Читать книгу: «International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850», страница 5
Poets In Parliament
The prominence which the "winged words" of Victor Hugo have recently given him in the Assembly has called forth sarcastic insinuations and bitter diatribes from all the Conservative journals. There seems to be an intensity of exasperation, arising from the ancient prejudice against poets. A poet treating of politics! Let him keep to rhymes, and leave the serious business of life to us practical men, sober-minded men—men not led away by our imaginations—men not moved to absurdities by sentiment—solid, sensible, moderate men! Let him play with capricious hand on the chords which are resonant to his will; but let him not mistake his frivolous accomplishment for the power to play upon the world's great harp, drawing from its grander chords the large responses of more solemn themes. Let him "strike the light guitar" as long as women will listen, or fools applaud. But politics is another sphere; into that he can only pass to make himself ridiculous.
Thus reason the profound. Thus saith the good practical man, who, because his mind is a congeries of commonplaces, piques himself on not being led away by his imagination. The owl prides himself on the incontestable fact that he is not an eagle.
To us the matter has another aspect. The appearance of Poets and men of Sentiment in the world of Politics is a good symptom; for at a time like the present, when positive doctrine can scarcely be said to exist in embryo, and assuredly not in any maturity, the presence of Imagination and Sentiment—prophets who endow the present with some of the riches borrowed from the future—is needed to give grandeur and generosity to political action, and to prevent men from entirely sinking into the slough of egotism and routine. Salt is not meat, but we need the salt to preserve meat from corruption. Lamartine and Victor Hugo may not be profound statesmen; but they have at least this one indispensable quality of statesmanship; they look beyond the hour, and beyond the circle, they care more for the nation than for "measures;" they have high aspirations and wide sympathies. Lamartine in power committed many errors, but he also did great things, moved thereto by his "Imagination." He abolished capital punishment; and he freed the slaves; had the whole Provisional Government been formed of such men it would have been well for it and for France.
We are as distinctly aware of the unfitness of a poet for politics, as any of those can be who rail at Hugo and Lamartine. Images, we know, are not convictions; aspirations will not do the work; grand speeches will not solve the problems. The poet is a "phrasemaker"; true; but show us the man in these days who is more than a phrasemaker! Where is he who has positive ideas beyond the small circle of his speciality? In rejecting the guidance of the Poet to whom shall we apply? To the Priest? He mumbles the litany of an ancient time which falls on unbelieving ears. To the Lawyer? He is a metaphysician with precedents for data. To the Litterateur? He is a phrasemaker by profession. To the Politician? He cannot rise above the conception of a "bill." One and all are copious in phrases, empty of positive ideas as drums. The initial laws of social science are still to be discovered and accepted, yet we sneer at phrasemakers! Carlyle, who never sweeps out of the circle of sentiment—whose eloquence is always indignation—who thinks with his heart, has no words too scornful for phrasemakers and poets; forgetting that he, and we, and they, are all little more than phrasemakers waiting for a doctrine!
There is something in the air of late which has called forth the poets and made them politicians. Formerly they were content to leave these troubled waters undisturbed, but finding that others now are as ignorant as themselves, they have come forth to give at least the benefit of their sentiment to the party they espouse. In no department can phrasemaking prosper where positive ideas have once been attained. Metaphors are powerless in astronomy; epithets are useless as alembics; images, be they never so beautiful, will fail to convince the physiologist. Language may adorn, it cannot create science. But as soon as we pass from the sciences to social science, (or politics,) we find that here the absence of positive ideas gives the phrasemaker the same power of convincing, as in the early days of physical science was possessed by metaphysicians and poets. Here the phrasemaker is king; as the one-eyed is king in the empire of the blind. Phrasemaker for phrasemaker, we prefer the poet to the politician; Victor Hugo to Léon Faucher; Lamartine to Odilon Barrot; Lamennais to Baroche.
Kossuth, Mazzini, Lamartine, the three heroes of 1848, were all, though with enormous differences in their relative values and positions, men belonging to the race of poets—men in whom the heart thought—men who were moved by great impulses and lofty aspirations—men who were "carried away by their imagination"—men who were "dreamers," but whose dreams were of the stuff of which our life is made.
The fine immortal spirit of inspiration that is ever living in human affairs, is unseen and incredible till its power becomes apparent through the long past; as the invisible but indelible blue of the atmosphere is not seen except we look through extended space.
The distinction between the sensual, frivolous many, and the few spiritual and earnest, may be stated thus—the first vaguely guess the others to be fools, they know that the former are fools.
[From the New Monthly Magazine.]
Frank Hamilton; Or, The Confessions Of An Only Son.
By W.H. Maxwell, Esq
Chapter I
"Malvolio. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune."—
Twelfth Night.
"Bassanio. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled my state.
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance."—
Merchant of Venice.
I am by birth an Irishman, and descended from an ancient family. I lay no claim to any connection with Brian Boru, or Malichi, of the crown of gold, a gentleman who, notwithstanding the poetical authority of Tom Moore, we have some reason to believe during his long and illustrious reign was never master of a crown sterling. My ancestor was Colonel Hamilton, as stout a Cromwellian as ever led a squadron of Noll's Ironsides to a charge. If my education was not of the first order, it was for no lack of instructors. My father, a half-pay dragoon, had me on the pig-skin before my legs were long enough to reach the saddle-skirt; the keeper, in proper time, taught me to shoot: a retired gentleman, olim, of the Welsh fusileers, with a single leg and sixty pounds per annum, paid quarterly by Greenwood and Cox, indoctrinated me in the mystery of tying a fly, and casting the same correctly. The curate—the least successful of the lot, poor man—did his best to communicate Greek and Latin, and my cousin Constance gave me my first lessons in the art of love. All were able professors in their way, but cousin Constance was infinitely the most agreeable.
I am by accident an only son. My mother, in two years after she had sworn obedience at the altar, presented her liege lord with a couple of pledges of connubial love, and the gender of both was masculine. Twelve years elapsed and no addition was made to the Hamiltons; when lo! upon a fine spring morning a little Benjamin was ushered into existence, and I was the God-send. My father never could be persuaded that there was a gentlemanly profession in the world but one, and that was the trade of arms. My brothers, as they grew up, entirely coincided with him in opinion, and both would be soldiers. William died sword in hand, crowning the great breach at Rodrigo; and Henry, after demolishing three or four cuirassiers of the Imperial Guards, found his last resting-place on "red Waterloo." When they were named, my father's eyes would kindle, and my mother's be suffused with tears. He played a fictitious part, enacted the Roman, and would persuade you that he exulted in their deaths; but my mother played the true one, the woman's.
It was an autumnal evening, just when you smell the first indication of winter in a rarefied atmosphere, and see it in the clear curling of the smoke, as its woolly flakes rise from the cottage chimney and gradually are lost in the clear blue sky. Although not a cold evening, a log fire was extremely welcome. My father, Heaven rest him! had a slight touch in the toe of what finished him afterward in the stomach, namely, gout.
"James," said my lady mother, "it is time we came to some decision regarding what we have been talking of for the last twelve months. Frank will be eighteen next Wednesday."
"Faith! it is time, my dear Mary; the premises are true, but the difficulty is to come at the conclusion."
"You know, my love, that only for your pension and half-pay, from the tremendous depreciation in agricultural property since the peace, we should be obliged to lay down the old carriage, as you had to part with the harriers the year after Waterloo."
That to my father was a heavy hit. "It was a devil of a sacrifice, Mary,"—and he sighed, "to give up the sweetest pack that ever man rode to; one, that for a mile's run you could have covered with a blanket—heigh-ho! God's will be done;" and after that pious adjuration, my father turned down his tumbler No. 3, to the bottom. The memory of the lost harriers was always a painful recollection, and brought its silent evidence that the fortunes of the Hamiltons were not what they were a hundred years ago.
"With all my care," continued my mother, "and, as you know, I economize to the best of my judgement, and after all is done that can be done, our income barely will defray the outlay of our household."
"Or, as we used to say when I was dragooning thirty years ago, 'the tongue will scarcely meet the buckle,'" responded the colonel.
"I have been thinking," said my mother timidly, "that Frank might go to the bar."
"I would rather that he went direct to the devil," roared the commander, who hated lawyers, and whose great toe had at the moment undergone a disagreeable visitation.
"Do not lose temper, dear James," and she laid down her knitting to replace the hassock he had kicked away under the painful irritation of a disease that a stoic could not stand with patience, and, as they would say in Ireland, would fully justify a Quaker if "he kicked his mother."
"Curse the bar!" but he acknowledged his lady wife's kind offices by tapping her gently on the cheek. "When I was a boy, Mary, a lawyer and a gentleman were identified. Like the army—and, thank God! that is still intact, none but a man of decent pretensions claimed a gown, no more than a linen-draper's apprentice now would aspire to an epaulet. Is there a low fellow who has saved a few hundreds by retailing whisky by the noggin, who will not have his son 'Mister Counsellor O'Whack,' or 'Mister Barrister O'Finnigan'? No, no, if you must have Frank bred to a local profession, make him an apothecary; a twenty pound note will find drawers, drugs, and bottles. Occasionally he may be useful; pound honestly at his mortar, salve a broken head, carry the country news about, and lie down at night with a tolerably quiet conscience. He may have hastened a patient to his account by a trifling over-dose; but he has not hurried men into villainous litigation, that will eventuate in their ruin. His worst offense against the community shall be a mistaking of toothache for tic-douloureux, and lumbago for gout—oh, d——n the gout!"—for at that portion of his speech the poor colonel had sustained an awful twinge.
"Well," continued the dame, "would you feel inclined to let him enter the University, and take orders?"
"Become a churchman?" and away, with a furious kick, again went the hassock. "You should say, in simple English, make him a curate for the term of natural life. The church in Ireland, Mary, is like the bar, it once was tenanted by gentlemen who had birth, worth, piety, learning, or all united to recommend him to promotion. Now it is an arena where impure influence tilts against unblushing hypocrisy. The race is between some shuffling old lawyer, or a canting saint. One has reached the woolsack by political thimble-rigging, which means starting patriot, and turning, when the price is offered, a ministerial hack. He forks a drunken dean, his son, into a Father-in-Godship with all the trifling temporalities attendant on the same. Well, the other fellow is a 'regular go-a-head,' denounces popery, calculates the millennium, alarms thereby elderly women of both sexes, edifies old maids, who retire to their closets in the evening with the Bible in one hand, and a brandy-bottle in the other; and what he likes best, spiritualizes with the younger ones."
"Stop, dear James." The emphasis on the word spiritualize had alarmed my mother, who, to tell the truth, had a slight touch of the prevailing malady, and, but for the counteracting influence of the commander, might have been deluded into saintship by degrees.
The great toe was, however, again awfully invaded, and my father's spiritual state of mind not all improved by the second twinge, which was a heavy one.
"Why, d——n it—"
"Don't curse, dear James."
"Curse! I will; for if you had the gout, you would swear like a trooper."
"Indeed I would not."
"Ah, Mary," replied my father, "between twinges, if you knew the comfort of a curse or two—it relieves one so."
"That, indeed, James, must be but a sorry consolation, as Mr. Cantwell said—"
"Oh! d——n Cantwell," roared my father, "a fellow that will tell you that there is but one path to heaven, and that he has discovered it. Pish! Mary, the grand route is open as the mail-coach road, and Papist and Protestant, Quaker and Anabaptist, may jog along at even pace. I'm not altogether sure about Jews and Methodists. One bearded vagabond at Portsmouth charged me, when I was going to the Peninsula, ten shillings a pound for exchanging bank notes for specie, and every guinea the circumcised scoundrel gave was a light one. He'll fry—or has fried already—and my poor bewildered old aunt, under the skillful management of the Methodist preachers, who for a dozen years in their rambles, had made her house an inn, left the three thousand five per cents, which I expected, to blow the gospel-trumpet, either in California or the Cape—for, God knows, I never particularly inquired in which country the trumpeter was to sound 'boot and saddle,' after I had ascertained that the doting fool had made a legal testament quite sufficient for the purposes of the holy knaves who humbugged her. Cantwell is one of the same crew, a specious hypocrite. I would attend to the fellow no more than to that red-headed rector—every priest is a rector now—who often held my horse at his father's forge, when T happened to throw a shoe hunting,—and would half break his back bowing, if I handed him now and then a sixpence. Would I believe the dictum of that low-born dog, when he told me that in head-quarters"—and my father elevated his hand toward heaven—"they cared this pinch of snuff, whether upon a Friday I ate a rasher or red-herring?"
Two episodes interrupted the polemical disquisition. In character none could be more different—the one eventuated in a clean knock down—the other decided indirectly my future fortunes—and, in the next chapter, both shall be detailed.
Chapter II
"Antonio. Thou knowest that all my fortunes are at sea;
Nor have I money or commodity,
To raise a present sum."—
Merchant of Venice.
The Boheeil Kistanaugh, called in plain English, the kitchen boy, had entered, not like Caliban, "bearing a log," but with a basket full. He deposited the supply, and was directed by the commander to replenish the fire. I believe that Petereeine's allegiance to my father originated in fear rather than affection. He dreaded
"the deep damnation of his 'Bah!'"
but what was a still more formidable consideration, was a black-thorn stick which the colonel had carried since he gave up the sword; it was a beauty, upon which every fellow that came for law, in or out of custody, lavished his admiration—a clean crop, with three inches of an iron ferule on the extremity. My father was, "good easy man," a true Milesian philosopher—his arguments were those impressive ones, called ad hominem, and after he had grassed his man, he explained the reason at his leisure.
Petereeine (little Peter), as he was called, to distinguish him from another of that apostolic name—who was six feet two—approached the colonel in his best state of health with much alarm; but, when a fit of the gout was on—when a foot swathed in flannel, or slippered and rested on a hassock, announced the anthritic visitation, Petereeine would hold strong doubts whether, had the choice been allowed, he should not have preferred entering one of Van Amburgh's dens, to facing the commander in the dining-room.
Petereeine was nervous—he had overheard his master blowing to the skies the Reverend George Cantwell, and the red-headed rector, Paul Macrony. If a parson and a priest were so treated, what chance had he? and great was his trepidation, accordingly, when he entered the state chamber, as in duty bound.
"Why the devil did you not answer the bell? You knew well enough, you incorrible scoundrel! that I wanted you."
Now my father's opening address was not calculated to restore Petereeine's mental serenity—and to add to his uneasiness, he also caught sight of that infernal implement, the black-thorn, which, in treacherous repose, was resting at my father's elbow.
"On with some wood, you vagabond."
The order was obeyed—and Petereeine conveyed a couple of billets safely from the basket to the grate. The next essay, however, was a failure—the third log fell—and if the fall were not great, as it dropped on the fender, it certainly was very noisy. The accident was harmless—for, according to honest admeasurement, it evaded my father's foot by a full yard—but, under nervous alarm, he swore, and, as troopers will swear, that it had descended direct upon his afflicted member, and, consequently that he was ruined for life. This was a subsequent explanation—while the unhappy youth was extended on the hearth-rug, protesting innocence, and also declaring that his jaw-bone was fractured. The fall of the billet and the boy were things simultaneous—and while my mother, in great alarm, inculcated patience under suffering, and hinted at resignation, my father, in return, swore awfully, that no man with a toe of treble its natural dimensions, and scarlet as a soldiers jacket, had ever possessed either of those Christian articles. My mother quoted the case of Job—and my father begged to inquire if there was any authority to prove that Job ever had the gout? In the mean time, the kitchen-boy had gathered himself up and departed—and as he left the presence with his hand pressed upon his cheek, loud were his lamentations. Constance and I—nobody enjoyed the ridiculous more than she did—laughed heartily, while the colonel resented this want of sympathy, by calling us a brace of fools, and expressing his settled conviction, that were he, the commander, hanged, we, the delinquents, would giggle at the foot of the gallows.
Such was the state of affairs, when the entrance of the chief butler harbingered other occurrences, and much more serious than Petereeine's damaged jaw. Mick Kalligan had been in the "heavies" with my father, and at Salamanca, had ridden the opening charge, side by side, with him, greatly to the detriment of divers Frenchmen, and much to the satisfaction of his present master. In executing this achievement, Mick had been a considerable sufferer—his ribs having been invaded by a red lancer of the guard—while a chausseur-à-cheval had inserted a lasting token of his affection across his right cheek, extremely honorable, but by no means ornamental.
Mick laid a couple of newspapers, and as many letters, on the table—but before we proceed to open either, we will favor the reader with another peep into our family history.
Manifold are the ruinous phantasies which lead unhappy mortals to pandemonium. This one has a fancy for the turf, another patronizes the last imported choryphée. The turf is generally a settler—the stage is also a safe road to a safe settlement, and between a race-horse and a danseuse, we would not give a sixpence for choice. Now, as far as horse-flesh went, my grandfather was innocent; a pirouette or pas seul, barring an Irish jig, he never witnessed in his life—but he had discovered as good a method for settling a private gentleman. He had an inveterate fancy for electioneering. The man who would reform state abuses, deserves well of his country; there is a great deal of patriotism in Ireland; in fact, it is, like linen, a staple article generally, but still the best pay-master is safe to win; and hence, my poor grandfather generally lost the race.
My father looked very suspiciously at the letters—one had his own armorial bearings displayed in red wax—and the formal direction was at a glance detected to be that of his aunt Catharine—Catharine's missives were never agreeable—she had a rent charge on the property for a couple of thousands; and, like Moses and Son, her system was "quick returns," and the interest was consequently expected to the day. For a few seconds my father hesitated, but he manfully broke the seal—muttering, audibly, "What can the old rattle-trap write about? Her interest-money is not due for another fortnight." He threw his eyes hastily over the contents—his color heightened—and my aunt Catharine's epistle was flung, and most unceremoniously, upon the ground—the hope that accompanied the act, being the reverse of a benediction.
"Is there anything wrong, dear James?" inquired my mother, in her usual quiet and timid tone.
"Wrong!" thundered my father; "Frank will read this spiritual production to you. Every line breathes a deep anxiety on old Kitty's part for my soul's welfare, earthly considerations being non-important. Read, Frank, and if you will not devoutly wish that the doting fool was at the dev—"
"Stop, my dear James."
"Well-read, Frank, and say, when you hear the contents, whether you would be particularly sorry to learn that the old lady had, as sailors say, her hands well greased, and a fast hold upon the moon? Read, d——n it, man! there's no trouble in deciphering my aunt Catharine's penmanship. Hers is not what Tony Lumpkin complained of—a cursed cramp hand; all clear and unmistakable—the t's accurately stroked across, and the i's dotted to a nicety. Go on—read, man, read."
I obeyed the order, and thus ran the missive, my honored father adding a running commentary at every important passage; shall place them in italics—
"'MY DEAR NEPHEW,'"
"Oh, —— her affection!"
"'If, by a merciful dispensation, I shall be permitted to have a few spiritual minded friends to-morrow, at four o'clock, at dinner—'"
"Temps militaire—they won't fail you, my old girl."
"'I shall then have reached an age to which few arrive—look to the psalm—namely, to eighty—'"
"She's eighty-three—"
"'I have, under the mercy of Providence, and the ministry of a chosen vessel, the Reverend Carter Kettlewell, and also a worshiping Christian learned in the law, namely, Mr. Selby Sly, put my earthly house in order. Would that spiritual preparation could he as easily accomplished; but yet I feel well convinced that mine is a state of grace, and Mr. Kettlewell gives me a comfortable assurance that in me the old man if crucified—'"
"Did you ever listen to such rascally cant?"
"'I have given instructions to Mr. Sly to make my will, and Mr. Kettlewell has kindly consented to be the trustee and executor—"
"Now comes the villainy, no doubt"
"'I have devised—may the offering be graciously received!—all that I shall die possessed of to make an addition to support those devoted soldiers—not, dear nephew, soldiers in your carnal meaning of the word—but the ministers of the gospel, who labor in New Zealand. These inestimable men, whose courage is almost supernatural, and who—'"
"Pish—what an old twaddler!"
"'Although annually eaten by converted cannibals, still press forward at the trumpet-call—"'
"I wonder what sort of a grill old Kate would make? cursed tough, I fancy."
"'I have added my mite to a fund already established to send assistance there—'"
"Ay, to Christianize, and, in return, be carbonadoed. I wish I had charge of the gridiron I would broil one or two of the new recruits."
"'I have called in, under Mr. Sly's advice the mortgage granted to the late Sir George O'Gorman, by my ever-to-be-lamented husband, and the other portions of my property being in state securities, are reclaimable at once. My object in writing this letter is to convey to my dear nephew my heartfelt prayers for his spiritual amendment, and also to intimate that the 2000l.—a rent-charge on he Kilnavaggart property—with the running quarter's interest, shall be paid at La Touche's to the order of Messrs. Kettlewell and Sly. As the blindness of the New Zealanders is deplorable, and as Mr. Kettlewell has already enlisted some gallant champions who will blow the gospel-trumpet, although they were to be served up to supper the same evening, I wish the object to be carried out at once—'"
"Beautiful!" said my poor father with a groan; "where the devil could the money be raised? You won't realize now for a bullock what, in war-time, you would get for a calf. Go on with the old harridan's epistle."
"'Having now got rid of fleshly considerations—I mean money ones—let me, my dear James, offer a word in season. Remember that it comes from an attached relation, who holds your worldly affairs as nothing—'"
"I can't dispute that," said my father with a smothered groan.
"'But would turn your attention to the more important considerations of our being. I would not lean too heavily upon the bruised reed, but your early life was anything but evangelical—'"
Constance laughed; she could not, wild girl, avoid it.
"'We must all give an account of our stewardship,' vide St. Luke, chap. xvi.—'"
"Stop—Shakspeare's right; when the devil quotes Scripture—but, go on—let's have the whole dose."
"'When can you pay the money in? And, oh! in you, my dear nephew, may grace yet fructify, and may you be brought, even at the eleventh hour, to a slow conviction that all on this earth is vanity and vexation of spirit—drums, colors, scarlet and fine linen, hounds running after hares, women whirling round, as they tell me they do, in that invention of the evil one called a waltz, all these are but delusions of the enemy, and designed to lead sinners to destruction. I transcribe a verse from a most affecting hymn, composed by that gifted man—'"
"Oh, d——n the hymn!" roared my father; "on with you, Frank, and my benison light on the composer of it! Don't stop to favor us with his name, and pass over the filthy doggerel!"
I proceeded under orders accordingly.
"'Remember, James, you are now sixty-one; repent, and, even in the eleventh hour, you may be plucked like a brand from the fire. Avoid swearing, mortify the flesh—that is, don't take a third tumbler after dinner—'"
My father could not stand it longer. "Oh, may Cromwell's curse light upon her! I wonder how many glasses of brandy-and-water she swallows at evening exercise, as she calls it, over a chapter of Timothy?"
"'I would not recall the past, but for the purpose of wholesome admonition. The year before you married, and gave up the godless life of soldiering, can you forget that I found you, at one in the morning in Bridget Donovan's room? Your reason was, that you had got the colic; if you had, why not come to my chamber, where you knew there was laudanum and lavender?
Poor Constance could not stand the fresh allegation; and, while my mother looked very grave, we laughed, as Scrub says, "consumedly." My father muttered something about "cursed nonsense!" but I am inclined to think that aunt Catharine's colic charge was not without some foundation.
"'I have now, James, discharged my duty: may my humble attempts to arouse you to a sense of the danger of standing on the brink of the pit of perdition be blessed! Pay the principal and interest over to La Touche. Mr. Selby Sly hinted that a foreclosure of the mortgage might expedite matters; and, by saving a term or two in getting in the money, two or three hundred New Zealanders would—and oh, James! how gratifying would be the reflection!—be saved from the wrath to come.
"'This morning, on looking over your marriage settlement, Mr. Sly is of opinion that, if Mrs. Hamilton will renounce certain rights he can raise the money at once, and that too only at legal interest, say six per cent.—'"
