frank opinions and excellent sense, but are val- uable rather as glimpses of his manner of living and thinking, of his associations and objects, than as a complete illustra- tion of the man. There is a marked individuality in the most casual note. He does not write with the rhetorical finish of Macaulay, the quaint introversions of Carlyle, the voluble knowledge of De Quincey, the smart ebullitions of Jeffrey, or the classic elegance of Landor; but he writes like an honest, sensible, prosperous, affectionate, witty English- man, whose views, tastes, and principles are fixed, and who desires, without waste of time or words, to meet every duty and every pleasure in an intelligent, self-sustained, and gen- erous mood. The clerical and literary, the political and cu- linary, the friendly and professional interests of his life, come out in singular juxtaposition through his correspondence. Now it is a state question, and now the receipt for dressing a salad; one day, to acknowledge a present of game, and another, to criticise a new number of the Edinburgh; this letter describes a dinner-party, and that a plan for church organization; one proposes an article, and another chronicles a tour ; the whole conveying a vivid idea of a most busy, social, amicable, cheerful existence. After dwelling on the entire picture, we can readily believe, with his little daughter, that a family does nt prosper without a papa who makes all gay by his own mirth~~ and that a dinner without him ap~ peared to his bereaved wife unutterably solemn. He declares that a play never amused him; neither would it half the world, if there were more Sydneys in social life, to make every days talk as good as a play. He speaks of the invincible candor of his nature, and this trait is the crystal medium through which we so thoroughly recognize him. Notwithstanding the deserved rebuke he admimiistered to our national delinquency in his American letters, he vindicates his claim to the title of Philo-Yankecist. No British writer has better appreciated the institutions and destiny of the ~JI 108 SYDNEY SMITII. [Jan. United States. He recognized cordially the latent force of Webster, the noble eloquence of Channing, and the refined scholarship of Everett. I will disinherit you, he playfully writes to a fair correspondent, if you do not admire every- thing written by Franklin. Perhaps the choicest lesson of his life is his practical cheer- fulness. He was no willing polemic, but delighted in peace- able bigotry. One is constantly lured, by this memoir, to speculate on the relation of humor to sensibility and cau- tion; for its subject was as prudent and methodical in affairs as he was vagrant and lawless in fancy, and as keenly alive to sympathy and care for others as to comfort, society, and fun. I have, he says, a propensity to amuse myself with trifles. The wretchedness of human life is only to be en- countered on the basis of beef and wine. And, elsewhere, If, with a pleasant wife, three children, a good house and farm, many books, and many friends who wish me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish fellow, and what becomes of me is of very little consequence. This disposi- tion was not merely a background in the landscape; it made him a light-hearted, though none the less earnest worker. The sermon inculcating the deepest truth, the essay demol- ishing a time-hallowed error, the plea for some victim of oppression or indigence, the letter designed to counsel or cheer, the speech in behalf of civil reform, in fine, the entire intellectual activity of the man was unalloyed by discontent and bitterness. He could wrestle with wrong, and smile; he could attack without losing his temper; he could sow the pregnant seeds of melioration, and, at the same time, scatter flowers of wit along the rugged furrows. Swift fought as bravely, but he lacked the bonhommie of Sydney to make the battle gay and chivalrous. Sterne diverted, with like ease, a festal board; but he wanted the consistent manhood of Peter Plymley to preserve the dignity of his office in the midst of pastime. Literature has gradually merged the courageous in the ar- tistic element. S~tyle, instead of being the Vehicle of moral warfare and practical truth, has degenerated into an ingenious means of aimless effect. To elaborate a borrowed or flimsy 1856.] SYDNEY SMITH. 109 idea, to exaggerate a limited and unimportant experience, and to minister exc]usively to the sense of amusement, have become the primal objects of popular writers. They have, in numerous instances, ignored the relation of thought to action, of integrity to expression, and of truth to eloquence. They have dreamed, dallied, coquetted on paper exactly as the butterflies of life do in society, giving no impression of indi- viduality or earnestness. To divert a vacant hour, to beguile, flatter, puzzle, and relieve the ennui of thoughtless minds, appears the height of their ambition. The conventional, the lighter graces, the egotistic inanities of self-love, so predom- inate, that we gain no fresh impulse, receive no mental stimuli, behold no veil of error rent, and no vista of truth opened as we read. The man of letters is often, to our consciousness, not a prophet, an oracle, a hero, but a juggler, a pet, or, at best, a graceful toy. We realize the old prejudice, that to write for the public amusement is a vocation based on unmanly pli- ancy, a mercenary pursuit which inevitably conflicts with self-respect, deals in gossip, and trenches on the dignity of social refinement. Personal contact not seldom destroys what- ever illusion taste may have created. We find an evasive habit of mind, an effeminate care of reputation, a fear of self- compromise, a dearth of original, frank, genial utterance. Our ideal author proves a mere dilettante, says pretty things as if committed to memory for the occasion, picks ingenious flaws to indicate superior discernment, interlards his talk with quotations, is all things to all men, and especially to all women, makes himself generally agreeable by a system of artificial conformity, and leaves us unrefreshed by a single glimpse of character or one heart-felt utterance. We strive to recognize the thinker and the poet, but discover only the man of taste, the man of the world, the fop, or the epicure; and we gladly turn from him to a fact of nature, to a noble tree or a sunset cloud, to the genuine in humanity, a fair child, an honest mechanic, true-hearted woman, or old soldier, because in such there is not promise without performance, the sign without the thing, the name without the soul. It is from the salient contrast with these familiar phases of authorship that the very idea of such a man as Sydney Smith redeems vOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 10 110 SYDNEY SMITH. [Jan. the calling. In him, first of all and beyond all, is manhood, which no skill in pencraft, no blandishment of fame or love of pleasure, was suffered to overlay for a moment. To be a man in courage, generosity, stern faith to every domestic and professional claim, in the fear of God and the love of his kind, in loyalty to personal conviction, bold speech, candid life, and good fellowship, this was the vital necessity, the normal condition, of his nature. Thus consecrated, he found life a noble task and a happy experience, and would have found it so without any Edinburgh Review, Cathedral of St. Pauls, or dinners at Holland House; although, when the scope and felicities they brought to him came, legitimate results of his endowments and needs, they were, in his faithful hands and wise appreciation, the authentic means of increased use- fulness, honor, and delight; and chiefly so, because he was so disciplined and enriched by circumstances and by natural gifts, as to be virtually independent, self-sustained, and capa- ble of deriving mental luxury, philosophic content, and relig- ious sanction from whatever lot and duty had fallen to his share. Herein lie the significance of his example and the value of his principles. Like pious and brave old Herbert, he found a kingdom in his mind which he knew how to rule and to enjoy; and this priceless boon was his triumph and com- fort in the lowliest struggles and in the highest prosperity. It irradiated the damp walls of his first parsonage with the glow of wit, nerved his heart, as a poor vicar, to plead the cause of reform against the banded conservatives of a realm, hinted a thousand expedients to beguile isolation and indigence of their gloom, invested his presence and speech with self-posses- sion and authority in the peasants hut and at the bishops table, made him an architect, a physician, a judge, a school- master, a critic, a reformer, the choicest man of society, the most efficient of domestic economists, the best of correspond- ents, the most practical of political writers, the most impressive of preachers, the most genial of companions, a good farmer, a patient nurse, and an admirable husband, father, and friend. The integrity, good sense, and moral energy which gave birth to this versatile exercise of his faculties, constitute the broad and solid foundation of Sydney Smiths character; they were 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 111 the essential fraits of the man, the base to that noble column of which wit formed the capital and wisdom the shaft. In the temple of humanity what support it yielded during his life, and how well-proportioned and complete it now stands to the eye of memory, an unbroken and sky-pointing cenotaph on his honored grave! ART. V. 1. The Papal Conspiracy exposed, and Protestant- ism defended, in the Light of Reason, Iii story, and Scripture. By EDWARD BEECHER, D. B. Boston: Stearns & Co. l2mo. pp. 432. 2. Ecclesiastical Tenures. Speech of JAMES 0. PUTNAM, of Buffalo, on the Bill providing for the Vesting of the Title to Church Property in Lay Trustees, delivered in the Senate of New York, January 30, 1855. Albany: Benthuysen. 8vo. pp. 40. NEARLY twelve centuries have passed since the Papal hie- rarchy assumed a rank among the nations of the world. In the beginning it exhibited the weakness of infancy. As it advanced in years it grew in strength, until, at the midnight of the IDark Ages, it overshadowed and controlled all Europe. Those who still submit to its power assign to it an earlier origin. They place the name of the Apostle Peter at the head of their list of Popes, deducing his authority from Jesus Christ; and from Peter they pretend to trace an unbroken succession of Bishops of Rome, in process of time called Popes, to the two hundred and sixty-third Pope, now on the pontifical throne. That Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, or ever resided there, receives, however, no support from authentic history. In primitive times every Christian church elected its bishop, or overseer, that being the meaning of the Greek word trans- lated bishop. These bishops, as well as the churches they were chosen to oversee, were unconnected with one another were all equal in power, and so continued through the first three centuries of the Christian era. It is true that younger

1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 111 the essential fraits of the man, the base to that noble column of which wit formed the capital and wisdom the shaft. In the temple of humanity what support it yielded during his life, and how well-proportioned and complete it now stands to the eye of memory, an unbroken and sky-pointing cenotaph on his honored grave! ART. V. 1. The Papal Conspiracy exposed, and Protestant- ism defended, in the Light of Reason, Iii story, and Scripture. By EDWARD BEECHER, D. B. Boston: Stearns & Co. l2mo. pp. 432. 2. Ecclesiastical Tenures. Speech of JAMES 0. PUTNAM, of Buffalo, on the Bill providing for the Vesting of the Title to Church Property in Lay Trustees, delivered in the Senate of New York, January 30, 1855. Albany: Benthuysen. 8vo. pp. 40. NEARLY twelve centuries have passed since the Papal hie- rarchy assumed a rank among the nations of the world. In the beginning it exhibited the weakness of infancy. As it advanced in years it grew in strength, until, at the midnight of the IDark Ages, it overshadowed and controlled all Europe. Those who still submit to its power assign to it an earlier origin. They place the name of the Apostle Peter at the head of their list of Popes, deducing his authority from Jesus Christ; and from Peter they pretend to trace an unbroken succession of Bishops of Rome, in process of time called Popes, to the two hundred and sixty-third Pope, now on the pontifical throne. That Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, or ever resided there, receives, however, no support from authentic history. In primitive times every Christian church elected its bishop, or overseer, that being the meaning of the Greek word trans- lated bishop. These bishops, as well as the churches they were chosen to oversee, were unconnected with one another were all equal in power, and so continued through the first three centuries of the Christian era. It is true that younger 112 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. paid deference to older churches; and more especially, that village churches paid deference to the church of the metropolis of the province. In process of time, to the metropolitan bishop was conceded a general superintendence over the ecclesiastical affairs of the province, the right to convoke assemblies of the provincial bishops, and to preside over their deliberations; but care was taken so to limit the concessions made as to prevent any extension of his power, and to establish, on a secure basis, the independence of all the other bishops. History speaks in favorable terms of the virtues and simpli- city of the early bishops. They lived too near the Founder of Christianity to have forgotten his precepts, or to have become insensible of the spirit in which they were promul- gated. Each lived, too, in the midst of his peculiar flock. He shared their joys and griefs. He knew no higher station than that to which his brethren had raised him, only a little above themselves; he sought no greater happiness than to live and die among them, and when called to meet his and their Master, to leave them improved in all things by the per- formance of all his duties. But it could not be so always. Rome the empire and the city, rulers and people had already become corrupt, and was verging to its fall. The Christians, pure as they were, and striving to live separate from the world, could not entirely escape contamination. Hypocrites mingled with the flock, and, perceiving that the office of bishop was honorable from the affection with which the incumbent was regarded, and profitable from the munificent rewards bestowed by gratitude for his fidelity, sought and sometimes obtained it; and the Pagans, regarding with jealousy these apostates from their old religion, slandered them, and brought on them the perse- cutions of the Roman emperors. Yet the number professing the new religion increased rapidly. Gibbon says that in A. D. 300, the Roman empire contained eighteen hundred bishops, and of course as many, perhaps more, churches or congregations; of which number one thousand were in the Greek or Eastern provinces, and eight hundred in the Latin or Western provinces, Constantinople being the centre of the former, and Rome of the latter. 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 113 About this time the government of the Church began to indicate a decidedly monarchical tendency. The metropol- itan bishops assumed, and were indulged in assuming, more and more authority; and an order of clerks, or priests, was instituted, who were ordained by the bishops, were entirely subject to their control, and of course raised them a step higher above the people or laity. Subsequently four of the metropolitan bishops those of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople acquired in some way a pre-eminence over the others near and around them, and received the appel- lation of Patriarchs; and the portions of territory over which they enjoyed this pre-eminence were called Patriarchates. The relative rank of these patriarchates seems to have been a subject of dispute. In the records of a council held at Constantinople in 381, is a decree that the bishop of that city, who was then the last who had received that distinction, should take rank next after the Bishop of Rome, since Con- stantinople was New Rome; and the Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, confirmed this decision, with the remark, that the Fathers rightly conceded that rank to the episcopate of ancient Rome, because Rome was the mistress city; from which it is apparent that, if there was at this time a tradition that St. Peter ever resided at Rome and was buried there, the Fathers did not believe it, or did not think it a fact of importance. The period of greatest credulity and supersti- tion had not yet come. To the few bishops at this time called Patriarchs was given or conceded the sole power to ordain the metropolitans, and to each a general superintendence over his own patriarchate. The institution of this new and higher order of ecclesiastical officers was followed by mischievous consequences. The history of these centuries, says Neander, shows how much of impure, worldly interest became diffused in the Church through the eager thirst and strife of the bishops for prece- dence of rank. Very justly could Gregory of Nazianzum say, as he did in 380, Would to Heaven there were no primacy, no eminence of place, and no tyrannical precedence of ranks, that we might be known by eminence of virtue alone! But as the case now stands, the distinction of a seat at the right 10 114 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. hand or at the left, or in the middle, at a higher or lower place, of going before or at the side of each other, has given rise to many disorders among us, to no salifitary pur- pose whatever, and plunged multitudes in ruin.~~ This brief sketch of events places us in the fifth century after the birth of Christ. More than a century has elapsed since the Roman empire was dismembered. Turbulence, dis- order, and anarchy have long prevailed throughout the world. The ancient civilization has run its course, and ended in im- becility of mind, the degradation of man, and a universal corruption of manners. Civil wars have afflicted various por- tions of both empires. The Goths have issued from their dark Northern forests, and rushed over the land, wickedness and weakness before them, unburied corpses and desolation behind them. That which the Goths left have the Huns devoured; that which the Huns left have the Vandals devoured. Never has the world known such intense human misery, such com- plete desolation, such obliteration of the past, as fell upon it in the course of the fifth century. The conquerors were all unlearned barbarians, and the con- quered, (both classes living intermixed,) after the lapse of a generation or two, became as ignorant as they. Ignorance bred credulity, and superstition had already come with the conquerors from their caves and huts in the gloomy wilder- nesses. The twilight of the Dark Ages, already perceptible, thickened continually, and foreshadowed the dense gloom which ensued. It is not necessary to our purpose, which is simply to show that the papal hierarchy has always been hostile to freedom of thought and to intellectual progress, that we should enu- merate the several particulars of its tortuous ascent to the pinnacle of power; but it may be expedient to give enough of its history to show the development of its character. It sought constantly to strengthen itself by espousing, in the continual contests between different kings, or between a king and a pretender to his throne, the cause of the party who would en- gage, in case of si~ccess, to wear the crown as a feudatary of Jesus Christ, and to acknowledge the Pope as his vicar- general on earth. It seldom failed of success. The Pope, 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 115 as its chief, had but to fulminate his anathema against the king he had determined to oppose, and every believing sub- ject dropped his weapons of war, or used them against his former sovereign. The papal curse severed the tie of alle- giance; the papal blessing attached the ligament to another sovereign. Those who have groped their way through the Dark Ages have expressed the belief that the rule of the Popes was less cruel and oppressive than otherwise would have been the rule of the barbarian kings. Such was probably the fact. The Pope stood forth a powerful arbiter in all causes between all parties. The fear of this arbiter must have often prevented kings from giving to their subjects an opportunity or a dispo- sition to appeal to him. And if, in a few cases, or indeed in all cases, the arbiter decided wrong, a prompt decision may hwve been better for the people, even in that event, than a pro- tracted contest would have been. A charge is made against the papal hierarchy, that it resorted to other means, even more objectionable, to acquire power. Certain writings, called decretal letters, and purporting to be written by early I3ishops of Rome, whose names have since been inserted in the list of Popes, were ascertained to be in ex- istence about the year 840. They were first quoted as of au- thority by Pope Nicholas, in 865. The first letter in the series was written in the name of Bishop Clement, the same Clem- ent who is mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians. It relates that St. Peter, just before his death, in a long address to the brethren present, appointed and ordained him Bishop of Rome, giving him the p~wer of binding and loosing which was given to me by my Lord; and then Clement repeats long charges, given by St. Peter to him, to other officers of the Church, and to the brethren. The letters written in the name of other and later bishops speak of high powers granted to them by St. Peter, and especially that of hearing and deciding appeals from all parties aggrieved. At the same time were produced the records of a Roman council, stated to have been held under Bishop Sylvester, about the year 350, containing numerous canons granting religious and temporal supremacy to the Bishop of Rome. 116 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. That these letters and records are false and forged has been perfectly established. They are all in the style of one man. They contain nothing, and speak of nothing, peculiar to the time when the assumed writers actually lived. Words not then in use abound in them, and the style is that of the Mid- dle Age. Writers are quoted in them who did not live till long afterwards; and laws are cited which had not then been passed. It is as if to refer to a case not unfrequent in our courts a man should produce a deed bearing date in 1815, and the paper should show the water-mark of 1840. It was such letters and records that Nicholas, said to have been the ablest Pope of the whole number, adopted and quoted. And these are by no means the only forgeries perpetrated by or for the papal hierarchy in the Dark Ages. Yet so ignorant and credulous were the people, and even the nobility, but few of whom could read, and so ready and implicit was their belief of whatever a pope or a bishop might say, that they were not detected till three or four hundred years afterwards. In the mean time they accomplished fully the purpose for which they were contrived. They strengthened, extended, and consoli- dated the power of the papacy. This power was raised nearly to its highest elevation by the famous Hildebrand, who, under the name of Gregory VII., occupied the papal chair from 1073 to 1085. Being by nature arrogant, endowed with indomitable will, and restrained by no regard for the rights of others, he stands conspicuous, if not pre-eminent, in the long line of Popes. His twenty-seven maxims, all magnifying the powers of his office, were adopted as guides by his successors. He demanded the submission of emperors and kings to his will. He summoned the Emperor of Germany to appear before him and justify his conduct. The Emperor deposed the Pope. The Pope deposed the Emperor, and added, I absolve all Christians from the oaths they have taken, or shall hereafter take, to him, and all persons are forbidden to render him services as a king. This kindled a civil war against the Emperor, who at length felt constrained to ask pardon of Hildebrand. He visited him for this purpose, was stopped in the court or ante-room, was stripped of his vestments, clothed in sackcloth, and there, in January, with 1866.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 117 naked feet, awaited the Popes reply. He was required to wait and fast three days before he could be permitted to kiss the Popes feet. This was too much. The Pope lost friends; the Emperor continued the war, sacked and took Rome; and there- upon the Italians elected another Pope. The death of Hilde- brand put an end to the personal conflict; but in the days of Innocent III., the maxims of Gregory, says Hallam, had been matured by more than a hundred years, and the right of trampling on the necks of kings had been received, at least among churchmen, as an inherent attribute of the papacy. Rome inspired during the thirteenth century, the noonday of papal dominion, the terrors of her ancient name. She was once more the mistress of the world, and kings were her vassals. It has been seen how gradually, and by what means, the Bishop of Rome, at first holding an office very nearly resem- bling that of a permanent moderator of a church or congrega- tion, an office incompatible with the duties of an apostle, who was sent to preach the Gospel to every creature, came to possess, after a succession of ages, a controlling author- ity over the rulers of nations. Its means were usurpations over, and concessions by, a people, at first pious and simple- hearted, afterwards, to an extreme degree, ignorant, credu- lous, and superstitious. It is now our purpose to show what were its distinguishing characteristics, and what its objects and principles of action. Its most distinguishing characteristic was its love of prece- dence and of power; in other words, of control over the ac- tions of men. This passion is natural to all, or to most men; but they differ in the mode of obtaining their object. The military hero strives to obtain it through fear of harm to the body, or of destruction to property. He points his sword at the breast, or aims his cannon at the city. The papal hierar- chy sought, and seeks, to obtain it through fear of mental or spiritual suffering in this world and in the world to conic. It frightens men by describing the torments of hell, and declares that the Church is the only way of salvation from these eter- nal torments, that all must endure them who do not adopt its creed, and place themselves under its jurisdiction. It incul 118 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. cates also the duty of frequent attendance on the ministrations of the Church, and teaches that the long neglect of this duty, without excuse or absolution, subjects one to the penalty of excommunication. This denunciation has a terrible power over Catholics who are believing Christians, as well as over those who are not; for this ecclesiastical process inflicts tem- poral as well as future punishment. It casts them out of the Church, deprives them of the right to participate in any of its ceremonies, or to enjoy any of its privileges, all of which are essential to salvation. It forbids every one to have inter~ course with them, to receive them into his house, or to eat at the same table; and when dead, it denies them the solemn rites of Christian burial. And the same punishment, modi- fied according to circumstances, is inflicted, not only for the commission of offences against the canons of the Church, but for disobedience of the orders of superiors. The constitution of the hierarchy is monarchical, despotic. It gives to its head vast powers, in ecclesiastical affairs un- limited. It has established a regular gradation of authority from the Pope to the lowest priest. It makes every officer but one a degraded instrument of another; it makes every one an arrogant controller of all below; and it is a trite and true re- mark, that the exercise of despotic power extinguishes the de- sire to promote the happiness or improvement of others. We call on history to describe to us the character of the Popes; to tell us which of them, and how many, have been distinguished for their enterprises of philanthropy; to tell us what they have done with the hundreds of millions snatched from the hand of labor wherever it could be reached; to tell us what care they haxe taken even of the patrimony of St. Peter,once the garden of the world, now swarming with beggars, infested with brigands, and reeking with licentiousness. The claim, always insisted on by the hierarchy, and almost always submitted to by the laity, except where forbidden by law, that all lands, devoted to religious or charitable uses, though purchased and paid for by the laity, shall be conveyed to, and held by, the bishop of the diocese, is one of the modes of increasing the power of the hierarchy and holding the peo- ple in subjection. It secures to the bishop the appointment of 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 119 the priest, and to the priest entire independence of those who pay him, however unfit or disagreeable he may be, and how- ever tyrannical and partial in the performance of his parochial services. By a speech delivered last winter in the legislature of New York, it appears that the provincial council of Cath- olic bishops in the United States, held at Baltimore in 1849, ordained that all churches, and all other ecclesiastical prop- erty, which have been acquired by donations, or the offerings of the faithful, for religious or charitable use, belong to the bishop of the diocese; unless it shall be made to appear, and be confirmed by writings, that it was granted to some religious order of monks, or to some congregation of priests, for their use. Most of the trustees holding such property thereupon, on demand of the bishops, conveyed it to them, amounting in value, including new purchases, in the ~single county of Erie, to more than one million of dollars. But one set of trustees out of a large number, those of the Church of St. Louis, at Buffalo, had the courage to stand firm against that which all knew impended over them, and the fear of which subdued the others, and refused, and persisted in refusing to do so, although the Pope despatched his nuncio, Bedini, to induce them to comply. For simply refusing, say they, in their petition to the legis- lature, to violate the trust law of our State, we have been subjected to the pains of excommunication, and our names held up to infamy and reproach. For this cause, too, have the entire congregation been placed under ban. To our members the holy rites of baptism and of burial have been denied. The marriage sacrament has been refused. The priest is for- bidden to minister at our altars. In sickness, and at the hour of death, the holy consolations of religion are withheld. To the Catholic Churchman, it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the magnitude of such deprivations. Surely the enforcement of this claim is not only a powerful restraint on the freedom of the mind, but an efficient hinderance to the worship of God according to the dictates of conscience. Although the most usual and the chosen mode by which the papal hierarchy seeks to obtain control over men is by acting on the mind or will, yet it does not, when it may seem expe- dient, hesitate to resort to violence, to the infliction of 120 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. extreme bodily suffering, and even death, in order to ac- complish its object. Of this truth, the persecution of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and the iluguenots, the dungeons and autos daf6 of the Inquisition, and the fires of Smithfield, bear witness. These may not have been intended so much for the punishment of heresy as for terror to others. History tells us, they had the usual effect of terror on minds not en- dued with heroic fortitude; and they may therefore be added to the list of means, wicked like the rest, employed to obtain control over the mind. Let it not be said, for it ought not to be said, in reply to these charges, that Protestants also, after having long been victims, have resorted to persecution, even to the stake. One iniquity cannot be set off against another; and the burning of tens is not to be used, even by way of retort, against the burning of thousands. The Pope, assisted by a council of bishops, claims the right, and it is of course conceded to him by most Catholics, to prescribe articles of faith, which every one must believe, or profess to believe, or suffer the penalty of eternal damnation. This right has been quite recently exercised. It never was, and never can be, exercised without doing immeasurable in- jury to man. It prohibits inquiry, checks improvement, pre- vents progress, benumbs the intellect. And if the article be erroneous, all the consequences of belief in error, which many hold to be terrible, must follow. If it be erroneous! exclaims the hierarchy; that cannot be, for the Pope, advised by a council, is infallible. We are not surprised that the hierarchy stoutly claims for its head the attribute of infallibil- ity. If not made in sincerity, it is unquestionably made with the hope and intent that it shall be believed. It is well known that, unless sustained by belief in this claim, the lofty super- structure must vanish. To admit that he is fallible, is equiva- lent to the admission that he has not, and never had, a divine commission, and is, of course, an arrant impostor. We shall not attempt to prove that he is fallible. The multiplicity of vows and oaths imposed by the hierar- chy, besides those for the faithful performance of official duties, are strong and permanent fences around the mind, confining it within limits over which it must not dare to pass, and pre 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. 121 venting it from developing or using its faculties. What progress can the mind make when the sphere of its activity is thus bounded? What progress did it make for the many cen- turies before Luther proclaimed freedom of thought, and the God-given, inalienable right of private judgment? Since then how inspiriting has been its activity, how rapid and glorious its progress, in all Protestant countries! How idle, stationary, stagnant, has it remained where the hierarchy has continued to bear sway! the one portion of the earths surface re- minding us of the powerful, ever-advancing Gulf-Stream, the other of the weedy, motionless Sargasso Sea. Another mode by which the hierarchy acquires control over the mind is through the rite of confession. The penitents, whether men or women, must disclose to the priest, in private, every sinful act or thought, every emotion, desire, or aversion, and must answer every question that the priest may think proper to ask. He thus acquires a knowledge, not only of all their sins, but of all their weaknesses and propensities. This knowledge gives him almost resistless power over the penitent, and if he is too pious and too pure to use it for his own pur- poses, he is bound to use it, whenever he may, for the benefit of the Church. It enables him to perceive the earliest approach to doubt, the earliest tendency to freedom of thought, and to apply the expedient corrective. Other evils, even shocking crimes, have arisen from the observance of this rite, especially since the priests were forbidden to marry, evils regretted, doubtless, by the hierarchy, but to be prevented only by sur- rendering that benefit to the Church which results from the confessional, and for which it was instituted. On the invention of printing, the hierarchy perceived that this wonderful art must become its most powerful antagonist. It furnished another avenue than preaching, of which it then had the monopoly, for access to the people; and the clergy trem- bled for their creed and their power. Under the pretence of preventing the spread of what they assumed to be heresy, they ordained that no book should be printed, or sold, or even kept, unless it had been examined and approved by an officer of the hierarchy, designated for the purpose, under pain of the greater excommunication and a fine. They also appointed a com- VOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 11 122 THE ROMISII HIERARCHY. [Jan. mittee, which has been since often renewed, to make a list of books deemed dangerous to be read, and ordained that this list, on being approved by the Pope, should be published, and that every person who should read any book contained in it should suffer the penalty of excommunication, in its greatest severity. They ordained, also, that no one should read the Sacred Scriptures, the supposed source of that faith which all Catholics are compelled to believe, unless expressly permitted by a bishop or priest, and that, if any one should read them or possess them without such permission, he should be incapa- ble of receiving absolution of his sins; and in some countries severe temporal punishment was also inflicted. The latest edition of this Index Librorum Prohibitorum which we have seen was printed in 1826, and contained, by estimation, the titles of more than seven thousand different works. They were certainly not all on sacred subjects, (we do not know that half of them were,) among them being Lord Bacon De Augmentis Scientiarum, Lockes Essay on the Human Understanding, Grotius On the Law of War and Peace, Miltons Paradise Lost, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, and many historical works. We need not, we are sure, expatiate at large on the injury to the human mind which must result from withholding from it so much of its appropriate aliment, and from depriving it of the opportunity of exercising its noblest faculty, reason, which God gave to be used in deciding between conflicting doc- trines, not only in religion, but in morals and science. It takes from man all merit in belief, even if the doctrine which he is obliged to believe is true; it checks all ambition of self- improvement; it chills all ennobling aspirations; and, by paralyzing the mental, leayes without restraint or guide the bodily faculties. Truly and forcibly does Macaulay say, when speaking of Rome To stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in knowl- edge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under 1856.] THE ROMISII HIERARCHY. 123 her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation; the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural dis- advantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent around them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. It is often said that the papal hierarchy has modified and modernized its creed, and renounced some at least of the most obnoxious powers which it once exercised. We have no evidence of this. No pope, nor council, nor bishop, has ever confirmed the statement, or acknowledged it to be true; and the admission or assertion of any individual, or any num- ber of individuals, is not to be received as evidence, unless delivered ex cathedra, and authenticated by the seal of the fishermans ring. That such a renunciation ever has been, or ever will be made, by any one competent to make it, is incredible; for it would amount to a disclaimer of the Popes infallibility, thus demolishing the only foundation on which his authority rests. Is not the power of excommunication, that terrible engine of punishment, still claimed and exercised? Within a year it has poured misery into the bosoms of hundreds in the State of New York. On every Maundy Thursday was read till recently at Rome, in the presence of the Pope, the Bull In carna Domini, containing excommunications and anathemas of all 124 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. heretics, and of all persons who disturb or oppose the juris- diction of the holy see; and after the reading, the Pope threw a burning torch in the public place to denote the thunder of his anathema. In 1809, the Pope excommunicated the Em- peror Napoleon, and virtually, if not expressly, absolved all his subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Did he not, in 1794, condemn and reprobate the acts of the ex parte Council of Pistoia, which approved a previous declaration of the French clergy, that the Pope had not the power to de- pose kings, nor to absolve subjects from their oaths of alle- giance, thus, by necessary implication, claiming this power; and later, in 1851, anathematize a book written in Peru, to refute the doctrine that he who governs in spiritual things, governs also in temporal? And even later, in July last, the government of Sardinia having passed a law, as the Pope re- cites, to suppress almost all the monastic and religious com- munities, the collegiate churches, & c., and to hand over their revenues and property to the freq disposition of the civil pow- er, he declared this law to be null and void, and excomn- municated the king and parliament which passed it. More- over, the government of Spain having, as the Pope again recites, in the same month of July, passed a law ordaining the sale of church property, and issued various decrees for- bidding bishops to confer holy orders, & c., he, in virtue of our [hisj apostolic authority, abrogated and declared null and void the law and decrees aforesaid. Though the papal hierarchy has renounced none of its pre- tensions, a great change has taken place in many parts of the Christian world; and this change has doubtless proved a restraint on its conduct. It has exercised less frequently the powers which it once exercised often. Its thunder has not been so frequent nor so loud. Well remembering that its power has had alternate periods of decline and restoration, it waits, and waits patiently, taking care not to excite alarm, for the time when the thunder of the Vatican shall be again efficient, not only to terrify the ignorant and credulous, but to rally under its banner the selfish, ambitious, and sceptical. That it is a political, as well as a religious party, its whole career gives manifest and forcible testimony. 1856.1 TIlE ROMISII HIERARCHY. 125 We make no charge against the Romish religion, nor do we feel the slightest hostility towards its professors as such. We have the same regard for our neighbor who believes in transubstantiation, in purgatory, in the invocation of saints, in the immaculate conception of Mary, as for him whose be- lief is identical with ours. We do not know nor think that so believing, if his belief is sincere, makes him less honest, less benevolent, less patriotic. But not ranking among re- ligious tenets the belief that any man, or body of men, has a perfect right to interpret to us the will of God, and to insist that such interpretation is imperative, we do feel, we confess, and have long felt, hostility to the papal hierarchy. This feeling is justified and confirmed by facts of which all history is full, and by results which are continually made manifest. We are confident that it does not arise from religious preju- dice. It has a moral rather than a religious, a political rather than a moral origin, using the word political in its primitive and best meaning. We are sure that the claims of the papal hierarchy are inconsistent with political liberty, with self-government, with free institutions, with intellectual prog- ress, and with the elevation of the human race. We reject its arrogant assumption, that the Romish Church is the only true church; and its teaching, that all are doomed to eternal perdition who stand without its pale. We deny its right to found a claim to precedence on any doctrine or custom of the early Christians. On the contrary, we find in authentic his- tory conclusive proof that this claim is founded only on usur- pation over ignorance and credulity, at a time when the whole world was in eclipse; and we charge it with taking supersti- tion to its aid, and using all the power and influence which, by any means whatever, it has acquired, not to enlighten the mind, but to thicken and prolong intellectual darkness, in order to exercise its sway the more easily and despot- ically. We do not deny to the members of the hierarchy the possession of the common attributes of humanity, the best of them ; but these are turned from their appropriate function by the delusive doctrine (we think we should be pardoned for using a harsher term) of Jesuitism, that acts which would otherwise be wicked become praiseworthy and 11 126 THE ROMISH HIERARCHY. [Jan. holy, pious frauds, if performed for the benefit of the Church. We do not ask that the law shall make any dis- tinction between the Romanist and the Protestant; we insist that both shall be allowed to enjoy equal and complete re- ligious liberty; and we trust that the State governments will not permit any man, or any class of men, belonging to the clerical profession, to possess any such power over property intended for religious or charitable uses, as may enable him or them to exercise the slightest authority over others in re- ligious ceremonials, or in the worship of God. We do not hesitate to call the attention of the friends of freedom, as well as of theologians, to the work of Dr. Beecher. He has gathered, and given to the public, a multitude of facts in relation to the exercise of powers, temporal as well as ecclesiastical, by the Pope, showing his claim to be the appointed vicar-general of our Saviour on earth; has expa- tiated on the intolerance, immorality, and impiety of the priesthood; and charges the IRomish Corporation, as he styles what is usually called the Roman Catholic Church, with having formed and matured a conspiracy to restore and an- nex America to the papal see. From the vigor of his attacks and the severity of his censures, sometimes transgressing the bounds of temperate discussion, we perceive that he heartily despises that coward cant of candor, which betrays a fear of blame for saying aught against any religious sect, even if the purpose and effect of saying it should be to secure to all men the right to worship God according to the dictates of con- science. We think there can be no question that the papal hierarchy intends, expects, and is acting with a set purpose, to obtain a firm foothold, and ultimately, at some period near or remote, a predominance in these United States. In this it is but act- ing in compliance with a necessity imposed by its constitution and creed. Its functionaries have always been propagandists, and would be obviously false to the belief they profess,that there is no salvation out of the pale of their Church,if they should cease to be so. They are but using instruments con- trived and furnished for that purpose, and embracing oppor- tunities auspicious for its accomplishment. Was it not for 1856.] THE ROMISH HIERAROHY. 127 this purpose principally that the Pope, forty years ago, revived the order of the Jesuits, an order once rejected by all Europe, and now distrusted and abhorred in many parts of it? What means the constant influx of members of this order into these States? What inference must be drawn from the multiplica- tion of Jesuit colleges and seminaries of education, in which nothing is taught tending to impart independence and vigor to the mind? And is not all reasonable doubt removed by the boasts, occasionally uttered by organs of the hierarchy, to what deoree accredited organs we pretend not to know, that b the time will assuredly come when this country, which once belonged to the Pope, will be again subjected to his control? We are not surprised that these confident boasts, and the inauspicious signs which constantly force themselves on our attention, have produced alarm. We know that an inordinate thirst for power ha~ ever kept the hierarchy restless and active; and that, in resorting to modes and means for that end, its members are not restrained by any conscientious scruples, be- lieving that whatever maybe done forthe benefit of their Church, the holy and only true Church, is permitted, if not commanded. They find here subjects to operate on, and agents to work with, well adapted to insure success, if success is possible. There is not among us, it is true, so much of ignorance, credulity, and superstition as prevailed in Europe in the Dark Ages; but more exists than is generally supposed, and the comparative amount is constantly increasing. The delegated leaders have, and will continue to have, for efficient aids and instruments, purely selfish ambition, and zealous, infuriated party spirit, reckless of aught save present success. They cannot have forgotten the lessons of their own experience, and as, in the ages of barbarism, on every occasion of aiding a rival claimant to a throne, they advanced a step in their long ascent to supreme power, so here and now they may offer such aid to one of many aspirants to a position much more elevated, de- manding and receiving a similar reward. The past history of the republic gives us no assurance of absolute safety; and we do not therefore feel inclined to ridicule all apprehensions of danger. We rather welcome and cherish them as indications that the love of civil and religious liberty is still fresh in the 128 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jail. hearts of many among us, and that there are sentinels on our watch-towers who will not cease to warn us against that apa- thetic confidence of safety which invites danger. It must be a comforting reflection to those who have no fear of the ultimate predominance of the papal hierarchy in this country, and regret what they consider unfounded accu- sations, that all the efforts which could properly be made to prevent that predominance are appropriate and even neces- sary efforts to avert the lesser evil, and yet a great evil, of such increase of this power as would perpetuate as they are, and multiply among us, a numerous population, whose intellectual faculties would be cabined, cribbed, confined, whose vo- litions would not be their own, whose conduct would be guided by a single will, whenever that will should determine to guide it,. and who, stationary themselves, would, instead of aiding, retard the upward progress of man, and the onward progress of the republic. ART. VI. Der Jctkobiner Kiub. Em Beitrag zur Geschichte der Parteien und der politisehen Sitten im Revolutions- Zeit- alter, von J. W. ZINKEJSEN. Berlin: Erster Theil. 1852. Zweiter Theil. 1853. [The Jacobin Club. A Contribution to the History of Parties and Political Morals during the Revolutionary Period, by J. W. Zinkeisen. 2 vols.J IT required all the industry and research for which the Ger- mans are proverbial, to prepare this most valuable contribution to historical literature. The work is thorough and accurate, and its author is obviously a complete master of his subject, to which he has devoted years of labor in collecting and di- gesting the mass of memoirs, journals, and fly-sheets, in which the history of the Jacobin Club is, of necessity, principally to be found. He seems, indeed, to have sought information in every possible quarter, occasionally drawing a few items even from American sources, and once, at least, from the reports of the insane asylums of Paris, to which retreats, indeed, some

128 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jail. hearts of many among us, and that there are sentinels on our watch-towers who will not cease to warn us against that apa- thetic confidence of safety which invites danger. It must be a comforting reflection to those who have no fear of the ultimate predominance of the papal hierarchy in this country, and regret what they consider unfounded accu- sations, that all the efforts which could properly be made to prevent that predominance are appropriate and even neces- sary efforts to avert the lesser evil, and yet a great evil, of such increase of this power as would perpetuate as they are, and multiply among us, a numerous population, whose intellectual faculties would be cabined, cribbed, confined, whose vo- litions would not be their own, whose conduct would be guided by a single will, whenever that will should determine to guide it,. and who, stationary themselves, would, instead of aiding, retard the upward progress of man, and the onward progress of the republic. ART. VI. Der Jctkobiner Kiub. Em Beitrag zur Geschichte der Parteien und der politisehen Sitten im Revolutions- Zeit- alter, von J. W. ZINKEJSEN. Berlin: Erster Theil. 1852. Zweiter Theil. 1853. [The Jacobin Club. A Contribution to the History of Parties and Political Morals during the Revolutionary Period, by J. W. Zinkeisen. 2 vols.J IT required all the industry and research for which the Ger- mans are proverbial, to prepare this most valuable contribution to historical literature. The work is thorough and accurate, and its author is obviously a complete master of his subject, to which he has devoted years of labor in collecting and di- gesting the mass of memoirs, journals, and fly-sheets, in which the history of the Jacobin Club is, of necessity, principally to be found. He seems, indeed, to have sought information in every possible quarter, occasionally drawing a few items even from American sources, and once, at least, from the reports of the insane asylums of Paris, to which retreats, indeed, some 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 129 of his personages might sooner have found their way to the advantage of France and the world. Mr. Zinkeisen is by no means unknown in the rich historical literature of Germany. He has, if we mistake not, made more than one valuable con- tribution to it; but the only other work of his which we can claim to have examined is his History of the Turkish Empire in Europe, of which but two volumes have as yet appeared. It forms a portion of the valuable series of histories of Euro- pean countries, known, from the names of its original editors, as the Heeren and Ukert series. Mr. Zinkeisens work upon Turkey is not so voluminous nor so documentary as the great work of Von Hammer, nor is it likely to procure him so sub- stantial a triple reward in titles, fame, and money; but it will probably be read by twenty persons where that is by one. We could praise the typographical appearance of the His- tory of the Jacobin Club, were we not sorry to perceive that Mr. Zinkeisen has so far enrolled himself among the disciples of the brothers Grimm the Noah Websters of Germany as to print his book in Roman letters, abandoning the familiar Germanic characters. The arguments may all be in favor of the Roman letters. Perhaps the German letters never ought to have existed; but they have existed, it is under their guise that we have become acquainted with the works of the poets, philosophers, and historians of Germany, and we therefore see with sorrow any attempt to cast aside these old servants, rather these old friends, who have been so faithful to us. It may be mere fancy or habit, but we seem to see in the very forms of the German letters something characteristic of the noble lan- guage of the Fatherland. But perhaps, instead of com- plaining, we ought to be grateful that our author has stopped where he has; that he has not, with the Grimms, in their desire to introduce a literal republic of letters deprived his sub- stantives of their familiar capitals, nor dropped out an h here and slipped it in there, in obedience to some newly discovered rule that it does no good in the one place and will do some in the other, or that its insertion or omission was originally a fla- grant violation of the analogies of the language, which we believe is the phrase of progressive lexicographers. Did we hope that the suggestion would be heeded, we would, more- 130 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. over, venture a protest against the practice which Mr. Zin- keisen has perhaps rightly followed, as it is almost universal in Germany, and which is becoming very common in Eng- land and America, that of publishing the volumes of historical works at different, and often widely separated periods. But we fear that the direct and obvious advantages which this course possesses will so far combine with fashion as to over- power the still greater, though less apparent, advantages of the other course, so that our protest would be of little avail; and we will therefore, with a word or two about Mr. Zinkeisens style, pass to the real object of this paper, a sketch of the in- terior history of the Jacobin Club. The style seems to us, on the whole, clear and concise. There is, indeed, occasionally a confused sentence, or a strained metaphor, or an expression which in point of grammar bids defiance to all the rules of our Ollendorif (as Vol. II. p. 511); but when we compare it with the complex style of some of his countrymen, Neander for ex- ample, we see abundant cause to be grateful. There might perhaps be good ground for accusing our author of wandering from his subject, as for instance in much that is said of Mira- beau, but he defends that great man so successfully from the charges which have been ignorantly brought against him, that we forgive this digression at least, and, as we propose to follow him in others, criticism would hardly be appropriate. It is, no doubt, an essential characteristic of the human mind that leads men to seek strength in association, and the fate and activity of the Jacobin Club certainly present the most remarkable and momentous episode in the history of this spirit of association. It is at once the history of the entire club system, as it developed itself at the time of the first French Revolution, and forms therefore a most important con- tribution to the history of parties and political customs during the Revolution. For, while, on the one side, the ever bolder stand taken by the Jacobin Club led to the formation of all the more important unions of this sort, which, starting from various points of view, fancied they could withstand its bound- less activity, on the other hand, the club system and the level- ling spirit which animated it penetrated, with that as its model and under its power, through all classes of society, into the 1856.1 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 131 most trifling relations, to the very vital nerve of the whole nation, in a manner that could not fail to raise it to a power to which in its way the history of the world can show no parallel. lVlr. Zinkeisen divides the history of this too famous Club into six principal periods, which mark sufficiently its decisive eras. They are, 1. The history of the Club Breton from its origin at Versailles to its removal to Paris in consequence of the events of October 5th and 6th, 1789, and the removal thither of the Assembly; 2. Its transformation into the Club of the Friends of the Constitution in the Jacobin Convent at Paris (Soci6t6 des Amis de let Constitution s6ante aux .Jacobins ci Paris), and its contest with the moderate constitutional prin- ciple of the Revolution, till the separation of the Feuillans from it in July, 1791; 3. The continued contest between the Jaco- bins and the Feuillans, and the decisive victory of the former, down to the September days in 1792; 4. The contest of the Jacobins and Girondists, and the defeat of the latter, down to the end of October, 1793; 5. The Jacobin Club during the Reign of Terror down to the Ninth Thermidor, or July 27, 1794; and 6. The decline of Jacobinism, and the final closing of the Club, on November 11, 1794, with the subsequent attempts at its revival. We do not propose to present here even a sketch of the contents of the two capacious volumes before us, which contain indeed a history of the French Revolution from a new and original point of view, but rather to confine ourselves to an account of the Club itself and its mode of organization, to what may be called its inner history, touching but briefly upon its outward activity, its contests and victories, which are to be found detailed at greater or less length in every history of the period. We are moved to attempt this by the surpris- ing fact that, much as has been written of the Jacobins and Jacobinism, we have nowhere in the English language found anything approaching to a complete account of the organiza- tion of the Club, and what is contained in most of our histories upon the subject abounds in egregious errors, so numerous that the matter had better been left untouched. Still, we cannot point out these errors in detail, from want of space; but our own description, which, with Mr. Zinkeisens assistance, we 132 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. trust will be found correct, will enable any one curious in the matter to discover them. The wide diffusion and general cor- rectness of Alisons History of Europe must however be our excuse for referring to some of the errors into which its author has fallen. Our author traces the origin of the French Clubs back to the Committees of our own Revolution, which were copied by the French nobility, among whom the diffusion of liberal principles in politics became at one time a sort of mania. But the first society which took the name of a club arose at Paris in 1782, and owed its origin to a trivial occurrence. The Duke of Orleans, then Duke of Chartres, cut down most of the trees in the Palais Royal in order to make room for shops, so that a crowd of idlers, who had been accustomed to meet beneath them, were driven to seek another place of meeting, and found it in certain rooms of the same Palais Royal, where the police allowed them to assemble on the express condition that they should not discuss politics nor religion. Thus was founded the Club Politique, as it was named, lucus a non lucendo. It soon led, both in Paris and in the provinces, to numerous similar associations, which, however, did not always observe the order not to discuss politics; and among others we find mention made in 1785 of a Club des Arn6ricains, whose members called themselves puristes lib6raux. These clubs, however, were strictly confined to the upper classes, and were in many respects not unlike the English clubs of the present day. On the meeting of the Etats G6n6raux at Versailles, the deputies from Brittany, influenced probably by the peculiar condition of that province, formed the Club Breton, which was destined to become the world-renowned Jacobin Club, and to exercise for some years an almost unlimited despotism over France.* The first idea of the Club Breton proceeded from * Alisons statement (I. 474), that it had its meetings in Paris, and embraced all the decided democrats both in and out of the Assembly, is, therefore, as applied to the period of which he is speaking, incorrect in both particulars. He in~ed contra- dicts himself; for on a subsequent page (II. 9) he says: The Club Breton, which, as already noticed, contained the extreme Revolutionary characters, hitherto, however, confined to members of the States- General, followed the Assembly from Versailles, & c. We are also disposed to doubt his assertion on the point first referred to, that little is known of its designs, because all its members were bound by a solemn oath to 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 133 no less a personage then Mirabeau, but its founder was Cha- pelier, a young advocate from Rennes, at whose instance the forty-four deputies from Brittany opened their Club in rooms at No. 36 Avenue St. Cloud, at Versailles, during the month of May, 1789. Its original object was merely the preliminary discussion of the questions which from time to time arose in the States-General, and the advantages of this course, as at once manifested in the correct information and sound judg- ment of the Breton deputies in that body, soon led to a desire among the deputies of other provinces to join in its delibera- tions, which was readily allowed, without any formalities. Among its members who afterwards became prominent were the Abb6 Si~yes, the brothers Lameth, Barnave, Robespierre, and others. As early as June 22, it contained as many as one hundred and fifty members, but from that time till its removal to Paris there are no data for determining their number, though it was largely increased. Soon, a certain formality began to be observed at its meetings, but for a considerable time no rec- ords were kept. The prevailing sentiment of the Club was originally by no means hostile to the king, though it soon be- came so in some degree, after a proffer of its services had been rejected by the ministers. What the result would have been had the government acted differently in this respect it is im- possible to tell; but who, says our author, could have then imagined, that out of this society of a few deputies of the third estate a power would gradually arise which would finally dare, under the shield of certain principles, to insult and bid defiance to all the powers of the state, the throne, the Na- tional Assembly, the armed forces and public opinion, a power which in its unlimited development could only lead to ruin and political madness? Repulsed, ridiculed, and mis- represented by the court, the Club Breton began to assume a decided position, to open a correspondence with the provinces, and, in Brittany at least, to encourage the formation of similar associations, in which we may detect the first traces of that grand system of affiliated societies, which constituted the divulge none of its proceedings. If such an oath was ever taken, it was never ob- served; for we do not find that there is the least obscurity hanging over the designs of the Club Breton. vOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 12. 134 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. great source of the power of the Jacobin Club. The Club Breton, however, adhered in general to its original object of the preliminary discussion of important questions, though it sometimes originated measures, as the abolition of feudal rights, decreed August 4, 1789, and its influence extended itself more and more, though, as its meetings were not public, its proceedings were not published, and its members were ex- clusively deputies, it did not come into contact with the people, and its influence with them was therefore very limited. On October 19, 1789, the Assembly transferred its sessions to Paris, and the Club Breton naturally followed its example, procuring a place of meeting near that of the Assembly, which was at what is now the corner of the Rue Castiglione and the Rue de Rivoli, in the convent of the Jacobins in the Rue St. Honor6, whence it afterwards received and adopt- ed the name of the Jacobin Club. Two hundred francs a year were paid as rent for the dining~room,* and an equal sum pro- vided the requisite furniture, which at first consisted only of some second-hand chairs and some cheap tables for the officers. The meetings were at once commenced, but seem not to have been very numerously attended; for the radical tendencies, as they were then considered, of some of the members had alarmed the more moderate ones, so that on the first day only about a hundred were present; but that number was doubled on the second day. Officers were elected, and the rules of the Assembly were, on recommendation of a committee, adopted for the guidance of the Club. As it had ceased to be com- posed exclusively of deputies from a single province, it was natural that its original name of Club Breton should no longer be considered appropriate, and with a good deal of sagacity they selected the attractive name of Soci6t~ des Amis de la Constitution; for the names of Jacobins and Jacobin Club date from a later period, and, like so many other party names, are said to have been first derisively applied by their oppo- nents, though they seem to have been readily adopted by the members, and were in general use as early as the beginning of * It was not the library, as Alison (II. 9) asserts. That was afterwards used for a short time, when the Club had outgrown the room first occupied, as we shall presently see. 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 135 the year 1790. The other was, however, retained as the offi- cial name till a much later period, namely, till September 21, 1792, when the Jacobins, having ceased to pretend to care for the constitution, thought proper to change the name to Soci6t6 des .Jacobins, Amis de lEgalit6 et de la Libert6. As in the Club Breton, deputies alone could at first be members; but soon, in order to increase the intellectual power and influence of the society, political writers who had distinguished them- selves by their useful works were admitted, though the num- ber of these was limited to two hundred, who must be resi- dents of Paris; and such was the care pursued in the selection, that it was two months before the number was complete. The time had not come, as Bertrand de Moleville remarks, when the only question put was, What hast thou done to deserve to be hung?~~ * On the contrary, a committee of twelve was appointed, (comit6 de pr6sentation,) which met every Thursday to examine the claims of members proposed and the papers of those newly elected. It was to the same committee that at a later period the examination of the cre- dentials of the delegates from the affiliated societies was in- trusted. The Duke of Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe, was elected a member of this committee on November 3, 1790. The election of members of the Club took place at first on nomination by two members, but afterwards, in the case of those not deputies, five and six were required, who guaranteed the political and moral character of the candidate, and then, if the committee found nothing against him, he was ballotted for by the Club.-j- All nominations xvere in writing, and * Nor did this time ever come. Bertrand de Moleville, like many other authors, misrepresents this matter by snppressing the qualifying clause. The whole phrase was, What hast thou done to be hung if the reaction should triumph (si la contre- r6volution atrivait)? But even in this form it was only a casual expression used by an enrage, Dubois Cranc~, in the Jacobin Club, December 28, 1793, and it never was a question authoritatively put to new members. Alison (II. 131) gives the whole expression, but falls into the error of supposing that it was really one of the questions put to applicants for admission. Alisons statement (II. 9), that from this time [the removal to Paris] admission was given to all persons who were recommended by two members of the society as fit to belong to it, is therefore not correct. As little so is the passage (p. 131), Never was a man of honor seldom a man of virtue admitted within the so- 136 HISTORY OF THE JACOBI~T CLUB. [Jan. signed by at least one member of the committee. The names of those nominated remained during two meetings posted on a list, with the names of those proposing them. A person once rejected could not ordinarily be proposed again within a month. Any member proved to have expressed either orally or in writing, or by his daily actions to have exhibited, opinions in conflict with the constitution or the rights of man, in a word, with the spirit of the society, might be called to account by the president, or expelled by a majority of votes. Members not visiting the Club for a month could be expelled, unless a good reason was given for their absence. Twenty-one years was the age at which a person could be eligible, and when Louis Philippe (we use his later name) proposed to reduce this age to eighteen, avowing that his object was to render his younger brother, the IDuc de Montpensier, eligible, it was con- sidered better to make an exception to the rule than to alter it, an exception justified, it was urged, by the excellence of the Dukes education. Such were the general rules concern- ing members and their admission, but at various periods in the history of the Club they seem to have been slightly varied. The number of deputies who became members soon in- creased to four hundred, and, after the number of two hundred non-deputies had been filled up, so much opposition was manifested to the limitation that it was removed, and others than authors were admitted, though the preference seems still to have been given to the latter. But in this way the Club soon outgrew its room, and removed, first into the library, and afterwards into the church, of the Jacobins, which latter was elegantly fitted up for its meetings, and was occupied by it till its final dissolution. This room or hall formed a rather long quadrangle, on all sides of which the seats for the members and for those on whom the honor of the sitting was bestowed, rose like an amphitheatre. At the middle of one of the longer sides was the orators tribune, while opposite to it were the secretaries desks, and above them that of the president, both ciety; it had an innate horror of every one who was not attached to its fortunes by the hellish bond of committed wickedness. A robber, an assassin, was certain of admission, as sure as the victim of their violence was of rejection. He speaks in a similar manner on p. 58. 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 137 mere plain tables. On the right of the president, and obliquely opposite to the tribune, was the reporters place, while behind the president was a sort of altar of black marble of considera- ble size, which had originally been a Gothic monument. On the lower and middle part of this were the rights of ~ inscribed on a richly ornamented tablet, around which were for we are anticipating in point of time, and speak of 1792 pictures representing the principal events of the Revolution. Upon the altar were the busts of Brutus, Rousseau, Helve- tins, Mirabeau, Franklin, and others, while over it hung three standards of freedom around a bundle of pikes, from which one pike projected, and bore, for some time at least, the red cap, the symbol of liberty. In April, 1792, the chains of some muti- nous soldiers, who had been condemned to the galleys and after- wards freed in triumph by a sort of insurrection, were hung in festoons around the walls, as a peculiar ornament. At each end of the room were two very large galleries for spectators, one over the other, the lower one being intended for women and the upper for men. On the front of these galleries was the motto of the Club, Vivre libre oz~ mourier. The hall was always brilliantly lighted,* and it never was the case that the members were dirty, tattered persons. The members were always well dressed, and Robespierre is spoken of as main- taining a striking elegance in his attire at the meetings of the Club, for which he was accustomed to prepare himself with as much care as a lady for a ball. t The rabble never were members of the Jacobin Club itself. They found places of meeting in numerous societies patronized and countenanced, it * As usual when speaking of the Jacobin Club, Alison is incorrect in saying (II. 131) that a few lamps only lighted the vast extent of the room, and (II. 536) night and day they sat debating in their vast and gloomy hall. t Alison is again wrong in asserting (II. 131) that the members appeared for the most part in shabby attire, and the two following passages from the same and the preceding pages are better rhetoric than history: Numbers of bats at night flitted through the vast and gloomy vaults, and by their screams augmented the din of the meeting. Such was the strife of contending voices, that muskets were dis- charged at intervals to produce a temporary cessation of the tumult. C!) In this den of darkness were prepared the bloody lists of proscription and massacre; the meetings were opened with revolutionary songs, and ahouts of applause followed each addition to the list of murder, each account of its perpetration by the affiliated societies. 12* 138 HISTORY OF THE JAGOBIN CLUB. [Jan. is true, by the Jacobin Club, and some of them meeting in the same building, but never having any recognized official con- nection with it.* We may add, though Mr. Zinkeisen nowhere expressly mentions it, that the members of the Jacobin Club usually sat with their hats on, but spoke always with uncov- ered heads. The ordinary meetings were held four times a week, (though at one time they seem to have been held every day that the Assembly did not sit, except Sundays and feast days,) from six oclock till ten in the evening; but extraordi- nary meetings were sometimes convened, and at times the Club declared itself en permanence, and sat through day and night. Every meeting was opened by the reading of the jour- nal of the preceding one. The ordinary mode of voting was by rising and sitting. The officers were all members of the Club, serving without pay, and elected at regular intervals, the president being chosen at first once a month, but after- wards every fortnight. In the absence of the president, the last of his predecessors who was present seems to have taken his place. One of the most important offices was that of the four censors (censeurs) or ushers, who took seats near the four secretaries, and who seem to have discharged the various func- tions of the sergeant-at-arms, door-keepers, and pages of the legislative bodies of this country; for we find that it was their duty to care for the order and inner police of the room, to carry to the president or secretaries anything that the members desired to send, and to receive at the door the cards of adinis- sion of the members and others; for as long as the meetings were not public, a limited number of persons were admitted by tickets issued for the purpose. The censors, moreover, took care that during the meeting every member wore his ticket in his button-hole as a distinguishing mark. These tickets bore the members names, and were not transferable, the viola- tion of this rule being punished by expulsion, which, Louis Philippe records, was once inflicted while he was censor. * These societies for the populace, the Socie~te~s Fraternelles and Socidt6 de~ Deux Sexes, were first established towards the close of 1790. They admitted every one, men, women, and even children of twelve years of age. No fees were paid, but every member in turn was obliged to bring a tallow candle for the presidents table. They met ordinarily on Sunday and Tuesday evenings. 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 139 The expenses of the Club for rent, light, correspondence, & c. were considerable, and continually on the increase. Every member, therefore, paid 36 livres (about $7.20) a year, but how small a portion of the actual expenses this sum would meet may be inferred from the fact, that in 1791 the disburse- ments were 47,000 livres for printing, and 40,000 for postage. The precise number of members in that year does not appear, but in the first half of the year 1792 the average number of members was 3,500, who would therefore have paid 126,000 livres, a sum which could by no means have sufficed for the ordinary and obvious expenses of the Club, and, moreover, by that time the secret expenses had grown to be quite large. There was for a considerable period great difficulty in ascer- taining from what source the Jacobins drew the money to supply this deficiency. For a time they may have obtained something from the Orleanist party, but that resource must have soon ceased, and there were few, if any, members able and willing to devote their own private property to the pro- motion of the objects of the Club. Indeed, at one time the want of money is said by one of their number, who afterwards became their bitter opponent, to-have been so great, that they readily admitted new members for the sake of their fees; and it is certain that the very existence of the Club was for a sea- son endangered, because the ground on which their hall was situated was judicially ordered to be brought to the hammer, in consequence of the inability on the part of the person who, in the interest of the Club, had bought it, to meet his pay- ments. This was at once cunningly declared to be a trick of the ministers to destroy the Club, and an appeal to the patriot- ism and purses of its members and friends produced, in a short time, 700,000 francs, which relieved it from its troubles. Still, such an expedient could not be renewed. Contributions were at first taken up at every meeting, but their product was so small that the practice was finally continued only in order to conceal the true source of the money which was at times so freely spent. There seems now to be no doubt that this money was derived from counterfeit assig~nats, made in the prisons of Paris, and put into circulation by the followers of the Club. So well known was this to some persons, that 140 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. Delangle, one of the Commissioners of the Sections, in a report presented to the ministers could say: I offer to prove that 50,000 francs of counterfeit assignats are made daily in the prisons of Paris. I will give the rooms and the number, and I willpoint out the straw beds, the walls, the floors, in and beneath which they may be found. I will also prove that the false assignats which are seized are, instead of being burned, immediately put into circulation again. In the prison of La Force alone several millions of francs of these false assignats were made in six months, and sold at a low price to those who circulated them; and the ministers, though well aware of this state of things, had not the courage to put a stop to it, not even though, after the bloody days of September, 1792, all the instruments necessary for counterfeiting were discovered and seized. They merely contented themselves with one or two arrests. Could anything better show the timidity and powerlessness of the government, or the corruption and auda- city of the Jacobins? As for the relations of the public to the Club, the people were at first entirely shut out from all participation in its pro- ceedings, because its meetings were not open, and only a small number could be daily admitted by the cards of admis- sion already referred to.* This naturally caused considerable dissatisfaction both within and without the Club; but though the place for spectators had probably been enlarged during the short time that the Club occupied the library, it was not till they removed to the church that a preparation in any respect adequate was made for the public. The galleries there would contain 1,500 persons, and were constantly crowded; being often filled four hours before the meeting opened. They soon became the meeting-place of large numbers of the lower class- es, who were ready to serve any one who could work upon the senses or the imaginations of the masses by good money or poor rhetoric. Both in the Assembly and in the Jacobin Club the galleries were an important, and not seldom a deci- sive, element in the strife of contending parties, granting or withholding their applause as it was made for their interest * They were not, and could not be, as Alison asserts (II. 9), freely given to all persons of known republican principlcs. 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 141 to do, so that vast sums of money were spent, especially by the court, in seeking to win their favor. But they ever con- stituted a most fickle, unreliable body, dangerous alike to their opponents and to those who attempted to control them. The galleries assigned to the women in the Jacobin Club had a peculiar interest and influence. Here could generally be seen in the front ranks the heroines of the Ilalles and the public squares, who had won their first blood-stained laurels at Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October, and who, since that terrible triumph of moral degradation, had raised them- selves to a real revolutionary power, which became the more difficult to control the more people coquetted with it and at- tempted to use it for their own purposes. Among these heroines there always appeared in the front rank that pea- sant-girl from Li~ge, with her already somewhat faded charms, whom the storm of the Revolution had suddenly transformed into an Amazon and heroine of virtue. Anna Joseph Th6- roigne, or, as she was commonly called, Th6roigne de M~ricourt, la Belle Li6goise, was of a family of opulent cultivators, and was born at M6ricourt, near Li~ge, in 1759, so that she was no longer young when she came to Paris in 1789. 11cr remarkable beauty had at an early age attracted the notice of a young nobleman of the vicinity, by whom she was seduced and abandoned. Forced from her quiet home into the great world, she went first to England, where her personal charms gained for her a luxurious, though not very reputable, support from some members of the nobility; but shortly before the breaking out of the Revolution she came to Paris, and there formed influential connections with many distinguished merri- bers of the National Assembly, and others, chiefly, it is said, through letters of introduction from the Duke of Orleans, whom she had met at the house of the Prince of Wales. Mirabean, who was never proof against the lure of female beauty, was attracted by her for a time, but the Abb6 Si~yes was her particular divinity, and it was to his talents and virtues that she publicly offered her homage. Ch6nier, the younger of the poet brothers, P6tion, and others, were also her friends, and they soon wrought her up to a state of the greatest exaltation, filling her head with republican platitudes. 142 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. Erelong her ardent mind seems to have become tired of the routine of sensual pleasures, and she threw herself without reserve into the storms and passions of the Revolution. Sud- denly she became a model of republican virtue; and, as Beaulieu expresses it, the most innocent gallantry makes her frown, and the voluptuous Cyprian is suddenly metamor- phosed into a grave and severe Minerva. Soon she was seen in every public place, dressed in Amazon costume, selected not without some traces of female coquetry. She wore a short cloth coat, a hat and feather ~ let Henri Quatre, a sword at her side, and two pistols in her girdle, and carried in her hand a riding-whip, on which was said to be though this was, probably, only a slander of her enemiesa smelling-bottle pour neutraliser lodeur du peuple. Her peculiar dress and manner struck the common people, and gave her at once a great influence over them, so that wherever she appeared she was most enthusiastically received, and treated as a being from a higher sphere. She was personally courageous in the extreme, and understood how to work upon the imagination of the populace by a sort of natural eloquence, which she gar- nished with a variety of political catchwords that she had picked up. She was ever active in all the revolutionary movements. On October 5th, she rode beside Jourdan Coup-Tate, at the head of the hideous procession which brought the king captive to Paris, and she was prominent at the plundering of the Hotel des Invalides, and at the storming of the Bastille. In the morning she could be found among the people in the public squares, or at a favorite caf6; in the afternoon, in the National Assembly; and in the evening, at the Jacobin Club. Here she had almost unlimited sway; a glance, a motion of her whip, a word from her in a decisive moment, could elec- trify the masses to enthusiasm, or, in the midst of a tumult, conjure them into silence again. The applause and disap- probation of the public rested with her, a fact of which the party leaders were well aware, and they did not fail to pay her court, ~o humor her conceits, and to avail themselves of her influence. Very respectable people did not consider that they were degrading themselves by personally lavishing praises upon her in her house, where, after the labors and heats of the 1866.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 143 day were over, she was accustomed to gather about her a sort of small club. One day, early in 1790, she presented herself at the assembly of the District of the Cordeliers, and de- manded permission to speak, which was accorded amid great applause, and cries of Here comes the Queen of Sheba to visit the Solomons of the district; and, seizing upon these cries, she began, Yes, the fame of your wisdom has brought me to your midst. Prove now that you are truly Solomon s, that it is reserved for you to build the temple,and hasten to build a temple for the National Assembly; that is the subject of my speech. She then went on to develop her plan for the erection of a magnificent hall for the Assembly, upon the ground once occupied by the Bastille. The ground of the Bastille is vacant, said she; a hundred thousand workmen are in want of bread. Why do we delay? Let a subscrip- tion be opened at once, to build a palace for the National Assembly upon the site of the Bastille. All France will hasten to support you; she waits only for the signal. Call together the most celebrated artists, open a competition among the architects; cut down the cedars of Lebanon, the oaks of Mount Ida. Yes, if ever the stones move of themselves, it must be to build, not the walls of Thebes, but the Temple of Freedom. Thus, with a mass of Scriptural and classical allusions not inaptly applied, she unfolded at great length her idea of what the building should be. Her proposal was received with much applause; but when Th6roigne demanded to be allowed a place and a vote in the district assembly, this was refused, the president declaring that this excellent ci- toyenne deserved the thanks of the assembly, and that, as a canon of the Council of Macon had declared that women pos- sessed souls and understandings like men, they could not be denied the right to make as good a use of them as the speaker had done; that she, and all of her sex, eQuld make whatever proposals they considered advantageous for the state; but as for the admission of Mademoiselle de Th6roigne to the as- sembly with a vote, that was out of order, and could not be a subject of deliberation. Such greatness as hers is always transient, and especially so in revolutionary periods. Her friends soon began to find 144 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. her troublesome, and, under some pretext or other, they sent her on a mission to Belgium, where she was taken prisoner by the Austrians, and set free only after a personal interview with the Emperor Leopold, at Vienna. Early in 1792 she again appeared at Paris, and on February 1st presented her- self before the Jacobin Club in full Amazon costume, and, by permission, gave an account of her imprisonment and adven- tures, winding up with the announcement of her willingness to publish her Memoirs, which could not fail to be of great interest to the numerous enemies of aristocracy and despotism. The president was disposed to get rid of her with a brief answer; but the more gallant Manuel said: There was a time when a society of men propounded the question whether women have souls. If our fathers had so bad an opinion of women, it was because they were not free. Freedom would have shown them, as it has us, that it is as easy for nature to create a Porcia as a Scawola. You have just heard one of the first Amazons of freedom. I propose that, as president of her sex, she receive the honors of the meeting, and take a seat by the side of the president. But her power was in a great measure gone, and she seems to have soon sunk down to a level with the most depraved of the heroines of the Revolution, and to have stained her name with the most frightful crimes. On the 10th of October she was among the first to commence the terrible cruelties of that day. She seized a young royalist writer, who in the hour of misfortune had supported the falling cause, and de- livered him to the assassins by whom she was surrounded, who instantly cut off his head, and paraded it on a pike through the streets. She seems even to have shared in the dreadful cannibalism of that day. On the division of the Jacobins into Jacobins proper and Girondists, she attached herself to the party of the latter with great zeal; and one day in April, 1793, she made a public announ& ement that she had determined henceforth to withdraw her esteem from Robespierre and Collot dHerbois, a misfortune which Robe- spierre did not fail to announce to the Jacobin Club, amid roars of laughter, which so enraged the heroine, who happened to be in one of the galleries, that she sprang over the barrier 1856.1 IIISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 145 into the hail, and, before any one could stop her, made her way, whip in hand, with terrible gestures and threats, to the presidents desk, where she essayed to speak. But she was at once, in spite of all her opposition, thrust out of the hall, in the most ungallant manner. It was her attachment to the Girondists which finally caused her withdrawal from public life; for having ventured one day in May, 1793, to defend Brissot in public at an inopportune moment, she was attacked in the garden of the Tuileries by a crowd of excited women, who stripped her naked, and publicly flogged her. Such a humiliation was too great for her vanity to bear; she lost her reason, and, after living for twenty years or more in a mad- house, entirely deranged, almost always in a state of nudity, and declaiming alternately bloody diatribes and outpourings of obscenity, she died on May 9, 1817, in the great asylum of the Salp6tri& e, at Paris. Beaulien, speaking of her near the close of her public career, says that she had absolutely lost all her charms, and was lean, livid, and pimpled; in short, Th6roigne was the \Valking image of the Revolution. Lamartine calls her the impure Joan of Arc of the public square. In his account of her subsequent meeting with her seducer at Paris, he probably, like Sheridans opponent, is indebted to his im- agination for his facts. It would be charitable to Th6roigne de M~ricourt and to her sex to suppose that the cruelties which marked the latter part of her revolutionary career were committed under the influence of that insanity which after- wards developed itself more decidedly. But alas! there were too many of her sex who without her charms and her elo- quence imitated her in her crimes. A scarcely less conspicuous character was Rose Lacombe, who was ever prominent at the Jacobin Club and elsewhere. She had been an actress of some repute, but had abandoned the stage to play a part upon the great theatre of the Revolu- tion, and by her youth and beauty, as well as by her singular conduct and her remarkable courage, she contrived to gain great power over the masses. Not satisfied with the existing field for her activity, she became the founder of those female clubs, which, however much they were ridiculed by the leaders of the Revolution, still continued to exist for a long period,~ VOL. LXXXII. NO. 170. 13 146 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. at one time contained six thousand members, and were even an object of jealousy and alarm to the Jacobins. We shall return to them in a moment, but desire first to add a few words more concerning the galleries for women at the Jacobin Club. It was of course no more than natural that the occu- pants of these galleries should come to consist exclusively of the lower classes, of the furies de Ut guillotine, the tricoteuses de Robespierre, ~ but at first this was by no means the case; and ladies from the upper classes, who it is well known were great politicians, often appeared in them. Indeed, one of the most extraordinary phenomena of the French Revolution is the manner in which it was at first countenanced by the upper classes, and especially by the gentler sex. It was the fashion to favor the Revolution, and more than once were heard, from the mouths of those who after\vards died beneath the knife of the guillotine, the words, What a nice thing a revolution is! But with this feeling female vanity, and even love, had much to do. As Ferri~res says, with some bitterness, What a tri- umph for their amour propre to decide in a discussion, to ani- mate by a gesture, by a glance, a patriot speaking from the tribune the burning words of liberty! And then was it noth- ing to go and come, to have at ones house mysterious confer- ences, to discuss there the great interests of twenty-four mil- lions of men who were being regenerated, to intrigue at Paris, to talk about a constitution, to assert how they hated despo- tism and its agents? With the prevalence of such a feeling as these words indicate, it could hardly be otherwise than that the female politicians should become frequent visitors of the Jacobin Club, and that for a time court ladies should be seen sitting side by side with women of the halles. That this, however, did not and could not last, we have already said. And now to return to the subject of the female clubs. After the first novelty of the Revolution had passed away, the part played by the women seems to have been for a time compara * The origin of this peculiar designation is somewhat singular. It was bestowed in consequence of the comical manner in which Chaumette closed a decree of the Communes, which allowed the citoyennes patriotiques of the 5th and 6th of Oc- tober to appear on all political festivals, and to have an honorable place assigned to their standard. The council orders, said the decree, that they be present with their husbands and children, and that they knit (quelles tricoteront). 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 147 tively insignificant; and it was not till about the close of the year 1792, or the beginning of 1793, that the women of Paris began again to assume a peculiar political importance. It was at this period particularly that the revolutionary leaders availed themselves of their services. Thus it is asserted that Robespierre owed his victory over the Girondists in the Con- vention, on the 5th of November, to the assistance of the wo- men in the galleries, who composed eight hundred of the one thousand spectators, and the Girondist Chronique de Paris gave vent to its displeasure on that occasion as follows It is sometimes asked why there are so many women in the train of Robespierre, at his house, in the galleries of the Jacobins, at the Cordeliers, in the Convention. It is because the French Revolution is a religion, of which Robespierre is forming a sect; he is a priest, who has his female devotees, for it is clear that his power is entirely with the women and the distaffs. It was quite natural that, as soon as these Amazons began again to feel their power, they should become exacting, overbearing, and troublesome, even to those who sought to use them. Thus, at the meeting of the Jacobin Club on December 27, one of these heroines of the halles appeared at the bar, and demanded the dissolution of the Con- vention, which had hitherto, she asserted, only disappointed the expectations of the Jacobins. The only way they could devise to get rid of her was to declare, with more decision than gallantry, that her proposition was a device of the Girond- ists, after which she was unceremoniously thrust from the hall. This by no means uncommon incident will give some idea of the part played by these xvomen. In the words of Mr. Zinkei- sen, the time now really seemed to have arrived in which the dogma asserted by the political enThusiast, Olympe de Gou- ges, in her Declaration of the Rights of Women, presented to Marie Antoinette as early as 1789, was to become an estab- lished truth, Woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she ought equally to have the right of mounting the rostrum.~ Not satisfied with ruling in the galleries of the Jacobin Club and the Convention, these enlightened females now desired clubs of their own. For some years women had belonged to the Soci~t~s Fraternelles des Deux Sexes, clubs of a low class, 148 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. and without any great political importance; but the first formally organized club to which women alone were admitted dates from May, 1793, when it was founded, probably under the direct influence of the Jacobins. It assumed the name of Soci6t~ R~publicaine R~volutionnaire, and declared its object to be to take counsel as to the means by which the plans of the enemies of the republic could be thwarted. As we have already said, Rose Lacombe was the founder and presi- dent of this club, which held its meetings in the library of the Jacobin Convent. It seems to have lost no time in coinmen- cing its political activity, for on May 12 a deputation of these women appeared in the Jacobin Club, and reported that they had issued an address to the citoyennes des sections, urging them to incite their husbands to take up arms and then them- selves to form battalions of Amazons, and, above all, to join the infant society; for, said the speaker, turning towards the women in the galleries, it is not enough to be continually listening to speeches; you must take a more active part in the Revolution. The valor and ardor of these Amazons increased day by day, and a fortnight later another deputation presented itself in the Jacobin Club, to demand that a place should be assigned where they could assemble to fight the enemies of their country. It is time, said their leader, that you should see in us no longer mere slavish women, mere house- animals. It is time that we should show ourselves worthy of the glorious cause which you defend. If it is the aim of the aristocracy to depopulate Paris by murdering us one by one, then it is time for us to step forward. We will not await their daggers in our beds, but we will form a phalanx and consign the aristocracy to their original nothingness. The suburbs where we have been are in the best of dispositions. We have sounded the alarm-bell of freedom in every heart. We will support your zeal and share your dangers. Only show us the place where our presence is needed. The presi- dent replied with much non-committal tact, and, while inti- mating that their presence was not needed in the Jacobin Club, declared his inability to indicate a place where it was needed, inasmuch as the dangers of the country were everywhere. For some reason or other, these female clubs seem never 1856.] IIISTORY OF TIlE JACOBIN CLUB. 149 to have attained any very permanent success. The Jacobins were jealous and afraid of them, and, moreover, female weak- nesses mingled themselves only too soon with the political enthusiasm which they displayed; in other words, these Am- azons, who were so desirous to expose their hearts to the dag- gers of their countrys enemies, were not proof against the weapons of Cupid, and the God of Love, with his proverbial perverseness, sent his darts from precisely the wrong quarter. Many of these heroines fell in love with persons imprisoned as suspected. Rose Lacombe went so far as to demand from the Jacobins the immediate release of her beloved, and to threaten them in case of refusal with the direst revenge of the revolutionary women. Inasmuch as, upon inquiry, it was found that Rose had several such persons under her pro- tection, it seems to have been considered best not to yield to her demand, and Chabot seized the occasion to make a violent attack upon these pretended revolutionary women. I am well aware, said he, what a person brings upon himself if he excites only one woman against him. How much worse, then, when he is concerned with a great number of them! But I neither fear their intrigues, nor their empty words, nor their threats. He then went on to relate how Rose Lacombe had sought, with various aristocratic expressions, to procure from the Committee of Safety the release of her prot6g6. Madame Lacombe for she was no longer a citoyenne had even dared to call Robespierre Monsieur Robespierre. He there- fore demanded that severe measures should be adopted to guard against the measures of these women. I also, inter- rupted Bazire, weak as you see me, have had to do with these revolutionary women. Not less than seven had at- tacked him at once, seeking to procure the release of one of their favorites; and they had even carried their impudence so far as to demand for their whole society permission to visit the prisons, for the sole purpose of ascertaining the causes of arrest of the prisoners, and of procuring their release if they saw fit. I most humbly regret that I have not beard enough to please these ladies, continued Bazire, but such as I am, I declared to them I could not yield to their august demands. He was also of the opinion that a purging of the female clubs 13 150 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. by the expulsion of those who had corrupted their spirit was necessary. But while the matter was still under discussion Rose Lacombe appeared in one of the galleries to defend her- self and her companions. Her appearance caused the greatest confusion, so that she was not allowed to speak, and the pres- ident was obliged to cover himself to restore order. It was thereupon resolved to demand a purification of the club to which these women belonged by the exclusion of suspicious women, and to urge the Committee of Safety to arrest such women. A proposal to arrest Rose Lacombe at once was dropped only because it was out of order. About the same time the Communes adopted severe meas- ures against the jolies solliciteuses, as they were called. According to complaints from various quarters, they besieged the police-bureaus that had charge of the prisons in the most indecent manner, in order to procure the release of certain prisoners; and it would seem, too, not without success, for when some one undertook to defend them by urging that they accomplished nothing, Hebert, then the attorney-general of the Communes, replied, that, even if one were a Cato, he must still fear these Circes, for they possess the art of winning the men. It was therefore resolved that the jolies intrigantes should no longer be admitted to the police-bureaus, and that, in order to avoid trouble, all women without exception should wear the tricolored cockade, which had been already adopted by the revolutionary women; and by a resolve of the Con- vention, passed September 21, every woman who failed to do this was punished for the first offence with a weeks imprison- ment, and, in case of repetition, with imprisonment till after the restoration of peace. The R~publicaines B~volutionnaires then adopted, together with the cockade, the red cap; but an attempt to force it upon the women of the halles led to a fight, in consequence of which the Convention resolved that thence- forth every one should dress as he or she chose. Encour- aged, it would seem, by this success, the women of the halles went a step further, and by petition demanded the immediate closing of the female clubs; for, said they, it was a woman (Marie Antoinette) who brought all these misfortunes upon France. On this occasion the Jacobin Amar was prominent 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 151 as an opponent of the political activity of women. Some passages of his speech are very well adapted to the present day. Ought women, he asks, to exercise political rights, and mingle in the affairs of government? Public opinion is against the idea. Ought women to unite in political soci- eties? Ought they, who are fitted to soften the strong pas- sions of men, to take an active part in proceedings, the excitement of which is inconsistent with that gentleness and moderation which form the peculiar charms of the sex~ Moreover, women, by their very organization, are inclined to an exaltation which is dangerous in public affairs, and through them the interests of the state would soon be sacrificed to all the delusions and disorders of excited passions. Involved in the heats of public debates, they would not instil into their children love of country, but rather hatred and prejudice. Only a single deputy was gallant enough to defend the women. On October 30, the Convention ordered the closing of all clubs for women; and when, a week later, a deputation appeared to demand the repeal of the decree, they were un- ceremoniously thrust from the hall. From that time forward their political activity was necessarily confined to the galleries and the public squares, where, under the name of furies de la guillotine, and tricoteuses de Robespierre, they formed one of the most dangerous and disgusting elements of revolution- ary agitation. Their activity manifested itself in constant tumults and miniature insurrections, got up on the slightest pretence. Thus on one occasion a crowd of citizen washer- women rushed into the Convention, to complain that soap was so dear that soon no one would be able to wear clean clothes; and this not because it was scarce, but because it had been bought up by monopolists, against whom they demanded immediate vengeance. You have, closed the petition, caused the head of the tyrant (Louis XVI.) to fall beneath the sword of the law; let that same sword of the law fall upon the heads of these public bloodsuckers. We de- mand the punishment of death for forestallers and monopo- lists. The reply of the president had so little effect, that the next day saw the famous disorders of February 25, 1793. Before we leave this subject, we will add an extract from a 152 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. curious prayer, headed Prayer of the Amazons to Bellona, which dates from the year 1792. And we also know how to fight and to conquer; we know how to handle other arms than the needle and the spindle. 0 Bellona! companion of Mars, influenced by thy example, ought not all women to march side by side with the men? Goddess of power, take courage! At least thou wilt not have to blush for the women of France. * In our desire to follow out what seems to us one of the most extraordinary phenomena of the French Revolution, we have wandered away somewhat from the Jacobin Club. The fame of the Club could not long be confined to Paris; and, within a month after the transfer of the Club Breton to the capital, deputies arrived from many of the provinces, who were presented to the Club, and expressed a desire to establish in the principal provincial towns similar societies, which should maintain a close connection with the mother society at Paris, by constant correspondence. The idea of thus making the mother society the central point for a whole family of similar associations, which should be gradually extended over all France, found great favor both in Paris and in the * Since writing the above, we have received a new work by Michelet, entitled The Women of the French Revolution, which was published in Paris last year, and has now been given to the American public by H. C. Baird, in a translation by a lady of Philadelphia. As its name imports, it presents a gallery of portraits of the women of the French Revolution, drawn, with additions, from the authors History of the Revolution. Like all of Michelets books, it is interesting, but it is, on the whole, very unsatisfactory; its table of contents promises much, which a perusal of its pages does not fulfiL Still, as we have said, it is interesting, and it will afford to many a knowledge which they will be glad to gain so easily and so agreeably, while it will perhaps stimulate a few to examine more closely into the remarkable pas- sage in the history of the female sex which the French Revolution presents. The ordinary reader, however, will be more likely to rise from its perusal with the feel- ing that Michelet is an ardent friend of liberty, and a great admirer of woman and womans influence, that, in popular phraseology, he is a womans rights man, than with any very distinct impressions of the personages who have passed in array before him. What a difference do these off-hand, dashy, outline sketches of Michelet present, from the painfully precise delineations of some of the women of an earlier period in French history, drawn in Cousins Madame de Longueville, and Madame de Sabl6! The translation of Michelets book is quite good, with occa- sional awkward expressions, and some French idioms unrendered. Still, as a whole, the version hardly does justice to the somewhat peculiar style of the author, a task, indeed, which would require very unusual ability in the translator. 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 153 provinces, and was carried into execution with extraordinary rapidity. The system was originally digested and arranged by Adrien Duport, one of the triumvirate, who possessed a rare talent for organization. The oldest list of the soci~t6s affihi~es, as they were called, dates from November, 1790, and contains the names of but 121 places where they had been organized, though there is reason to suppose that as many as 152 societies actually existed at that time. This, however, was only a beginning. At the period of the separation of the Feuillans, in July, 1791, the number of affiliated societies was 400, and was soon increased to 1,000, which seems to have been the highest number attained; for in April, 1792, 760 only are enumerated, of which not more than 400 kept up a regular correspondence with the mother club. But all the societies formed in the provinces, on the model of the Jacobin Club, did not become affiliated with it. Many re- mained independent, and soon there was hardly a village in all France which had not a sort of Jacobin Club of its own, and many a schoolmasterfor it was commonly they who presided over and gave a tone to the society considered himself man enough to play the r6le of a Danton or a Robe- spierre on a small scale. We hardly need to add, that the affiliated societies became the most valuable sources of power to the Jacobin Club; and that, extending like a net-work over the whole country, they gave to it a terrible, and frequently an irresistible force, and, in critical moments, more than once turned the scale in its favor. Thus much for the inner organization and mode of action of the Jacobin Club. Jts effects are so well known, that, in- stead of dwelling even for a moment upon them, we prefer to turn to one or two of the most striking passages in the history of the Club. But before doing this, a word should be said as to the direct connection of the Club with the press. The first journal with which it had any official connection appeared on November 30, 1790, under the name of Jour- nal des Amis de la Constitution. Every number had at its head the resolve authorizing the publication of the correspond- ence of the Friends of the Constitution, and also the seal of the Club, which was an oaken garland, with a lily at the end 154 HISTORY OF THE JACOI3IN CLUB. [Jan. where it was intertwined. Jn the middle of the garland were the words, Vivre libre ou mourir, and around the outside, Soci~t6 des Anzis de ict Constitution, Paris, 1789. The form of the paper was octavo, and the subscription price was twenty-four livres per annum. Besides the correspondence, it contained various articles, extracts from speeches made in the Club, and sundry small items of news. The journal of the proceedings of the Club was not contained in it. It was pub- lished every Tuesday, in three sheets. A complete copy is not now known to exist. It was originally quite moderate in its tone, but it of course changed as the reigning tone of the Club itself changed. It became one of the most important levers of the Club in the provinces, and led to a great increase in the number of the affiliated societies, and a more active correspondence with those previously established. On the separation of the Fenillans, they took with them this paper, so that the Jacobins were obliged to establish another, which they did on June 1, 1791, under the title Journal des D6bats [after No. 121 et la Correspondance was added] de la Soci6t6 des Arnis de la Constitution s~ante aux Jacobins, which name it retained till the Club took the name of Soci~~t6 des Arnis de la Libert6 et de lEgalite. This paper contained a report of the proceedings of the Club, as well as other matters, and was published four times a week, at twelve livres for Paris, and seventeen for the provinces. There is at the present day, in view of the events of the last quarter of a century, no more interesting passage in the his- tory of the Jacobin Club, than that in which is comprised the connection with it of Louis Philippe. It was one of the ear- liest, as well as one of the most striking periods of his eventful life, though it has become known, at least in its details, only of late years, and is not referred to in many histories of the French Revolution; but the account is founded upon his own journal, kept at the period, the genuineness of which has never, we believe, been impeached.* It was on November 1, ~ This was published in Paris in 1831, under the title Un An de la Vie de Louis Philippe I., ~crit par lui-mdme, on Journal anthentique du Due de Chartres, 1790 1791. Its genuineness is well established in the preface, and is, moreover, sup- ported by many passages in the Memoirs of Madame de Genus; and, above all, 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 155 1790, that the young Due de Chartres, afterwards Louis Phi- lippe I., King of the French, became a member of the Jacobin Club, having been proposed and elected at the close of the preceding month. The young prince, talented, ardent, and easily attracted by anything novel, influenced by his inter- course with deputies of the Orleanist party, and more espe- cially by his vain and somewhat inconsiderate governess, Madame de Genlis, early espoused the ideas of the Revolution with enthusiasm, and ardently desired to see them put into practice. The Due de Chartres, said his governess one day, says that he loves nothing in the world more than the new Constitution and Madame de Genus. On February 9, in accordance with the decree of the Assembly ordering the taking of the oath of fidelity to the Constitution, he appeared in his district, dressed in the uniform of the National Guards, and accompanied by his two younger brothers, the Dukes of Montpensier and Beaujolais. He there found his titles as a royal prince written against his name in the register prepared for that purpose; but he at once struck them out, and wrote instead, citoyen de Paris. Even before this time he had been a candidate for the command of a battalion of the National Guards in the district of St. Roch, but had been beaten by a master-butcher; though, as a sort of recompense, he was ap- pointed capitaine dltonneur. His mother earnestly opposed his joining the Jacobin Club on account of his age, which was only seventeen years; but she was overpowered by her husband and Madame de Genlis, and, as we have said, he became a member on the 1st of November, 1790. The occa- sion was regarded as one of triumph for the Club, and he was received amid great applause, for which he thanked the mem- bers briefly by saying: Gentlenien, for a long time I have had an eager wish to be received into your midst; the favor- able reception which you grant me moves me deeply, but I venture to flatter myself that my conduct will justify your it bears internal proofs of its own authenticity. It contains a mass of interesting information, but has already become very rare, and has been little, if at all, used by English historians. Dr. Birch, in his Life of Louis Philippe, published in the third edition at Stuttgart, in 1851, assumes that it is genuine beyond dispute, and we are not aware that this has ever been seriously denied. 156 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. approbation, and I can assure you that through my whole life I shall be a good patriot and a good citizen. The new member became a constant attendant at the meetings of the Club, and we have already mentioned incidentally that he held one or two offices in it. He was, moreover, once on a committee to examine the vaults under the hall, to see if there was any truth in some rumors of the existence of a sort of Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot. He spoke not infrequently, and on one occasion was commissioned by the Club to trans- late a reply of one Joseph Tower to Burkes Reflections on the French Revolution. This task he at once readily under- took, but his father interfered, and obliged him to abandon it. The Club, however, insisted, and the Duke made the trans- lation, while the name of another was given to it. He was also a constant visitor of the National Assembly, where he took notes of the debates, in which he manifested great in- terest. On one occasion he exhibited his pleasure at some remarks of a leading Jacobin in such an emphatic manner, that two deputies demanded his immediate expulsion from the hall; but the president shrugged his shoulders, and the Duke quietly took out his opera-glass, and examined the two deputies from head to toe, in spite of the cries of A bas la lorgnette. About this time he also published several articles anonymously, in the Chronique de Paris. The Assembly having ordered all colonels to join their regiments, he left Paris on June 14, 1791, and two days later he visited the affiliated Jacobin society at Vend~ime, where his regiment was stationed. He was received with great applause, but declined a seat of honor by the side of the president, and took one among some sub-officers and soldiers of his own regi~ ment. Three days later he was chosen president pro tempore, but his military duties did not allow him to attend constantly. Once, on August 4, he made a speech upon the decree abol- ishing all tokens of rank, these trivial marks of distinction, as he termed them; but having been ordered to Valen- ciennes, he took leave of the club at Vend6me a week later, and seems thus to have finally closed his active connection with the Jacobins as a club. Can it be claimed that he was in his subsequent career ever true to his promise to them, to be through life a good patriot and a good citizen? 1856.1 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 157 We should hardly expect to find the Jacobins the bitter opponents of duelling; yet such they were, in theory at least, though the reasons they gave for their opposition are rather amusing. As early as 1790 they denounced this disgraceful practice in good set terms, stigmatizing it as an aristocratic vice, a still remaining root of the tree of feudalism. But we are bound to add, that their practice did not always con- form to their theory, for we find the public attention much excited by a duel between Barnave and Cazal6s, caused by a violent dispute in the Assembly on August 10, on which day, as Camille IDesmoulins says, the Blacks * were as much beside themselves as if an exorcist had poured a basin of holy water on the head of a devil, without a wig. And again, in November, Charles Lameth was wounded in a duel by the IDuc de Castries, in return for which the mob sacked the house of the latter, and the Club published an address to the affiliated societies against the practice of duelling. We ought to mention that we find Camille IDesmoulins indig- nantly declining a challenge. A peculiar patriotic celebration made the 18th of IDecem~ ber, 1791, a remarkable day in the history of the Club. On that day the national flags of England, the United States, and France, were unfurled together in the hal], as symbols of the union of the free nations of the universe. The ixmme- diate occasion of this festival was the presence of a dele- gation from the friends of the Revolution in London. The dames des halles played an important part on this day, and in an address full of high-flown phrases they say: May a cry of joy resound through all Europe, and fly over to America! Hark! Amid thousands of echoes the cry resounds in Philadelphia, as with us, Vive la iibert6! On which an enthusiastic Jacobin exclaimed, in words which will hardly gain him a prophets immortality: England, America, and France have forgotten their old divisions; these three sisters, hitherto separated through the common enemies of mankind [kingsj, now recognize one another; and, united by family interest, embrace and swear a faithful friendship. Neither * A phrase applied at one time by the Jacobins to their opponents, especially to the Fenillans and Royalists. VOL. LXXXIi. NO. 170. 14 1~8 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. the sickle of Time, nor the daggers of tyrants, xviii ever loosen the bonds which to-day unite them to one another. Amid the general enthusiasm, it was resolved to place in the hall, by the side of the bust of Mirabeau, the busts of the other evangelists of peace, and apostles of freedom, Price, Ben- jamin Franklin, Rousseau, Algernon Sidney, and Mably. At a considerably later period, some time in August, 1792, Manuel presented himself at the Jacobin Club, with a bust of Brutus in his arms. Here, said he, the overthrow of royalty, the overthrow of Louis the Last, was prepared. And here must the image of him who first tried to deliver the earth from kings find a place. This is Brutus, who should recall to your memories every moment, that, in order to be good citi- zens, you must be always ready to sacrifice everything, even your children, for the good of your country. Amid universal applause Brutus was adopted as the patron of the Club, and it was resolved to urge the affiliated societies to give his bust an honorable place in their halls. But the Jacobins were fickle, and soon turned iconoclasts; for before the close of 1792 we find them assenting with great applause to Robe- spierres assertion, that the busts of Brutus and Rousseau were alone worthy of a place in their hall; and those of Mirabeau, the political charlatan, and of Helvetius, the intriguer and immoral creature, were dashed in pieces. Whether Franklin and his companions shared the same fate, is not stated. At various points in his book, Mr. Zinkeisen gives interest- ing information as to the origin of some of the most remark- able symbols of the Revolution. We quote the following On the 19th of February, 1792, people armed with pikes appeared for the first time in the Jacobin Club. The pike, the peculiar weapon of the Revolution, had fallen into disuse and been almost entirely for- gotten since the terrible scenes of 1789, having been gradually sup- planted by the gun of the National Guards; and it was only when the war question began to occupy every mind, that it was again sought out, and recommended by the advocates of an offensive war. As early as December, 1791, Brissot caused a picture of a pike, such as had been used in 1789, to be engraved in the Patriote Fran~ais as a curiosity and model; and he accompanied it with directions for its use 1856.] hISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 159 and improvement. From that time, the cry for pikes became the order of the day in the journals of that party, and the manufacture of them was pursued with great activity as early as January, especially in the revolutionary suburbs of St. Antoine and St. Marceau. In the Jacobia Club pikes were first mentioned, on February 7, when a smith laid four pikes of his manufacture on the table for approval, and a special com- mittee was appointed for the purpose. Vol. II. p. 170, et seq. The question of pike or no pike soon became a party one; the Girondists, with Brissot as their leader, defending the weapon, while the Feuillans opposed it, as intended to be used against the National Guards. The discussion was ani- mated and bitter. In the course of it, Brissot, being asked in one of the journals whether they would dare to direct the pikes against the Tuileries, quietly answered, in the Patriote Fran 9ais Yes, without doubt thither also, if the enemies of the people are there. It was during this discussion in the newspapers that men with pikes appeared in the Jacobin Club; and when it was objected that this was unlawful, it was resolved, in order to conciliate principles and actions, that the pikes should be placed on both sides of the president, and that in future a pike should be hung with every flag in the hall, as a sign of the union between the bayoiiet and the pike. Thus the pike, as the weapon of the people, became thenceforth the symbol of the Revolution, while the dagger was regarded as that of the counter-revolution. Nearly a month later, on March 14, another symbol of the Revo- lution, the famous red cap, appeared for the first time in the galleries of the Jacobia Club. The red cap was also a work of the Girondists, and owed the favorable reception which it soon found principally to an article of Brissots, in the Patriote Franqais for February 6, in which, supported by a similar view of an English philosopher named Pigot, be formally declared war upon hats. The priests and despots, it was said in the reasoning borrowed from this English enemy of hats, are the ones who introduced the mournful uniform of hats, as well as the ridiculous and slavish ceremony of a salute, which debases man, inasmuch as it makes him bow his bared head submissively before his equal. Only regard the difference between the cap and the hat, with reference to the appearance which they impart to the head; the one, mournful, sombre, and uniform, is the emblem of sorrow and magiste- rial moroseness (moros~t6 magistrale); the other brightens the counte 160 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. iiance, makes it more frank and open; it covers the head without concealing, increases its natural dignity with grace, and admits of all sort of embellishment. It was then historically proved that all great nations, the Greeks, Romans, Gauls, had held the cap in peculiar honor, in order to distinguish themselves from the barbarian nations, as a sign of triumph over their tyrants; and that, in more modern times, Voltaire and Rousseau had worn it as a symbol of freedom. The red color was expressly recommended as the most cheerful. Nothing more was needed to make the red cap at once the political fashion; and by the middle of March it had been silently adopted as a custom, that the president and secretaries of the Jacobin Club, as well as the orators, while speaking, should wear the red cap. Still, many persons objected to it, but no one seems to have spoken out against it till March 19, the very day on which iUjimouriez, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, adorned with this emblem of freedom and equality, expounded his political creed from the rostrum of the Jacobin Club, when P6tion sent a letter to the Club upon the subject, giving his reasons for opposing the introduction of the red cap. They were, in brief, that it would come to be a mark of a Jacobin, and would be mis- used by their enemies to bring discredit upon them; and, moreover, the time was past when the people would be satisfied with the mere outward signs of liberty; they wanted liberty itself. The reading of this letter produced a great and probably unexpected effect. Before it was finished, the president had quietly slipped his cap into his pocket, the secretaries had followed his example, and the red cap had entirely disappeared from the hail. Robespierre, in a few words, supported the views of P6tion, calling upon his hearers to return to the tricolored cockade as their only symbol; and thus, after a brief existence of five days, for Grangeneuve, the Girondist, had first worn it in the Club on March 14, was the red cap banished from its hall. Still, though P6tion and Robespierre could exclude it from the Jacobin Club, they could not prevent its continued use by the people; for the Girondists continued to uphold it, till the insurrection of June 20 made it the emblem of the victory of republicanism over monarchy. We must add, that the real origin of the red cap has never been clearly ex- plained; and opinions were very much divided upon the subject at the time. A quite generally received opinion was, that it first came into use after the release from the galleys of the Swiss soldiers of the regi- ment of Chateau~Vieux.* It is well known that the galley-slaves wore * Confined for mutiny, and afterwards released in triumph by the Jacobins, and treated as martyrs of liberty. 18~6.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 161 such caps, which suddenly became the symbols of freedom on the re- lease of those soldiers.* Concerning the red color, it should be remarked that it was then by no means the color of the democratic republic and the symbol of freedom. On the contrary, it was regarded as that of despotism and oppression, and especially had it acquired a bad reputation among patriots through the red book, and the red flag as the instrument of martial law. The red republic, red apparitions, and other red things and nothings, are of mudh later invention. Vol. II. p. 174, et seq. While upon this subject we may refer to one other red thing, the red flag. On July 26, 1792, an attempt was made to excite an insurrection; but it failed, and is noteworthy solely because that occasion transformed the red flag, previous- ly the symbol only of oppression and martial law, into the symbol and standard of revolution and insurrection. Carra claims the merit of this metamorphosis, which in its way has made a noise in the world. He caused a red banner to be prepared, and placed upon it the inscription, Martial law of the sovereign people against the rebellion of the executive power. It was then handed over to the insurrection com- mittee, and from that time forward it everywhere appears as the standard of Jacobinism at the head of insurrections and rebellions. The name of Louis Capet, by which the Jacobins insisted upon calling Louis XVI., is familiar to every one. Our author states that Dandr6 first made use of it near the close of the Constitutional Assembly, when speaking of the aboli- tion of the names of Artois, Cond6, and others. Antonelle then brought the matter up in the Jacobin Club. They attempt to show us, said he, that Louis XVI. has no more right to be called Bourbon than Capet; but, as he must be designated in some manner or other, let us call him Capet. This was adopted amid great laughter, and the name was always afterwards used in speaking of its unfortunate object. Brissot was the originator of another expression still in con- * Considering the knowledge of antiquity displayed by the leaders of the Revoki- twa, it scems to us quite probable that thcir cap of liberty was derived from the Phrygian cap. The Romans sometimes pictured Libertas with this cap. See Smiths Dict. Greek and Roman Mythology, Art. Libertes. 14* 162 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. stant use on the continent of Europe, the term ]lliontagne, Mountain, applied to the extreme radicals, the Left. He first used it one day in the Constitutional Assembly, contrast- ing them with the aristocrats, the ]JIoder~s. Enfants de la Montague, exclaimed he, close up your ranks. This term Mountain, as applied especially to the Jacobins, led Gamier to draw a rather peculiar parallel from Scripture. Speaking of his companions one day in the Club, he exclaimed: The legislative body has a mountain. As Moses brought his laws down from a mountain, so shall the Mountain of the Con- vention give laws to France. The Revolution was very fertile in lampoons, and in doggerel dignified by the name of poetry. The following, which ap- peared about Condorcet in a royalist journal at the time when he became commissioner of the treasury, will give some idea of the style of these productions : Jadis, math6maticien, Marquis, acad6micien, Sous dAlembert, pan6gyriste, Sous Panckoucke, encyc1op~diste, Puis, sous Turgot, ~conomiste, Puis, sous Brissot, r~pub1iciste, Puis, dci tr6sor gardien, Puis, citoyen soldat, puis, rien. Our author mentions (Vol. I. p. 17) the curious fact, that in A Political and Satirical History of the Years 1756 and 1757, published in London by E. Morris, there is to be found a sketch of a guillotine, in which a devil is represented somewhat prophetically, it would seem as the presiding genius of the instrument. As the invention of this famous instrument of death is commonly ascribed to Dr. Guillotine, from whom it takes its name, and is dated from a later period, this is historically of interest, as showing that he was not its inventor, but merely adopted the idea from some other source. No one can have read with any care the minute details of the French Revolution without being struck at once with the wit to which it gave birth, and with the number and appro- priateness of the classical and Scriptural allusions with which 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JAAJOBIN CLUB. 163 the speeches and pamphlets of the period abound. Many of these have become quite familiar, but we have marked in the work before us a few which we do not remember to have seen elsewhere. Speaking of the Duc dAiguillon, whose name is affixed to the first declaration of principles issued by the Jaco- bin Club, Mr. Zinkeisen observes that he was the son of the general and minister of the same name, who, on occasion of the landing of the English in Brittany, where he was in com- mand, ignominiously hid himself in a mill, a fact which led the witty La Chalotais to remark, that the commandant had covered himself, not with glory, but with meal. Mallet du Pan, it is well known, was bitterly hated by the Jacobins, in consequence of the devotion of his great talents to the cause of the king. This hatred led Camille Desmoulins, perhaps the wittiest of the leaders of the Revolution, to speak of him as Mallet du Pan, qui sil ny prend garde sera bient~t Mallet- pendu. P6tion, while Mayor of Paris, and pretending to pro- vide for the good order of the city, took care never to present any effectual opposition to the populace, who at the instigation of his friends, the Jacobins, repeatedly attacked the Feuillans. He usually managed to arrive quite breathless just after all the harm was done, which leads our author to apply to him the remark of Madame de Stael concerning one of his prede- cessors, Bailly: The Mayor is like a rainbow, which only shows itself after the storm. Chabot was the object of vio- lent attack, because he had, contrary to law, married a foreigner, a rich Austrian lady. One of his opponents took a very prac- tical view of the matter. A wife, said he, is an article of dress. If Chabot wanted one, he should have remembered that the nation has forbidden foreign goods. We have al- ready incidentally mentioned two or three instances of classi- cal and Scriptural allusions, and will add only a couple of classical quotations. At the time when the question of issu- ing assignats was under discussion, Peltier headed an article against it with the following motto Quantum quisque sua numniorum servat in arca, Tantum habet et fldei. At the time when the contest between the Jacobins and Gi 164 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. rondists was at its height, Brissot commenced an article against the latter with the following passage from Sallust: Qui sunt hi, qui rempublicam occupav~re? Homines see- leratissimi, cruentis manibus, immani avaritia, nocentissimi; quis fides, decus, pietas, postremo honesta atque inhonesta, omnia questui sunt Quos omnes eadem cupere, eadem odisse, eadem metuere in unum coegit. Sed hmc inter bonos amicitia, inter malos factio est. Quod si tam vos liber- tatis curam habetis, quam illi ad dominationem accensi sunt, profecto neque respublica, sicut nune, vastaretur. And now, before we leave the subject of the Jacobin Club, we will briefly sketch its history so far as we have not already given it. The first declaration of its principles was published on February 8, 1790. It is a document of some length, which had escaped the research of every previous historian, but is given in full by Mr. Zinkeisen. We do not propose to at- tempt any abstract of its contents, but only to remark, that it cannot be too often called to mind that the Jacobins, though always constituting the progressive party, La .Jeune France, it would be called now-a-days, yet, during their earlier history, entertained opinions which were very moderate in comparison with their later creed; that they even inculcated respect for and submission to the powers which the Constitution may call into being, and that, though there were from the outset a few very radical persons among them, the development of their principles was gradual. They did not, as some writers seem to imagine, spring into existence monsters of vice and cruelty. Upon every subject they had fixed and decided opinions, and it was ordinarily their union and decision \vhich gave them the victory over their opponents, who were always wavering and undecided. Of the various clubs formed to oppose them, the first was that of the Impartiaux, founded early in 1790. It ceased to exist before the end of April of that year, and about the same time the Soci~t~ des Amis du Peuple sprang into existence, only to die two months later, after having at one time assumed quite formidable proportions. But even before this, a division had become manifest within the Jacobin Club itself; and as the breach gradually widened, in May, 1790, the Soci~t~ Patriotique de 1789 was founded 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 165 by seceding Jacobins. Representing, as it sought to do, the moderate constitutional party, it embraced among its mem- bers many influential persons, and for a time was a formidable opponent of the Jacobins. Its power, however, was transient, and it finally became remarkable only for the excellence of its cookery; for, unlike the other clubs, it was established a good deal on the plan of an English club of the present day. To- wards the end of the year 1790, the Soci~ des Amis de Us Constitution lUionarchique was fouiided, and became so for- midable in numbers and influence that the Jacobins resorted to the plan of exciting the populace against it in order to destroy it, and were so successful, that, after various disorders, it was closed by the police, March 29, 1791. Contemporary with it was the Conf~d~ration G6n6rale des Amis de la V~rit6, more generally known as the Cercie Social, a sort of philo- sophical club, in which freemasonry bore a large part. It did not at first come into conflict with the Jacobins, but a contest soon sprang up; and when, in May, 1791, its founder and soul, Claude Fauchet, left Paris to become Bishop of Calvados, it lost all its importance, though in June following it acquired a momentary weight by suddenly becoming very radical. The last number of its organ, the Bouche de Fer, appeared on July 28, about which time the club was closed. The great increase of the radical element in the Jacobin Club had so alarmed many of its members, that we find it stated that in the spring of 1791 but fifty deputies to the Assembly were in the habit of attending its meetings, and on July 16 of that year occurred the separation of the Feuil- lans, which nearly inflicted a death-blow upon the Jacobins, for at first the Fenillans were much their superiors both in numbers and in influence. Of the 2,400 members of the Jaco- bin Club, 1,800 withdrew from its meetings, and one third of the latter at once joined the Fenillans, while many others soon followed their example. Only 600 therefore remained with the Jacobins, and even this number was diminished by the thorough purification of the Club which was at once commenced. Still, in spite of this state of things, superior skill and decision soon gave the Jacobins the upper hand, as was especially manifest in the case of the affiliated societies, 166 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. for, of the 400 then existing, 100 had declared unconditionally in favor of the Jacobins by the middle of August, while the rest remained in correspondence with them, but strongly urged a reunion with the Fenillans. By the end of September, most of the old provincial societies had joined the Jacobins, while all the new ones seem to have done so, more than six hundred in all joining them in August and September, and only four joining the Fenillans. In the Assembly the Jaco- bins were longer in the minority, though they finally gained the superiority there also. The Fenillans, however, used their power while they retained it to enact a club law, which was passed on the 29th of September, 1791, singularly enough upon the proposition of Chapelier, the original founder of the Club Breton, the increasing radicalism of the Clab having forced from it most of its original members, though some afterwards rejoined it. If this law, which precluded any club from acting publicly as a body in any way, had ever been en- forced, it would have proved a severe blow to the Jacobin Club; but its enforcement seems never to have been even attempted. Indeed, the law was so completely a dead letter, that the Fen- illans, who had previously existed only as a party and not as a club, in violation of their own law formed themselves into a club, \Vhich survived till the end of December, when it was closed in consequence of popular disorders excited against it by the emissaries of the Jacobin Club. From about the middle of the year 1791, the question of the way of future procedure excited great attention, and it first brought clearly into view the division, of which signs had however long been visible to the careful observer, between the more moderate and the more radical portion of the Jacobin Club, the Girondists and the Mountain, the Jacobins par excellence. The history of these two parties is so well known that we hardly need to remark that the Girondists, unlike the Fenilla us, did not withdraw from the Club and form a new one, but remained in it, for a considerable time at least, and retained the upper hand there, as they did almost everywhere else. The contest between the two parties was long and se- vere. Brissot was finally excluded from the Club, October 19, 1792, and the Girondists seem then mostly to have withdrawn 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 167 from it; for when the exclusion of Vergn iaud, Gensonn6, and others, xvas voted, on the 11th of January following, it was found that it had in point of fact taken place long before, for three months earlier they had omitted to renew their cards of admission. The expulsion or withdrawal of the Girondists from the Club by no means ended the struggle, but it became, on the contrary, all the more bitter. The result is well known; the leading Girondists were arrested in June, 1793, and execut- ed on the last day of the next October. After the imprison- ment of the Girondists, the Jacobins had all the power of the state in their hands; but now a new phenomenon appeared, though it was not one which ought to have been unexpected. Up to this time the Jacobins had been the radicals, and all their victories had been over those of more moderate views than their own, but now a party arose determined to ont-Jaco- bin the Jacobins. They were called the Enrag~s, or, from the name of their leader, the Hebertists. They made a strug- gle worthy of a better cause, but were finally overpowered and executed on March 24; and ten days later, the iDantonists, whose views were more moderate thau those of the Jacobins, and who had just assisted the latter in their defeat of the He- bertists, were in turn compelled to mount the scaffold. Robe- spierre was now all-powerful, a dictator in everything but the name. We have neither space nor inclination to point out in detail the causes of his speedy fall. It is sufficient to say that he did not possess talents adapted to the emergency, and the events of the 9th Thermidor, or July 27, 1794, put an end at once to his power and his life. After the fall of Robespierre, the total destruction of the Jacobin Club would have been no difficult matter, if indeed it would not have died of itself if it had been left alone. But the victors desired to avail themselves of its prestige, and to use it for their own purposes. It was, however, in their hands, only the sceptre of the mighty monarch whom his servants had murdered to possess themselves of his power. The strong arm which had hitherto held it was wanting. A contest at once sprang up between the Jacobins and the Thermidorists, which resulted in the expulsion of the latter from the Club. They however determined to avenge themselves by dooming 168 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. the Club itself to destruction; and they found no great diffi- culty in accomplishing this, for all parties were willing to unite to bring about the ruin of a common enemy, and the feeling of the populace in particular had, from causes which we have not the space to detail, gradually become exceedingly hostile. It was the club law of October 16, 1794, which gave the death-blow to the Jacobin Club. That law forbade all affiliation and correspondence between the societies under a common name, as being subversive of government; it denied even the right of petition under a common name, and obliged every society to present to the police a list of its members, with their ages, birthplaces, occupations, and residences past and present, as well as the periods of their admission into the society. The supporters of this law seemed to be somewhat afraid of their own work, and maintained that its aim was not to destroy the clubs, but to bring them back to the true object of their foundation. It is difficult, however, to imag- ine that they really believed any such thing; for they must have known that it was the connection between the central club and its affiliated societies which gave the Jacobins their chief power and influence, and that when these, its arms, were lopped off, it must sink into helplessness and die. Had they failed to perceive this truth of themselves, the obstinacy with which the Jacobins opposed the law ought to have shown it to them. When the law was once passed, the Jacobins hand- ed in the required list of members, and, while urging obedi- ence to the law, sought to postpone their certain doom. Their last great effort was made in the Convention in opposing the accusation and condemnation of Carrier. The committee of the Convention to whom the question was referred was ordered to report on November 9; but on the opening of the meeting, the eager occupants of the crowded galleries learned with great displeasure that the report was postponed for two days. Throughout the day they manifested their dissatisfac- tion in no dubious manner, and towards evening the crowd, which till then had remained around the Convention, rushed tumultuously to the Jacobin Club. The members of the latter had assembled at the usual hour, and were in the midst of an exciting debate upon the new conspiracy, whose ob 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 169 ject was the condemnation of Carrier and the Jacobins, when a tumult arose in the galleries, into which a great crowd rushed, and attacked the women who were there, while the windows were broken in by volleys of stones. The Jacobins soon rallied and drove out the intruders, and, by their doors, maintained themselves till the military arrived. The crowd finally scattered towards midnight. Meantime the Jacobins continued their debates, but naturally in a state of areat excitement, and the next day they did not fail to bring b the matter before the Convention. The result was very differ- ent from their anticipations; for the committee to whom the affair was referred made a report the same day, in which they bitterly attacked the Jacobins, and ended by proposing the temporary closing of their Club. But the debates upon this proposition were not finished, when, on November 11, the com- mittee reported in favor of the arrest and trial of Carrier. Just as the vote upon this question was being taken, news came of a tumult in the vicinity of the Jacobin Club, and the Convention at once adjourned. We prefer to let Mr. Zin- keisen relate the rest in his own way. The Convent of the Jacobins presented on that day a remarkable appearance. While the upper galleries, those intended for the people, were filled long before the commencement of the meeting, the lower ones, which usually contained the more select public, particularly the friends of the members, remained almost entirely empty. On this oc- casion, as usual, women constituted the majority of the spectators. All were in a state of the greatest excitement, and each had much to relate of their experiences on the same spot two days before. Shall we still have compassion upon these rascals, these Muscadins, who have so abused us? cried out one of these heroines. Well, in spite of their cruelty, here I am again; and if they should treat me so again to-day, I would still be here day after to-morrow. I am a Jacobin. I have sworn to die at my post, and therefore I will die there. Universal applause! Every one will share this crown of martyrdom with her sister. But while such scenes of patriotic enthusiasm enlivened the galleries, a deathlike silence still reigned in the hall itself. No one showed him- self there. The members of the Club may be seen collected in groups in the court, discussing quietly the events of the day. A sheet which has first appeared that morning is passed from hand to hand. It con- tains a bitter attack upon the faction hostile to the Jacobins and their voL. LXXNii. NO. 170. 15 170 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. leaders, especially Tallien and Fr~ron, and an unskilfully concealed defence of Carrier, well calculated to produce excitement Sud- denly the news arrives that Carrier is really arraigned; they are just voting upon the question of his imprisonment. A general confusion follows the quiet which has hitherto been maintained. The galleries rise en masse, and repeat the oath not to leave their post till death comes, and they animate themselves with patriotic songs, Allons, enfans de la patrie! Aux armes, citoyens! Veillons au salut de lEmpire! At last, just before seven oclock, the members of the Club enter the hall, and are greeted with great applause by the galleries. A moment of solemn stillness, of eager expectation, follows. The meeting is opened with iRaisson as president, and a member rises and demands that The Rights of Man be first read. We are, says he, at a moment of great distress. The people must know their rights; they are now oppressed, but their uprising will one day be terrible. It is voted, that henceforth The Rights of Man shall be read at the commencement of every meet- ing, and that the assemblage listen to this reading with uncovered heads. The reading immediately follows, and the two points which refer to popular societies and insurrection, the holiest of duties in case of per- secution, are received with peculiar applause. Immediately afterwards the law of July 27, 1793, is read, which affixes heavy punishments to the dissolution of popular societies under any pretext whatever. Scarcely is this finished, when a tremendous noise is heard in the outer court. The Muscadins, supported by the rabble, have again opened their batteries with the cry, A bas les facobins! Vive la Convention! The hall is at once attacked on all sides; the galleries are forcibly en- tered; they fight hand to hand, and the scenes of the ninth are renewed. The women, in spite of their oaths to die at their posts, rush out amid cries of distress and murder, and are met by the Muscadins, by whom some of them are shamefully maltreated. A bold sally of the Jacobins at last clears the way; the military arrives, with the members of the committee at their head, the populace is dispersed, and the Jacobins resume their meeting under the protection of bayonets. Two captured Muscadins, who had been dragged into the hall, are magnanimously set at liberty, with red caps on their heads. It does not become Jacobins, it is said, who have only sought freedom, to make prisoners. Go hence, they were told, and tell your Muscadins what you have heard and seen; tell them whether we have harmed you, and show them your wounds. Meantime the noise without continues far into the night, and the cry, A bas~ les Jacobins! echoes incessantly through the broken win- dows to the farthest corner of the hall. The attack is several times renewed, but is at once repelled by the soldiers, and the Muscadins, 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 171 everywhere driven back, seek to gain a foothold ia the Rue St. llonor~. The Jacobins finally become uneasy at this revolutionary state of siege in their hall, and one by one they retire; but in order to protect the women from the cruelties of the expectant Muscadins, it is formally voted that each person who retires shall take one of them under his protection on his arm. The Jacobins and Jacobinesses may thus be seen through the darkness of a stormy November night slinking away in couples from the scene of their heroic deeds and most brilliant tri- umphs. Of those who remain, no one ventures to speak, till at last Carraffa rises once more and says: The body of Lepelletier, murdered by the aristocrats, was exhibited to the people. Marat was borne about with his bloody wounds by the Cordeliers in order to excite the people. I therefore propose that all the stones which have been hurled against the friends of equality be carefully gathered up and placed upon the presidents table, and be exhibited to the people at the beginning of every meeting. This ludicrous proposal, loudly applauded by the few persons present, was the last net of the Society of the Friends of Freedom and Equality in the former Jacobin Convent at Paris. One by one the most intrepid Jacobins left the hall with their female com- panions, and at three oclock in the morning the doors of the deserted hall were locked and sealed by command of the committee. Thus died the Jacobin Club, in the sixth year of its existence. Alisons observations upon this event are worthy of quota- tion: Thus fell the Club of the Jacobins, the victim of the crimes it had sanctioned, and the reaction those had produced. Within its walls all the great changes of the Revolution had been prepared, and all its principal scenes rehearsed; from its energy the triumph of the democ- racy had sprung, and from its atrocity its destruction arose, a signal proof of the tendency of revolutionary violence to precipitate its sup- porters into crime, and render them at last the victims of the atrocities which they have committed. A contemporary journalist has preserved a striking account of the universal transports at the closing of this ter- rible Club, which with its affiliated societies had so long covered all France with mourning. It was a truly touching spectacle to behold the joy of the people at the extinction of the Jacobins. All hearts were opened at the news of the salutary decree of the Convention. In the evening the streets and public places resounded with cries of joy, with almost childish mirth, with games and dances. Every one pressed his friends hand without mentioning why; all understood what was meant. 172 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. But though the closing of the Club was received by the people with such evident pleasure, its members were by no means inclined to abandon the field without another struggle; and as they were not allowed to enter their hall, they took refuge in a society of the Faubourg St. Antoine, to which the name of Jacobin was a sufficient passport. But the most prominent of them were arrested a few days afterwards, and from that time forward no mention is made of a meeting of the Jacobins of Paris as a club; and the affiliated societies, branches of the same great tree, soon died a natural death. As a party, however, the Jacobins continued to exist in greater or less numbers throughout the Revolutionary era, and they even established one or two clubs under various names, but they were of brief duration. They are interest- ing only as forming the last of the true clubs, which led naturally, and almost necessarily, to those secret societies that have played so important a part in the political affairs of Europe during the present century. We cannot leave this subject without remarking that the Jacobins have usually been too harshly judged as a body. All have been made to suffer for the atrocities of a part, and due attention has not always been paid to the motives by which they were governed. As Alison will hardly be sus- pected of sympathy with them, or indeed with any democratic movement, we readily quote a passage from his History: Even the Jacobins of Paris were not destitute of good qualities; history would deviate equally from its first duty and its chief usefulness if it did not bring them prominently forward. With the exception of some atrocious men, such as Collot dHerbois, Fouch6, Carrier, and a few others, who were villains as base as they were inhuman, almost entirely guided by selfish motives, they were for the most part possessed of some qualities in which the seeds of a noble character are to be found. In moral courage, energy of mind, and decision of conduct, they yielded to no one in ancient or modern times; their heroic resolution to maintain amidst unexampled perils the independence of their country, was worthy of the best days of Roman patriotism Some of them, doubtless, were selfish or rapacious, and used their powers for the pur- poses of individual lust or private emolument. But others, among whom we must number IRobespierre and St. Just, were entirely free from this degrading contamination, and in the atrocities they committed 1856.] HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. 173 were governed, if not by public principle, at least by private ambition. Even the blood which they shed was often the result, in their estimation, not so much of terror or danger as of overbearing necessity. They deemed it essential to the success of freedom, and regarded the victims who perished under the guillotine as the melancholy sacrifice which was required to be laid on its altar. The Jacobin Club was the product of the most extraordi- nary and terrible political derangement that ever existed. As such complete powerlessness of the government, and so com- plete an annihilation of all conservative influences and ele- ments, are no longer conceivable, it must ever remain an isolated phenomenon without a parallel in the worlds history, for nothing but these could have converted the modest union of forty-four deputies from Brittany, which assembled at Versailles in May, 1789, into that revolutionary power, whose terrible sway for years bade defiance to every other power, and filled the world with horror. And yet the essence of Jacobinism consisted only in its destructive energy. It could destroy, it could not create; and from its very origin there rested upon it the curse of self-annihilation, which brought ruin upon all who endeavored, by its aid, to raise themselves to authority and influence. After the closing of the Jacobin Club, the convent was declared national property. On the 17th of May, 1795, the Convention ordered the construction upon its site of a mar- ket, under the name of ]Jlarch6 du Neuf Thermidor; and on June 24 following, the sale of all the buildings of the former convent was decreed. They were soon removed, and the new sheds erected. At a later period, the market was for a long time called the Harch~ des facobins, but it is now known as the ]1Jiarch& ~ St. llonor6. Though few or no traces of the original building remain, it is worth the trav- ellers while, if he be in Paris, to make a pilgrimage to the spot where the Jacobin Club once met; and, if his curi- osity should lead him thither early in the morning, he will be tempted to think that the confused Babel around him is no unfit emblem of the Club, while the strong-voiced market- women cannot fail to suggest the dames des halles, and the heroines who so constantly crowded its galleries. 15* 174 HISTORY OF THE JACOBIN CLUB. [Jan. That the spirit of Jacobinism still exists in Europe, and that it finds many adherents, is a truth which every years history brings home to the world, and especially to the despots of Europe. But it is not so well known that the race of original Jacobins is not yet entirely extinct. Yet so it is. Mr. Zinkeisen narrates an interview that he had in Paris with one of the furies of the guillotine, a woman filled with the most profound contcrnpt for all that the world has since experi- enced, and an equally profound admiration for IRobespierre. He went one morning with a friend to a low caf~ near the fa- mous abbaye, where they had scarcely seated themselves when an old woman of very peculiar appearance entered and took a seat at a table which by common consent seemed left for her. The stuff and fashion of her clothes were of the last century, and in her hand she had a large bag containing her provisions for the day, which she had doubtless just purchased in the March6 St. Germain. Her face, which was covered by a projecting bonnet, was wrinkled, browned, and hollow- checked, but still expressive, and not without traces of the fire of her earlier passions. She had been one of the most daring, furious heroines of the galleries of the Jacobin Club during the reign of terror, a fact which was generally known, and which she by no means denied, for she would still have sworn to die at her post for IRobespierre. She was reserved, absent- minded, and monosyllabic. Ah, the divine Marat! The incorruptible IRobespierre! The infamous Cabarrus, the jade! They assassinated him, these Thermidorists ; this was all that could be got out of her. She seemed to wander in an- other world. That some of her companions, and indeed some of the Jacobins themselves, may still survive, is by no means impossible; for their opponents, surviving royalists of the same generation, may still occasionally be seen in Paris. 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 175 ART. VIJ. ]iiliernoires dun Bourgeois de Paris. Par le DR. J. VI~RON. Comprenant la Fin de lEmpire, la Reslaura- tion, la JJiTonarchie de fuillet, et la lZ6publique ~usqu au R6tablissement de lErnpire. Paris. 1853 55. IN the first place, this title, like most titles, is inexact. Dr. V6ron does not give you any notion of the times which either precede or follow his own. We mean by his own, those in which he was an actor, the eighteen years during which the much or little that was in him developed itself to the utmost extent whereof it was capable, and caused him to be, according to his own phrase, somebody. This very ex- pression is applied by him to his position in the year 1829, on the eve of the Revolution, which was to bring him, with so many others of his moral class and stamp, forward into a kind of relative importance. One must, in the world, as quickly as possible take his measures to be somewhere and with some one; it is a way to become somebody. This theory, however, never helped our learned Doctor beyond the government of the Acad~mie Boyale de luliusique, and even his infinence as proprietor of the Constitutionnel is powerless to make a personage of him, when compared with the ~clat by which he is surrounded as autocrat of the Grand Opera. As Joseph de Maistre was perfectly exact in affirming that no nation ever had any but the government it deserved,~~ so it is true that (with the exception of a very few isolated cases) men do not arrive at the position they desire, but at that for which they are fit. Observe, we are not speaking of those who, as Shakespeare says, are born great, or, as the French express it, naissent tout arriv& s; neither do we say that all men fill the places for which they are fit. We have to do with those who achieve greatness, and start from a point far beneath that to which they tend; being, therefore, when they reach the latter, essentially in the condition of men who have, as we term it, arrived at a destination, not of those who have been there all their lives. We repeat it, such men do not arrive at what they hope for, or dream of, or pass their whole existence in attempting to take by storm

1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 175 ART. VIJ. ]iiliernoires dun Bourgeois de Paris. Par le DR. J. VI~RON. Comprenant la Fin de lEmpire, la Reslaura- tion, la JJiTonarchie de fuillet, et la lZ6publique ~usqu au R6tablissement de lErnpire. Paris. 1853 55. IN the first place, this title, like most titles, is inexact. Dr. V6ron does not give you any notion of the times which either precede or follow his own. We mean by his own, those in which he was an actor, the eighteen years during which the much or little that was in him developed itself to the utmost extent whereof it was capable, and caused him to be, according to his own phrase, somebody. This very ex- pression is applied by him to his position in the year 1829, on the eve of the Revolution, which was to bring him, with so many others of his moral class and stamp, forward into a kind of relative importance. One must, in the world, as quickly as possible take his measures to be somewhere and with some one; it is a way to become somebody. This theory, however, never helped our learned Doctor beyond the government of the Acad~mie Boyale de luliusique, and even his infinence as proprietor of the Constitutionnel is powerless to make a personage of him, when compared with the ~clat by which he is surrounded as autocrat of the Grand Opera. As Joseph de Maistre was perfectly exact in affirming that no nation ever had any but the government it deserved,~~ so it is true that (with the exception of a very few isolated cases) men do not arrive at the position they desire, but at that for which they are fit. Observe, we are not speaking of those who, as Shakespeare says, are born great, or, as the French express it, naissent tout arriv& s; neither do we say that all men fill the places for which they are fit. We have to do with those who achieve greatness, and start from a point far beneath that to which they tend; being, therefore, when they reach the latter, essentially in the condition of men who have, as we term it, arrived at a destination, not of those who have been there all their lives. We repeat it, such men do not arrive at what they hope for, or dream of, or pass their whole existence in attempting to take by storm 176 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. or by cunning, but simply at that for which they are fit. The whole career of the once famous subject of this article will supply us with the proof of what we have said. From the hour when he first entered upon his studies as a medical practitioner to the present day, when he has attained, how- ever far below his aim it may be, the destiny for which he was formed, Dr. V6ron has never ceased sighing for the exercise of what his countrymen would call serious public functions, and has under no power, however friendly, by the aid of no intrigue, however unscrupulous, been able to achieve that end. The best and most perfect directeur dopera, France or the world ever saw, the type, so to speak, of all directors to come, that was M. V6ron, and that develop- ment of his activity he reached under the reign of the citizen king. Connected with his attainment to this position, with his discharge of its duties, with his ardent wish to ex- change them for others, is a series of circumstances which undoubtedly makes of this individuals career one of the completest commentaries extant upon the political and philo- sophical history of Louis Philippes reign. Before going any further, to exemplify this, we will give a brief sketch of Dr. V6rons birth, parentage, and education, in order that our readers may be familiar with the leading actor of the curious comedy entitled lVliernoires dun Bourgeois de Paris. Born on the 5th of April, 1798, M. V6ron is, at the present day, aged nearly fifty-eight years. Now a mans age has always this importance, that it shows you at what particular period of his life certain events occurred, and produced cer- tain impressions upon him, modifying his character and influencing his career. The fall of the Empire found him a mere boy, and its glories had shone only during his infancy and childhood; consequently, whatever he could know of that period of his countrys history came from hearsay. At the Concours of 1821, he was admitted to hospital practice, and in 1823 received the diploma of Docteur en lkdecine. He was then twenty-five years of age, having attained the ripe maturity of what was still youth at the time when the govern- ment of Louis XVIII. was affording to France the full measure of that intellectual development and material pros- 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 177 perity which his short reign alone procured for her, and to which, in the same degree, she was a stranger before and has been ever since. Dr. V6rons first hospital practice took him to the estab- lishment of the Enfans Trouv6s under Baron, the physician to the children of France, as the Duc de Bordeaux and Mademoiselle were then termed. He does not perceive, what every reader sees at a glance, that, notwithstanding all his political pretensions, he naturally, and as it were in- stinctively, judges everything from the point of view of his real capacity, and of the one position to which he was inevi- tably destined, that of Director of the Grand Opera. Thus, when alluding to his studies at the Foundling Hospital, Every morning, observes he, I regularly submitted at least a dozen and a half of new-born babies to the action of a vapor bath, which, from humanity and conscience, I also undertook myself to support with them. The poor little wretches and I used to come out of these ovens red as boiled lobsters, and I confess that the voices of Nourrit and Duprez, and the points dorgue of Madame Damoreau herself, have never been able to banish from my ears the cries and yells of these miserable abortions of the human form. And later, our A~sculapius says: I certainly, in a twelvemonth, used to dissect more than a hundred and fifty new-born babies; I have studied the nutritive capacities of more than two hundred nurses, and presided over their departure with their nurslings for their various homes. There was a vast difference, no doubt, between these morning occupations of mine in the amphitheatres and hospitals and my evening em- ployments in the coulisses of the opera! A difference, no doubt, yet to appreciate it thoroughly it requires to have seen the individual himself. This advantage many of our countrymen and countrywomen have had, and we dare say, Boston or New York, Philadelphia or Washington, could produce more than one eyewitness of the full-blown splendors of a man who, in our century, not inaptly represent- ed the celebrated traitans and fermiers g6n6raux of the two centuries preceding. Who is there, who, having visited Paris between the years 1835 and 1847, has forgotten the famous 178 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. proscenium-boxes of the Grand Opera, so large, so luxurious- looking, so perpetually filled with the same faces? Royal boxes are nothing to them, or rather these are the boxes of the royalty of that time, of the rich, fat, lazy, ostentatious Bour- geoisie. There are the famous Loge blanche, and the Loge rouge, the boxes of the Jockey Club, and the so-called Gants jaunes, the comfortable, soft-cushioned, spacious abodes, where night after night lounge and loll the capricious masters of the mode, the potent, but neither grave~ nor reverend seigniors, against whose decrees not even the public seeks to rebel, and to fall into whose displeasure is a misfortune not to be retrieved, either by merit or the might of the press. Jules Janin himself is powerless against the Gants jaunes; what they are resolved to put down, even he cannot raise, and what they systematically protect, finds favor in directorial eyes. But in their neighborhood is one superior even to themselves, among them, though not of them, one who holds sway over them with an unseen sceptre, and whose nod in matters operatic is the nod of the Olympian Jove. Look at the roomy box, quilted and padded in blue damask, with large glasses reflecting alternately the spectators and the stage, and handsome lorguettes, waiting for their owners, on the ledge. With his back turned to the stage, sits a tall, dark, unpleasant-looking man, called at that time, by cour- tesy, young, and remarkable for the large white or red camellia at his button-hole ; that is M. de L M He is so well aware that a man had better not be, than not be talked of, that, finding in himself no possible qualification wherewith to make a noise, he depends on the flower upon his coat for that result, and does wisely. He spends his income in a greenhouse, and people talk of it; the huge dec- oration at his button-hole fixes public attention; women begin to speculate upon the means of obtaining a whole bouquet of such flowers ; and the mans reputation is made. We can testify to the truth of the fact, that long before Alex- andre Dumas, fils, invented the Dame aux Gam~llias, the homnse aux cam~liias was an existing and famous type. Next to this personage comes a short, fair, curly-headed, well-dressed individual, whose renown is attached to the circumstance of 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 179 his being utterly ruined, and yet continuing to lead the life of men who spend money by the handful. This is Charles de B, who, when all was positively up, took to writing feujiletons, and ended by marrying a fair compatriot of our own, with whom he is now living most happily, but in retire- ment. The other frequenters of the box are, from time to time, Morny (Louis Napoleons half-brother), and Felix Lava- lette (at present a senator, late ambassador from France to Constantinople), whose intimate community of interests with a celebrated dancer induces him to neglect no opportunity of improving her success; Walewski, famous solely for hav- ing perpetrated a mortally stupid comedy, which, as poor Madame de Girardin remarked, it would have been so easy not to write; the ex-husband of Taglioni, Gilbert des Voisins, and the friend of Madamoiselle Nan, Ferdinand de M. These are the usual occupants of that much- talked-of box, which, on opera nights, is one of the first curiosities pointed out to a foreigner. But there is a planet of which these men we have named are but the satellites, a fixed star, of which all their lustre is but a reflection. This is V6ron himself; and those who surround him are something only because they gravitate in his sphere, and can obtain an invitation to the Lucullus-like magnificences of his table, or the entr6e of gorgeous saloons, where, under the auspices of his presiding hospitality, you may make the acquaintance of Rachel or Elssler, or lose half your fortune at play in one night. Now mark the great man himself, as he sits oppo- site the stage, calm and composed in the consciousness of his satrap sway, not stiff, yet not impressible; moved, on the contrary, by nothing, and, as the extremest sign of his favor, vouchsafing a bland smile, or the laziest possible ap- proach to applause by the slow bringing together of his two fat hands, which are too dense to occasion by their meet- ing any sound. Lablache is a very little more remarkable for his rotundity of body than our hero, but in rotundity of face the latter quite eclipses the illustrious Neapolitan. A human face so round, so flat, so rubicund, was perhaps never before seen; yet, strange to say, it has none of the usual attributes of such faces. It beams not, nor is there any jollity 180 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. about it. It resembles to the life the caricatures of it, which may be seen in every print-shop, and which are uniformly created by the process of planting in the middle of a huge melon or gourd a short snubby something that does duty for a nose. This type has become so current, that the very Ga- min de Paris, with a piece of charcoal and any plain super- ficies to operate upon, will in two strokes faire un V~ron, as he calls it. The true orbit of this planet is, as we have shown, the Opera. Director, or not director, there is his home. Those two splendid dark-brown steppers of his, the finest pair of horses in all Paris, and that pompous, well-appointed coach- man, may sometimes be put in requisition to convey their masters Falstaff-like individuality to this or that part of the city, one of whose ornaments he is. But they must transport him three nights in every week to the Grand Opera. This they know, and he knows, and the public know it too; and we cannot conceive of an opera night without V6ron. As well might one think of it without the chef dorchestra, or the ballet-master, or the prompter, or any other indispensable functionary. If at one single representation that most mag- nificent potentate were to fail, the representation itself would also inevitably fail; the singers and dancers being at a loss for whom to exhibit their talents. The public! exclaimed once Th6ophile Gautier, apropos to this very question, the public! Bak! le public cest V6ron! Now having tried to represent or recall to our readers what the social position of our self-styled Bourgeois de Paris be- came under the reign of the Orleans dynasty, we ask them to cast a retrospective glance upon his beginning, and to see whether they find it easy to recognize, in the solemnly trium- phant three-tailed Bashaw of the blue opera-box, the raw medical student whose first stage in life led through a double file of wet-nurses to the hospital of the Enfans Trouv6s, and to that perpetual vapor-bath in which he is doomed to plunge squalling babies without end! We request our readers par- don for this digression, but it really was indispensable in order to make them duly appreciate whatever concerns the individ- ual we have undertaken to portray. 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 181 It will, however, very naturally be inquired how, from his hospital practice in 1825, Dr. V6ron rose, in a few short years, to the artistic throne he held so absolutely and so long, how he ascended from what was barely an iEsculapian drudgery to the very highest, completest intimacy with Apollo and the Muses. The answer is easy. He rose by what has been the stepping-stone of so many of his countrymen, by the press. But here we will recur to himself for information. One night, as he tells us, he was called up in a hurry to attend a portress in the neighborhood, whose nose had been bleeding for six hours. All the old women had, one after the other, adminis- tered their specifics, and all in vain; the portresss nose went on obstinately pouring forth its crimson tide, and when the young practitioner arrived, the patients pulse was so low as to be almost imperceptible. Stimulated by the solemnity of the occasion, ( All the portresses of the quartier were standing round, he observes, and a true Parisian knows the gravity of that ordeal!) he attempts an operation which he has heard of but neither practised himself nor seen others practise. It succeeds completely, and the operator himself is, of all, the most astonished at its success. From this hour his fame spreads, and from porters lodge to porters lodge in all the neighborhood no professor of the healing art is in such vogue as he whose nocturnal exploit upon the proboscis of one of the loquacious sisterhood has won for him the sounding suifrages of all their tongues. Patients come in, and Doctor V6ron has a clientUe! Among his patients is a rich lady of a certain age, unfortunately more fat~ even than she is either fair or forty, and this gentle dame insists on being bled. I hear on all hands of nothing but your skill, com- mences she. I am told your learning is prodigious, and I am quitting my own physician in order to put myself under the care of a man already so famous as you are. All my friends will assuredly follow my example, and in a very short time your client die will be the most distinguished in all Paris.~~ The situation was an embarrassing one. Bled the lady would be, and her medical attendant had as to the use of the lancet the same apprehensions which have often assailed the oldest and most experienced hands, and from which, for instance, the voL. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 16 182 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. world-famous surgeon, Pont, was so little free, that to the latest hour of his practice he confessed that he had never bled any one without anxiety. Whether he liked it or not, how- ever, our hero was now obliged (putting all attempts at a pun aside) to come to the scratch. But here lay the very difficulty. In the comely fat arm that is offered to him where is the vein? Its possessor holds it out without fear, and keeps up a running commentary of anticipatory praise. The unfor- tunate operator grasps the steel, turns up his sleeves, makes ready for action, and at length plunges the lancet into the too, too solid flesh. Alas! of the first and of the second plunge nothing comes; the well-covered vein is not attained. And then the whole aspect of the scene undergoes a change, and the praises of the comely dame are transformed into angry complaints. You a man of talent! exclaimed she at the top of her voice ; why, the commonest apothecary would know better how to bleed one than you. Ah, well! I truly commiserate the unlucky creatures who fall into your care! Bind up my arm, if you are capable even of that, and begone as quickly as you can! Who knows whether I am not dis- abled for the rest of my days! ~ Probably M. V6ron had no vocation for the career to which his parents had devoted him; for this incident sufficed to dis- gust him with it altogether, and on his return from his unsuc- cessful experiment in phlebotomy he told his porter, should any one in future ask for a medical practitioner there, to an- swer that none lived in the house. Here then was the end of MI. V6rons career as a professor of medicine. From that time forward, and for a year or two, he supported himself by writing articles in the Quotidienne, and giving paid lectures upon Physiology at the Soci6t6 des Bonnes Lettres. What a wide gulf opens still between this precarious and more than modest situation, and the splendors to come, but yet unforeseen, of that wondrous blue opera-box, the hotel in the Rue Taitbout, the brown horses and demure coachman, and the obsequious satellites who are now mm- isters, ambassadors, and senators! Aladdins lamp is not * AI~moires dun Bourgeois de Paris, Vol. I. p. 11. 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 183 yet found, but it xviii be soon. During these few years of toil, the remuneration of which was so very disproportioned to the luxurious tastes and instincts of the person remunerated, M. V6ron was more than once tempted to try if he could not ob- tain some employment that should insure to him, if not a more ample, at all events a more fixed revenue. But every door he knocked at refused to open, or, if just set ajar, was soon closed again with the words: Why, you have your profession, what can you want more? The same opposition to all entrance upon what are termed public functions, in later years founded upon the fact of his having directed the Opera, now met him under the pretext of his having been and being still a doctor. Discouraged in all my hopes, says he himself* by that continual reproach and sentence of ex- clusion, contained in the xvords, .lJIais vous ~tes m(decin P I really for an instant dreamt of resigning myself to the hard and laborious life of a country doctor. In no matter what village, the necessaries of existence would have been secured by the patrimony I should one day inherit, and I should in- crease my income by vaccinating all the department, drawing the teeth of all the male peasants, and becoming the accou- cheur of all the female ones. I tried to poetize this prospect of a rn~decin de campagne, and imagined the delights of a father of a family surrounded by a good housewife and merry children. Perhaps a spice of ambition too was mixed up with my ideal. I believe I already saw myself invested with the dignity of .lJliaire of the village! There is the secret of the whole of M. V~rons entire career, and of Louis Philippes reign. Read Baizacs inimi- table character of lEpicier, written in 1842 or 1843, and de- scriptive of the reigning class of that epoch, of the Bourgeois. The ~picier, says he, is of necessity, or aspires to be, a juror, a garde national, and an elector; and he might add, that, when the spicier retires into the country, his infallible aim is the mayorship of his locality. It is this thirsting after public functionarism through life, (a thirst assuaged by nei- ther one r~gime nor the other,) which makes M. V6ron so ?ii~nudres dun Bourgco~s de Paris, Vol. III. p. 93. 184 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. complete a type of the Bourgeois de Paris, and renders the very fact of his existence and development a commentary in itself upon the society of Louis Philippes time. But in 1828, when he was just about completing his thir- tieth year, the prospects of our aspirant as to civic honors and avocations were modified by his succession to his patrimony, on the demise of his last parent. The very first use he makes of this accession of fortune is, we are bound to say, that which is most commonly made of inheritances; he encroaches upon his capital. No very vast extravagance, however, characterized his expenditure at this juncture, and the amount of his impru- dence was a journey to Switzerland and Italy (which he neither enjoyed nor profited by), in company with Maz~res, the author of Le Jeune ltiliari, and some other pieces popular even now on the French stage. The whole time while the journey lasted, one of the travellers was absorbed by a solitary, all-engrossing preconception; neither nature nor antiquity, the glories of art nor the splendors of the Alps, Rome nor Mont Blanc, the galleries of Florence nor the Simplon grandeurs, had any power to lure him from his one perpetual subject of reflection. This was, how upon returning home to cast his skin, faire peau neuve, and achieve complete, entire oblivion of his iEsculapian state. He bethought himself at last (perhaps an impression caught from his travelling companion) of turning dramatic author, that seeming to him the most perfect of all metamorphoses. Accordingly, whilst Maz6res, during their six weeks tour was meditating, and did compose the plan of a five-act comedy in prose, which on their return was played with success at the Theatre Fran~ais, his companion perpe- trated a three-act comedy in verse (!), which was never played anywhere, and the following is M. V6rons own account of his indifferent luck as a dramatist (for, to do him justice, it is impossible to be more candid than he is touching his disap- pointments in life). My work was exposed neither to the votes of a reading committee, nor to the sentence of the public. I merely invited to dine with me M. Michelot, a soci~taire and actor of the Theatre Fran~ais, and my friend Farian de Saint Ange, to whom I had confided my rhymes. The play, it seems, was read before dinner was served, and met with that 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 185 sort of politely-protecting reception which is the feather-bed of productions fated to fall. Michelot praised a verse here and there, (Parisian opera-goers of our age, fancy V6ron, your V6ron, a poet!) pointed out a scene or two as not bad, advised a little more dramatic interest to be infused throughout the whole, and finally pronounced that, with many alterations, the play might appear on the Th~atre Fran9ais. This is the kind of reception which naive young authors, tenacious to the death, style encouraging; but our hero, being anything but naive, escaped the misfortune of being encouraged. His final enlightenment came from a IRhenish carp: but this part of the anecdote he shall tell our readers himself. After the reading of the piece,~~ says he, I was fortunate enough to offer to my judges, who were my guests, the most memorable Rhenish carp ~ Ut Chambord that ever came forth from the kitchens of Chevet. Michelot, who was a renowned gourmet, broke out in honor of this fish into transports of praise so very different from what my comedy in verse had been able to elicit, that I be- gan to reflect, and, instructed by the tribute of enthusiasm so spontaneously paid to Chevets chef dcruvre, attained to the conviction that what had been awarded to me was a mere conventional compliment, nothing more. I quickly enough made up my mind, and having had the audacity to string together some six hundred rhymes, had the wisdom at least to throw the whole concern into the fire. As with medicine, so with the drama; neither was propi- tious to M. V6ron, and he began to think actively of some other way of coaxing fortune. In 1829, he had written politi- cal articles (quite unrecognized) in the Quotidienne. In that year, during M. de Martignacs ministry, he left the above- mentioned journal, with his friends Messrs. Capefique and Malitourne, and entered upon the collaboration of the lilies- sager des Ohambres, as writer of the Mondays theatrical feuilleton. Whilst following up this occupation, the idea of founding a review entered our heros head, and would not dislodge itself. With this idea dawned the luck that, in many respects, was never more to abandon him. Eighty thousand francs was, in the commencement, the capital des- 16 186 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. tined by M. V6ron to the requirements of his new enter- prise, twenty thousand to be furnished by himself, and the rest to depend upon shares of one thousand francs each, taken by separate individuals. The sum was soon made up, and in a few months from the first conception of the plan the Revue de Paris appeared, and inaugurated a literary existence of no inconsiderable ~clat. The moment was a happy one, no doubt, for any under- taking of the kind, and a review, properly so called, did not then exist in France, whilst, at the same time, men more than usually adapted to review or essay writing had already attained to fame, and were by their talents raising the nine- teenth century to a level with the seventeenth, and soliciting a comparison between the age of the Restoration and that of Louis XIV. Villemain, Cousin, Guizot, Thierry, Nodier, Lamartine, Hugo, Vigny, and a host of others, are all men of this time; and it is certain that at the period alluded to there was but a very circumscribed market for their works, unless, indeed, they chose to produce, unceasingly, plays or books. The creation of the Revue de Paris is, in this respect, more important than may have been generally perceived; and the great extension which the art of criticism in France has since reached, the wide-spreading influence which has, little by little, made la haute critique of France the supreme judge of all things artistic and literary on the European continent, may be traced, in a great measure, to the establishment of this w ork. The first man who invented the ~sthetic art in France, who opened the eyes of Frenchmen to its grandeur, and showed the high calling of a true critic, was the illus- trious Villemain. Until those world-famous lessons of his, which, under the Restoration (between 1822 and 1829), drew all France in eager crowds to the Sorbonne, criticism, whether literary or artistic, had moved in France in a very narrow sphere. To prove this, it would suffice to read Laharpe and * This recueji, which was afterwards bought and edited by the very clever proprietor and director of the Revue des Deux Mondes, may, in some degree, claim the honor of having inspired him with the idea of the latter famous periodical. At the present day, the Revue des Deux Mondes may be said to hold undivided sway over the world of high and serious art and literature in France. 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 187 Voltaire, and to mark the almost incredible narrowness of vision which characterizes all their productions. We are not judging now the individual talent displayed, but the miserably narrow limits in which it was allowed to move. iDiderot and Rousseau, indeed, followed another system, but they were, till within the last forty years, looked upon rather as singularities (eccentrics, in the classical acceptation of the term) than as men whose doctrines could possibly become the basis of a school. Germany was far ahead of France, but her great men, who from 1795 to 1820 formed, and were worthy to form, the objects of the admiration of the students and scholars of the whole world, were comparatively un- known in France, or only partially revealed by the cautious euloginms or piecemeal translations of Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stael. The French in whose eyes liberty (in spite of all their excesses committed in its name) is not a lovely thing, or a thing desirable in the abstract, however they may, by a combination of their own hot-headedness and eminently unpolitical sense with external circumstances, have been hurried on into the conquest of a political freedom they are unfit to use when they have got it continue to take out in small slaveries the full change of the big coin of despotism they have got rid of. They are slaves, beyond what we can believe possible, to antiquated notions upon all sorts of sub- jects, and to customs dating from the days of Noah. It would take volumes to enumerate the million ways in which French people, in social and intellectual life, positively crip- ple themselves with chains, harder than those they believed themselves so happy to shake off, in religion and politics. In no respect were they longer or more closely fettered than in matters literary and artistic. A man was ready to lay his own head on the block, in order to disfranchise himself from submission to God Almighty and the king; but he would assuredly have had yours, if you had attempted to prove to him the genius of Shakespeare, A madman, he would argue, who had no notion of classic art, despised rule, and dared to outrage the three unities. You would easily have induced him to take his part in any ceremony of real life, however cruel, or ludicrous, or savage, or extravagant; 188 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. but for no consideration or price would you get him to sit by and see Hamlet acted, unless arrang6 by Ducis! It was in this state of darkness that Villemain found the youth of France, when, in the early years of the Restoration, he ventured to proclaim to them the excellence of those great masters whose works they voluntarily ignored. He alone, perhaps, was capable of the enterprise, from the fact of his allying the largest and most elevated views possible with a correct beauty of diction, and an eloquence whose peculiar characteristics recalled above all the pure classic splendors of the great writers of the age of Louis XIV. More than Cousin or Guizot, more than any of his contemporaries, Ville- main was calculated to influence the studies of his day; first, from the subject of his lessons, which were purely a~sthetic, and next, from the distinctive individuality, as we may call it, of his talent. We dwell upon this point, because it is an important one in the contemporary literary history of France. We request our readers to remember, that the period whereof we are speaking was the one during which the famous struggle began and endured between the so-called Classiques and Romantiques. The master par excellence, we repeat, was Villemain. Roinantique, that is, liberal in tendencies, he was supremely, undeniably classic in form, and consequently presented to the rising generations of France the image of the progress in things literary and artistic xvhich was indis- pensable, and of that intellectual development to attain which the idea of the beautiful was never sacrificed. From the lessons of Villemain there sprang a vast number of young and talented writers, and the professors of the ~sthetic art in France have, we repeat it, no other origin. But the talent once granted, the manifestation of it was not so easy. Critics of real value, who felt themselves such, had no alternative save a volume, or the feujileton of a newspaper; men who had something in them, and whose brains were big with something to say upon every variety of form affected by the beautiful, had, in fact, no place open to them where their thought could produce itself under its proper and normal conditions. The heads of the schools, Villemain, Cousin, 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 189 Guizot, were professors, and had their tribune at the Sor- bonne; but their disciples, where were they to enter into communication with the public? No periodical like the Ed.. inburgh or Quarterly in England existed in France. The prospect of a volume to publish complete scared many a man, who, in an article of thirty or forty pages, would, upon the questions he might have studied, have proved his aptitude and superiority. On the other hand, a feuilleton was want- ing in gravity, and its limits too were prescribed. Several attempts were made before any one succeeded. La Jlliuse Fran9aise and Le Globe were the two that prom- ised best, and the latter has even to this day been able to attach its name to some of the early writers in its col- umns, of whom people still say, as of Messrs. de Remusat, Amp~re, Vitet, and a few others, G%~tait un homme du Globe. But this was not yet the form that lent itself to the entire development of the talents we have since admired in France. Fancy, for instance, Gustave Planche, the hierarch of the genus, recording his judgments, distributing his cap- ital sentences, anywhere save in the dignified, handsome pages of the Revue des Deux llliondes. This high level, how- ever, was not attained at once. As in most cases, a precur- sor made its appearance, and the recue ii, which was to win definitively and enchain public favor for a space of twenty-five years, and be the aim and end of every man of any talent in France, was heralded in on the arena by a periodical less brilliant in every respect than its illustrious follower, but con- ceived in the same spirit. The opportuneness of the Revue de Paris was evinced by the ease with which it was founded, by the support instantly received from nearly every writer of any name and of any pretensions to distinction, and by the pecuniary advantages it procured almost at once to those who established it. In its very first number was an article by Sainte Beuve, one of those charming portraits litt6raires to the exquisite perfection whereof the elegant critic was to attain some ten years later in the Revue des Deux liliondes; in its next numbers were pub.. lished some of those famous nouvelles of M6rim6es, to the creation of which he was, as it were, to bid adieu in the pub- 190 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. lication of the cleverest of them all, Colomba, in that iden- tical Revue des Deux llliondes, in the year 1841. VVe repeat it, the one was but the sketch, the outline, of what the other was to be. But the same qualities which, four or five years later, so eminently distinguished M. V6ron as director of the Opera, already contributed to insure his suc- cess as editor of a periodical. Liberal in the extreme, but full of order, we find M. V6ron attentive above everything to what may flatter and attach to him the persons upon whose talents he counts. Tie never on any occasion spares his trouble, according to the French expression, ii paie de la personne, without reserve, and we have him running about from one end of Paris to the other, indefatigable in his en- deavors to secure whatever is most likely to benefit his enter- prise. I was never tired or discouraged, says he; I used to go from the Arsenal, where lived Charles Nodier, to M6ri- maes abode, at the Beaux Arts; from Saint-Marc Girardin, in the Quartier Saint Jacques, to the Rue Berg6re, where lodged Casimir Delavigne, or to the Rue Olivier, to hunt up Scribe. About once a week, I used thus, in the course of a morning, to give to myself a lecture on comparative literature. Sometimes I popped in on Victor 1-lugo, break- fasting between his wife and young children, with his throat wrapped round in furs, and his whole body hotly swathed up, like a man who is afraid of catching cold, after having passed the night in composing the fine verses of the Orien- tales, or of llliariom Delorme. Here we have, by anticipation, the personage, whole and entire, who is to eclipse all theatrical directors, past, present, and to come, unless, indeed, it may be, Barbaja; but the cele- brated Neopolitan impresario was stingy, and always began by trying how he could at the least cost get the most out of those he was destined to employ; whereas our Bourgeois de Paris, on the contrary, was for ever busied with the desire to make his advantage the interest of his associates, and to stimulate their zeal in his service by the prospect of gain to them- selves. In his character of editor of the Revue de Paris, he treats his authors as he will treat his singers and corps de ballet when he shall rule over the destinies of the Grand 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 191 Opera. He is attentive to them, takes care of them, humors them, habituates them to himself, and insinuates himself into their confidence. He speaks of them involuntarily as his, as belonging to him. They are his writers, as Nourrit and Mademoiselle Falcon and Fanny Elssler and Taglioni will also one day be his. These protective instincts were the occasion, in after times, of V6rons nickname of Paterne. XVhen, during his proprietorship of the Gonstitutionnel, (in 1850,) the law was passed for the signature of all newspaper articles, the leaders in the above journal appeared with the signature of Dr. L. Wron; and see what are the ca- prices of notoriety ! the very man who had labored for ten or a dozen years to efface from peoples minds the doctoral title which he said hindered him from being anything else, found himself treated as an impostor, when, twenty years later, he re-assumed that same title, in order to take a graver air. V6ron a doctor! cried the generation which could behold in him nothing save the incarnation of the Opera, the model director, the sultan of the Blue Box, where, in Heavens name, did he come by that? And, to prove he had not usurped a style that was not his own, the author of the Premiers-Paris in the Constitutionnel had to spend more time, trouble, and ink, than it had cost him previously to disguise the same fact. But this by the way. The scope of these articles (not wholly without merit) was, as it were, to answer to his abonn~s for the honesty of the prince-president ;andin defending Louis Napoleon, in assuring his readers that it was impossible he should ever be false to honor and to his oath, or that he should ever perjure himself, the learned Doctor assumed the tone he would have taken to screen Duprez or Madame Stoltz from any unjust suspicion on the part of the public. The president was his president, and he wonld not have him abused! The absurdity of the position struck at once the ridicule- loving Parisians, and V6ron was universally alluded to under the name of Paterne. But to return to the Revue de Paris. For nearly two years before the Revolution of July, this peri- odical went on increasing in fame and pecuniary value; but after the change of dynasty had taken place, it could not pro- 192 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. gress any further, but, on the contrary, could only recede from its position, on account, in the first place, of the general absorption in public and political life of many of its leading collaborators, and, in the next, of the superior part played on the theatre of literature and art by a recently created rival. The Revue des Deux .lVliondes was established in the year 1830, almost immediately upon the accession of Louis Phi- lippe to power. These combined circumstances sufficed to make Wron comprehend that another sphere must be opened to his ac- tivity. The old temptation of public functionarism was still there, strong as ever, and if he could have been a deputy, or a Sous-Pr(fet, or a clerk in some government office, or a mayor, or no matter what that dovetailed into the regular hierarchy of administration, he would for that purpose have made any amount of sacrifice that could be conceived; but the thing was impossible, and, without abandoning this one perpetual aim, he began to devise another and more round- about way of reaching it. So soon as the Orleans family was established at the head of the state, it was foreseen by most people that the ruling influence was likely to be wealth; and those who had any far sight into the probabilities of the political and social future, perceived already in the distance the growing phantom of a golden aristocracy (to use the German phrase), which in a few years was to be nearly as omnipotent as the aristocracy of Great Britain, and to cast around it nearly as cold a shade as that ancient body has latterly been accused of doing. Money, it was imagined, would be the universal key to everything, and our Bourgeois, among others, consoled himself with the conviction that, if he had money enough, he should easily command the place, which (as with the majority of the men of his time and standing) formed the one great object of his ambition and desire. The desideratum of the present hour therefore was money. That must be got, and all the rest would follow. An occasion soon presented itself. Precisely a year after his nomination to the throne (August, 1831), Louis Philippe radically changed the constitution of the Opera. But this necessitates some expla- nations which may not be altogether uninteresting. 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 193 The first Napoleon, as is well known, had no taste for music, (little enough indeed for any of the fine arts,) but he was imbued with a strong idea of the utility of theatrical representations, and willingly agreed to any expenditure des- tined to keep up or augment the splendor of the national spectacles, but especially of the Acad6mie Jrnp6riale de Mu- sique. In order to meet the enormous expense of this theatre, he issued on the 13th of August, 1811, a decree, the substance whereof is not very generally known. By this decree, all theatres, of no matter what kind, in Paris were forced to pay, some a fifth, the others a twentieth, of their receipts to the treasury of the Grand Opera, which thus, in fact, as we see, lived by the sweat of others brows. The terms of the decree are as follows : Are obliged to pay a tribute (redevance) to our Acad6mie Jmp6riale de Musique, all theatres of the second class, all little theatres, and shows of every sort, whether of machinery, figures, animals, or what not; all games, and in general all spectacles, of no matter what description, and all enterprises of masked balls, concerts, etc The pano- ramas, cosmoramas, and establishments of the like species, are also obliged thereto, and the Cirque Olympique, as a stage on which pantomimes are played. Our theatres of the Opera Comique, Fran~ais, and Od6ou are alone excepted from this tax. This tribute, it was calculated, gave to the Opera about 25,000 francs a month, whereof 15,000 were paid by the sec- ond-class theatres, and 10,000 by the various other establish- ments. The revenue furnished to the Opera from this source was therefore, it will be seen, about 300,000 francs per an- num. This law maintained its validity during the whole time of the Restoration, and in the reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. the following was somewhere near the amount of the sums placed at the disposal of the administration of the Opera: 300,000 francs (and more) furnished by the rede- vance, 600,000 francs given by the Minister of the Interior out of the 1,300,000 francs voted by the Chambers for the royal theatres, and, added to this, the fnnds contributed by the sovereign from his civil list. The last budget of the civil list, verified by the Court of Accounts in 1829, proves that von. Lxxxii. NO. 170. 17 194 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. the th6atres royaux cost Charles X. for that year 966,923 francs I Now, it must be said that the taste for excess of splendor in the accessories of representation (always a sort of tradition of the Opera) began under the last years of the Restoration, at the precise period when, of all others, there were diminished means of satisfying it! This for several causes. After the successive bouleversements of the Revolution and the Empire, and before industrial speculations had begun to sow money about upon the surface of the political soil, for- tunes were comparatively small, and strict economy was the necessity of most families. To this, if you add that the kings household disposed of a very large number of boxes, and that in high society it was a sort of received notion that the performances of the Acad~mie Royale ought to be at- tended free of cost, you will easily understand how impossible it was for any administration to make both ends meet. The consequence was that these two fabulous ends, which we seriously believe never did meet in reality since the creation of the world, did not come together at the Grand Opera any more than in any other case. Many ways of evading the difficulty had been thought of, and none had an- swered. The Revolution of July happened, and a double necessity existed, on the one hand for making the Opera at- tractive, and on the other for bringing its cost within the meas- ure of what the government could afford. One of this very governments first acts was to separate the Opera from the charge of the crown, and the Minister of the Interior in Feb- ruary, 1831, signed and presented for the royal signature a law for giving over the administration of the Acad~mie Roy- ale to a private director, who shall during six years manage it for his own advantage and at his own risk. To this step M. de Montalivet, then minister, had been advised by a special commission composed of the Due de Choiseul, Royer-Collard (the younger), M. dHeuneville, Edouard Blanc, Can6, and Armand Bertin of the Journal des D6bats. In the month of August following, the decree of 1811, con- cerning the redevance of the lesset theatres, was abolished, and in fact the Grand Opera remained abandoned to its own re- sources, that is, to the subsidies awarded by the Chamber of 1856.] VERON S MEMOIRS. 195 Deputies; for Louis Philippe was little disposed to make up any deficiencies from his own already diminished civil list. In the beginning a director was not so easy to be found, and V6ron, presented to M. de Montalivet by the commission, was accepted at once, and requested to submit his plans to the minister. But he himself had now some hours of hesitation, and nearly a fortnight of indecision went by. The arguments which at last determined his acceptance were sensible enough, and show a clear comprehension of the society of his time, of that society whereof in many respects he is himself so complete a personification. The Revolution of July, says he, recounting his cogitations at the conjuncture we mention, is the triumph of the Bourgeoisie. Victorious, this same Bourgeoisie will hold to enthroning itself in its amusements; the Opera will necessarily become its Versailles, and its crowds will rush forward to take the places of the exiled grands sei- gneurs of the court. His calculation was a right one, as the event sufficiently proved, and the fortune M. V6ron contrived to make during his career at the Acad6mie Royale shows how justly he divined when he expounded to the Minister of the Interior his theory of opposing the high receipts of the Grand Opera to the general alarm professed at ever-recurring 6rneutes by the society of Paris and the Continent generally. The caution-money required for the enterprise was 10,000 (250,000 francs); out of this his co-surety consented to deposit inscriptions de rentes of 10,000 a year at five per cent (or a value of 200,000 francs), and the sapient Doctor himself pro- vided 50,000 francs from his own pocket. Speaking of this, M. V6ron remarks that it was no easy thing in 1831 to find an individual ready and able to assume the risk of a similar en- terprise, and in a position to furnish 250,000 francs wherewith to guarantee it. We confess we do not agree with our Bourgeois de Paris, or think that here lay his chief advantage. He had a chance that has through life stood him in good stead; he was lucky, and of this he, in the following words, gives the assurance him- self. I have, he says, adverting to his various occupations and enterprises, passed by I know not how many different emotions, in my existence. I have had those, full of anxiety, 196 VERONS MEMOIRS. [Jan. of the physician at the dying mans pillow, the feverish ones of a manager in the direst embarrassment; I have felt the emotions (serious, grave ones, those) of politics in times of danger and of crisis; those, no less so perhaps, of a newspaper editor who waits for a manuscript in vain. Iii every social situation imaginable, there are good and bad days, but evil fortune is perpetually followed by unexpectedly happy events. Whilst director of the Revue de Paris, I have often waited whole months for articles which in the end never came, and more than once, on the other hand, perfect chefs dceuvre, little gems I had never counted on, such as Auguste Barbiers Gude, or M6rim6e s Vase Etrusque, would fall in upon me without my being prepared for them. Let a man be doctor, newspaper editor, theatrical manager, or general-in-chief of an army, no matter what, the first quality, the first merit, he must have, the one that is indispensable to him from the prac- tical point of view of success, is this one, only one, luck. There is the true word! M. V6ron, as we have said, was lucky. Because he was so, he triumphed over the various intrigues set on foot to prevent him from obtaining the direc- tion of the Opera, and equally because he was so, when he had secured that direction, he made his fortune. his luck it was which delivered over to him the score of Robert le Diable almost in the first days of his administration, though it must be confessed there was something more than mere luck in the sharp-sightedness with which, against the advice of every one around him, he recognized not alone the talent, but the capacity of success of the work, which has since then been a part of the stock in trade of every theatre in the whole world. Our readers may naturally exclaim, What can pos- sibly be the merit of that? Recognize the worth of Robert le Diable! I should think so indeed. But this is a complete mistake. Robert le Diable marked an entire revolution in the sphere of musical and dramatic art; nothing which had pre- ceded it had by any means prepared the way for it. It was an innovation, an attempt the issue of which seemed any- thing but certain. The ]Jliuette, given two years before, in no way furnished assurance; for the J1Jiuette was an opera more or less in the style of other works of the same kind, 1856.1 VERONS MEMOIRS. 197 though with greater extension. It was a collection of sepa. rate airs and concerted pieces, bound together by recitative, and with dances introduced. There were more soldiers, more masses of people upon the stage, than had been usual, but that was a mere extension of an admitted principle, and that six choristers or six hundred should figure on the stage made no alteration in the fundamental bases of operatic art. But Meyerbeers work, good heavens! what was that? Was it symphony, or ballet, or oratorio, or mystery? There was as lunch depending on the dancers as on the singers, on the scenery as on the organ, and more on the orchestra than on all. Five acts too! and long ones, how would the public bear it? And then the orchestra, solos of twenty- five minutes long and an empty stage, and the trios without any orchestra at all! and the Devil and High Mass, and the Nuns, and the voices from Hell! There were undoubtedly, for those who know the strange, incalculable susceptibilities of a Parisian public, ten reasons to one for the prediction of a fiasco colossal as the work that would produce it. M. V6ron on entering upon his new functions asked almost immediately for the libretto of this opera, already variously spoken of in the different circles of Paris, and left by his predecessor among those works of art which he was enchanted to be released from the responsibility of bringing forth. After reading Scribes libretto, the new manager saw at a glance all that rendered it both so perilous and so capable of succeeding beyond all previous example. He at once, indeed, decided that the chances for were much greater than those against success, and he set to work in good earnest to prepare for it. Months and months went by, however, and the twelve had nearly elapsed by the time that the giant opera was ready to meet the public eye. When it appeared at length, every one knows the immense sensation produced. The bouleverse- ment was complete, and the day after the first representation of Robert, a revolution in the world of musical art was ac- complished, as sudden, and far more radical, than that which in politics had been made by the three days of July. There is rarely any adequacy of proportion between the talent of an innovator in any branch of art, and the responsi- 17 198 VERON S MEMOIRS. [Jan. bility of harm to art itself which he incurs. Take the heads of different schools, for instance, in painting, Delacroix, in poetry, Victor Hugo, in music, Meyerbeer, and see in the three specialties whereof they are all such indisputable masters, what an amount of false taste, what a vast proportion of the inartistic element, they have called to life,what a disposition toward confusion and noise they have provoked. Nay, take even Walter Scott, so admirable himself, so true, and you can- not avoid admitting the inferiority, the falseness, of the genre he has inaugurated. And so with Meyerbeer: from the hour when Robert was enacted, and carried away the public in spite of its defects, those defects were adopted as conditions of ex- cellence and success. Because five acts of fine music were found not to have worn out the audience, no opera was thence- forward held to be presentable that was not spun out to five acts. Because Meyerbeers subject necessarily called for a vast luxury of costume and accessories, these were thought quite indispensable to the proper bringing forth of any musical work. Hence all the processions, and triumphs, and solemn entries, and pageants, that thenceforward dragged their gor- geous length over the boards of the Acad6mie Royale, accom- panied by a noise in the orchestra that was no longer music, and that rose up under the feet of the bedizened crowd upon the stage, vain, ugly, and disagreeable as the clatter of horse- hoofs and clouds of dust which alone were wanting to the ab- solute reality of the representation. However, let that be as it may, the management had good reason to applaud itself for venturing on the production of Meyerbeers Robert, and the sums it quickly brought into M. V~rons pocket might lead him to suppose that his cherished idea of public function- arism was of likely accomplishment, and that money alone being needful to this end, the close of his theatrical enterprise would coincide with his easy induction into political existence. But this was not the case, and the history of his delusions in this respect, and the impossibility of his success, was the his- tory of a whole class of society, and of an entire phasis of * Louis Philippe~ s reign. * M. Y~ron left the direction of the Opera in 1835, before the complete expiration 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 199 Whilst director of the Opera, M. V~ron is of less impor- tance to us than he becomes when he has retired from his post as manager of the Acad6mie Royale. He may have more or less merit, more or less success, but his existence in itself proves helps to elucidate nothing. On the con- trary, after he has abandoned his directorial functions, his in- fluence is curious matter for study, and the fact of what he is and of what he cannot be are both of them social problems equally interesting. First, what is he, when no longer head and chief of the Opera, Padishah of the coulisses? Is he simply and solely a Bourgeois de Paris, and influential as such? No! he personifies the dull, unintelligent, meaning- less materialism of twenty years ago in France; he is the incarnation of the sensuality of that period, and he reigns because he is the completest of the viveurs of that time, the archetype of that useless caste against which mainly the bar- ricaders of 1848 revolted. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was something not altogether fleshly in the materialism of France, and her very vices were carried oil with esprit. The age of the so-called philosophers, which heralded in the Revolution, was an age of eminent intellect- uality, of anxiety and research, and a longing spiritual curi- osity was at the bottom of its disbelief. The very rou6s de la r~gence were gallant, witty, generous, high-spirited fellows, thinking, it is true, marvellously little of what we term moral- ity, but utterly incapable of meanness or dishonesty, and in their very excesses seeking something they did not find, not making the excess itself their end and aim. The material- ism of Louis Philippes day (for it must be so characterized) was the reverse. To it might be applied Byrons address to Alphonso dEste: Thou, formed to eat and be despised! It was a gross materialism; one which in the heaviest pleas- ures found its contentment, which ate and drank for feed- ings sake, and dulled itself in whatever most excluded intel- of the six years. M. Thiers flatly refused to renew his privilege, not venturing to appear in the eyes of the suspicious French public as the accomplice of the Doctors enormous gains. 200 VERONS MEMOIRS. [Jan. lect from sense. These were the viveurs of the government of July, over whom ruled the ex-satrap of the Grand Opera, whose throne was the far-famed blue box. But why, when the very principle of that government was held to be the recog- nition of every capacity and every influence, why could not this influence gain the object it coveted? Was he not a Bourgeois de Paris, one of those very men to further whose advancement, whose preponderance, indeed, in the state, the throne of July had been raised? True; but when he ap- plied for place, a change had come over the spirit of Louis Philippes dream, and he was now, in turn, beginning to. hanker after the power of exclusion, to destroy which for ever had been one of the aims in his elevation. The old ideas and tendencies of official bureaucratic France which is the most retrograde thing imaginable were budding forth anew on every administrative branch, and the possessors of offices were every whit as tenacious of its privileges, and as resolved to keep all, save themselves, out of them, as ever were the governing classes under the exiled Bourbons. The level had been lpwered, that was all, the spirit was pre- cisely the same. The commencement of the July government granted, the opinion duly recognized, that thenceforward merit alone, independently of every other consideration, was to attain to power, it becomes amusing to watch the grad- ual retrogression towards the old principles, to mark the short time it took to reach from this starting-point the goal of entire exclusionism, and to witness the joy with which those who were on the right side of the door locked and barred it against those who were on the wrong side. We are not making ourselves the champions of V& on in this case; for we see 110 harm whatever in the circumstance of his inability to climb higher than he did. But it is the reason of the inability that is worth examining; the sudden turn taken in favor of con- servatism by the power that is based upon insurrection, the sudden worship of respectability by the rulers who owe their elevation to their long and unconcealed alliance with whatever affected scorn for things respectable, this is the point of historical philosophy which attracts us, and here the events in the career of our Bourgeois are typical, and repre 1856.] \TERONS MEMOIRS. 201 sent the illusions and disappointments of an entire portion of the body social in France. He had left the direction of the Opera; he had realized a large fortune; he was not inferior in capacity to those around him, quite the reverse; he had influence, a vast clientUe, friends amongst all those of the ]eunesse dorU whom he had fed, or to whom he had lent money. Besides this, he was essentially a Bourgeois de Paris, a big wig too of the press, a man uniting all, or nearly all, the qualifications for office under the existing order of things. Therefore, he logically reasoned, office must be his, he had everything required to obtain it. He applies, and so consistent would be his success with the preconceived ideas of his class, that he posi- tively does not see the determined resistance he encounters, till the crosses are put on all the ts, and the dots on all the is. Even thel) he cannot believe it, and he goes on knocking at every door, till evidence comes again to him in the matter of public functionarism, as in the case of medicine and dra- matic authorship. What Chevets carpe ~ la Chambord, and the fat lady he could not bleed, were to him in the two former cases, that to him in the latter was one of the wittiest ministers Louis Philippe ever had, M. de R6musat. Shortly after his retirement from the Opera, V6ron pur- chased the Gonstitutionnel, and during four or five years so constantly supported the government, that it had got from him all it needed. But at the end of that period, the men he thought his patrons came into power, and all the desire of our Bourgeois for civic activity burst into bloom. He hur- ried off to M. Thiers, then just entering upon his short-lived ministry called the Ministry of the 1st of March. He found the new minister all kindness and protestations. A place in the finances was immediately proposed. As Re- ceiver-General, suggested M. Thiers, his worthy friend of the Constitutionnel would be perfect; the only obstacle was, that no place was vacant! Nimporte! a plan is devised; the receiver-generalship of Alen9on is held by a man of eighty, M. D~cr~s. Go to him, says the minister, obtain his resignation, which, at that age, cannot be difficult, and, spite of the unwillingness of M. Pelet de la Log6re, (who 202 VERONS MEMOIRS. [Jan. xviii make difficulties thereto,) you shall be named in his stead. Off flies M. V6ron with his fidus Achates, M. de Lautour M6zeray (the man of the camellias in the blue box); down they go to Alen~on, and there they find out that they are forestalled, M. D6cr~ss survivance is sold already to a deputy, who has never yet been able to secure the nomi- nation he has bought! Nothing is to be done there, and our hero comes back. Soon, however, the Gonseil dEtat has charms for him, and he imparts his wish to M. Thiers, who again agrees with him, and promises to do his best. A few days after, the minister tells him he finds it wholly impossi- ble to do anything at all, the fact of the matter being, that the respectable councillors of state would not consent on any condition to admit as their colleague an ex-director of the Acad6mie Royale de Musique. Here, his very suzerain- ship over la jeunesse dor6e was his obstacle and his bane. Probably not an individual councillor of state but would have most kindly eaten his dinners, and not even refused his suppers, or his whist-table, or or no matter what other attractions his agreeable home afforded; but this was per- sonal affability on their part; as a body, the Council of State was strictly virtuous, prudish even in its aggregate behavior, and its aggregate respectability was offended at what the respectability personal of each of its members might perhaps have been brought to endure. The Conseil dEtat was a sealed Paradise~ to our Bourgeois, and all his gold even could not buy admission to its grave mysteries. This time M. V6ron not only altered, but also considerably lowered, his pretensions. He had demanded too much at once, suggested his friends; he must enter upon the duties of administration hierarchically, begin at the beginning; in short, do like other people, etc. No end of good advice was offered him in this strain, and he so readily profited by it, that he de- cided upon accepting the very first post usually granted to youthful aspirants, and contenting himself with what is the reward of rising merit at one or txvo and twenty, a sub- prefecture. Fufly resolved upon this modest course, he again confided his plans to M. Thiers, who, quite agreeing therein, referred him to his colleague of the Int~rieur, M. de R6musat, 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 203 railleur et d6daigneux, as our Doctor not unaptly describes him. The Minister of the Interior, remarks the aspirant himself, held in no way to counting me amongst his subor- dinates, and consequently put little grace into the whole busi- ness. When receiving the new candidate for sub-prefectorial honors, So, said he, with that kind of smile which may pass for something else, you want to superintend the balls of Sceaux ? * Let us speak seriously, ]Ylionsieur le lJlinis- tre, was the reply; I can only accept a sub-prefecture with the assurance of becoming prefect. At this, the grand- son of Lafayette started back in amazement. Heyday! what is this? was the exclamation pictured in his looks, and from his lips fell the observation: Why, it has cost us trouble enough to get for you this sub-prefecture of Sceaux, and, for my part, I protest I will never name you prefect. Here was a tolerably clear declaration. Our author says he answered in the following terms: I thank you for your frankness; I was about to make a mistake; I was about to exchange my position of a journalist much solicited, for that of a sub-prefect much soliciting; I rejoice at your ill-nature, and am grateful for your ingratitude. ~ Perhaps this really was M. V6rons reply; at all events, there is no doubt that from this period he remained, during all Louis Philippes reign, enlightened as to what were his chances of attaining to public functions. M. de R6musats reception had shaken his faith in the attainableness of office, as on two for- mer occasions that faith had been destroyed in the prospects afforded by the healing art arid the drama. From 1840, therefore, until the Revolution of 1848, our Bourgeois de Paris remained director of the Conseitutionnel, but, above and beyond all else, ex-director of the Opera, the character as inseparable from him as sovereignty from the once anointed, that to which he easily attained, for which he seemed created, and upon which every circumstance forced him back. Now, far more than when he actually ruled over * Sceaux is a village near Paris where rustic fetes and balls have been given from time immemorial. Sceaux or St. Denis is generally the first sub-prefecture ac- corded, and they are not the least desired from their vicinity to Paris. I Mdmoires dun Bourgeois de Paris, Vol. IV. p. 263. 204 VERONS MEMOIRS. [Jan. the coulisses, does his authority over the world of wealth and pleasure manifest itself supreme. He had, as we said in our first pages, achieved the greatness for which he was fitted, and his influence was to outlive official functions; for his influ- ence represented a combination of things real, an entire aspect of the social constitution of his hour or moment, we will not say his age. He stood now for years (till Louis Philippes downfall) alone, or rather aloof. No longer trying to go to others, as the French phrase runs, others came to him, and his abode, surrounded as it was with a species of mysterious fame, became a refuge for those who bore official dulness with impatience, a world whither to escape when the world of business and state was found too tiresome. All manner of stories were current about that luxurious habitation, penetra- ble only to the chosen, and within whose walls were believed to be perpetually celebrated what he himself, speaking of his operatic realm, entitled the gay and decent Saturnalia of behind the scenes. His wealth was supposed inexhausti- ble, and his prodigality unbounded, whereas neither was quite what it was represented, and the persistent plenitude of the purse was owing in fact to the strict and incessant economy with which it was managed. But then no one ever did know like our Bourgeois how to spend his money advisedly. Every crown-piece he expended purchased the centuple of its worth in notoriety, and no one so well understood how to invest gold so as to make it render more than its natural interest in every respect, whilst to all appearance, instead of being placed, it was simply squandered away. A picture was talked of as being a treasure of art; its price was haggled over by the directors of the Louvre ; V6ron bought it. A counterpane of Jndian workmanship was shown to the newly married IDuchesse de Montpensier, and 500 fixed as the cost. The young prince was appealed to by his bride; he shook his head and smiled: Such things are too dear for me, but take it to M. Wron! And the princely advice was followed, and such persons as had admittance to the sanctum of the Bourgeois de Paris might see upon his bed spread out a coverlet, the magnificence whereof was such that they could not choose but note it; when the owner would modestly tell 1856.] VERONS MEMOIRS. 205 the tale, while beholders were in no degree surprised at the circumstance of his possessing it, and of a kings son being unable to own it. This epoch the eight years between 1840 and the Febru- ary Revolution was the epoch of his importance, the period when the fact of that very importance was one of the signs of the times.