Chapter IX: Part 9

Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The Count was rich--and with amply sufficient brains, according to the dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour--some gallant soldier--and dozens of them were reported every week--made him resolve once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.

Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created colonel on the field of battle; some young general fresh from some heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would have nobody for her husband--neither count, nor colonel, nor general--but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a time she stayed before the glass--how often she tried different coloured roses in her hair--how carefully she fitted on her new Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as superb, as he had heard them described--and then she wished to show him that all these--smiles--eyes--teeth--figure, were given, along with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that other no favourite of a king--nor even of a minister, but only of a young girl of eighteen.

Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was prepared--a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the admiration of a whole court instead of an old man--and that, too, her father--and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."

Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed. And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that is, in the affirmative.

But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter Count Ericson's head--his grammatical education having probably been neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both, in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all the remarks--and they were nearly as heavy as himself--with which he favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having rejected his own nephew--undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian hussars--in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired--

"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"

This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.

"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."

Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.

"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself before he attempted to govern the world."

Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in an offended tone--

"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"

"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name! Men-killers--though you dignify them with the name of heroes--are atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."

A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied look, to have gone through the process already--the difficulty was to lift him up again.

"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"

"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a thousand pieces on the table--"to Alexander's glory!"

"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."

"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog. She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"

The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not in Sweden--nor probably in Denmark either--and the cunning old minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an infinite obligation on both of us."

Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of (mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think, could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game of chess--an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.

"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat you?" she said.

"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed over me, you--you"----He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and concluded his speech with--"beauty!" This expression, which was, no doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither--made his knights slide along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights. His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid winning, and at last--enjoying the victory she had determined not to win--she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the queen."

"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"

"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however, pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued, trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns in their proper position again.

"Don't try it--don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with all its men on the carpet. "The game is over--you have given me check, and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.

"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had been the most fascinating of men.

"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."

"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be--but mine----oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of a return."

"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame. He is in a terrible state of agitation--a most flattering thing, let me tell you, to a young gipsy like you--and you must humour him a little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild; rich, powerful, nobly born--what can you wish for better?"

"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."

"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."

Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed as she was told for her father's success and happiness, and then added a petition of her own, shorter, perhaps, but quite as sincere, for her cousin Adolphus. If she added one for herself, it was a work of supererogation, for she felt that in praying for the happiness of her lover, she was not unmindful of her own.

For some days after the supper recorded above, she was too happy tormenting the very object of all these aspirations, to trouble her head about the awkward and ill-mannered protege of her father, whom she hated with as much cordiality as the most jealous of rivals could desire. But of course she was extremely careful to let no glimpse of this unchristian feeling towards Count Ericson be perceptible to the person who would have rejoiced in it so much. In fact, she carried her philanthropy to such a pitch, that she never mentioned any of the bad qualities of her new admirer, and Adolphus very naturally concluded that she felt as she spoke on the interesting subject. So, all of a sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder than Christina, perhaps because he was poorer, would not condescend to be made a fool of, as he magnanimously thought it, any longer. He had the immense satisfaction of staying away from the house for nearly half a week, and then, when he did pay a visit, he was almost as cold as the formal piece of diplomacy in the bag-wig and ruffles whom he called his uncle; and a great deal stiffer than the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown and white satin corset, whom he called his cousin. Christina was dismayed at the sudden change--Adolphus never spoke to her, seldom looked at her, and evidently left the coast clear--so she thought--for the rich and powerful rival her father had so strongly supported. After much thinking, some sulkiness, and a good many fits of crying, Christina resolved, as the best way of recovering her own peace of mind, and the love of her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in a very decided manner to the pretensions of the Count. One day, accordingly, she watched her opportunity, and followed with anxious eyes her father's retreat from the room, under pretence of some important despatches to be sent off. She found herself alone with the object of her dislike--and only waited for a beginning to the conversation, that she might astonish his weak mind with the severity of her invectives. In fact, she had determined, according to the vulgar phrase, to tell him a bit of her mind--and a very small bit of it, she was well aware, would be sufficient to satisfy Count Ericson of the condition of all the rest. But the lover was in a contemplative mood, and stood as silent as a milestone, and looking almost as animated and profound. She sighed, she coughed, she drops her handkerchief. All wouldn't do--the milestone took no notice--Christina at last grew angry, and could contain herself no longer.

"I dreamt of you last night," she said by way of a beginning. "I hope in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed by your presumptuous presence. It is bad enough to be forced to see you when one is awake."

"And I, also, had a dream," replied Ericson, starting from his reverie, confused and only having heard the first part of the somewhat fierce attack. "I dreamt that you looked at me with a smile, a long, long look, so sweet, so winning. It was a happy dream!"

"It was a false one," she said, with tremendous bitterness. "I know better where to direct my smiles, whether I am awake or asleep."

"And how did I appear to you?" asked the Count, presenting a splendid specimen in his astonished look of the state of mind called "the dumfoundered" by some learned philosophers, and by others "the flabbergasted."

"You appeared to me like the nightmare! frightful and unsupportable as you do to me now," was the answer, accompanied with the look and manner that showed she was a judge of nightmares, and thought him a very unfavourable specimen of the animal.

"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me how you would have me love you, and I will do everything you ask!" In a moment he had seized her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss of prodigious violence on her cheek, which was redder than fire with rage and surprise!

But the assault did not go unpunished. The might of Samson woke in that insulted bosom, and lent such incredible weight to the blow that fell on the aggressor's ear, that it took him a long time to believe that the thump proceeded from the beautiful little hand he had so often admired; or, in short, from any thing but a twenty-four pounder. He rubbed the wounded organ with astonishing assiduity for some time. At last he said, in a very calm and measured voice,

"Your father has deceived me, young lady. He led me to believe you did not receive my visits with indifference."

"My father knows nothing about things of that kind," replied Christina, still flaming with indignation, "or he never would have let such an ill-mannered monster into his house. But he was right in saying I did not receive your visits with indifference; your visits, Count Ericson, can never be indifferent to me, and"----

What more she would have said, it is impossible to discover, for she was interrupted by the sudden entrance of her cousin, who only heard her last words, and started back at what he considered so open a declaration of her attachment.

"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson in an angry tone, and with such an assumption of superiority, that Christina's hand tingled to give him a mark of regard on his other ear.

"A soldier," answered Adolphus, drawing his sword from its sheath and instead of directing it against his rival, laying it haughtily on the table. "A soldier who has bled for his country, and would be happy," he added, "to die for it."

"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then we are friends." He held out his hand.

"We are rivals," replied Adolphus, drawing back.

"Christina loves you, then?" enquired the Count.

"She has told me so; and I was foolish enough to believe her. It is now your turn to trust to the truth of a heartless woman.--She has told you you are not an object of indifference to her, and I resign my pretensions in your favour."

"In whose favour?" cried Christina, trembling; while tears sprang to her eyes.

"The King's!" replied Adolphus, retiring sorrowfully.

Christina sank on a seat, and covered her face with her hands.

"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth in a voice of thunder; "stay, I command you."

The young man obeyed; biting his lip to conceal his emotion, till the blood came.

"I have seen you," said the King, "but not in this house."

"It was shut against me by my uncle when you were expected," said Adolphus.

"And yet I have seen you somewhere. What is your name?"

"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a brave officer who died fighting for you, and leaving me his misfortunes and the tears of his widow."

"Who told you I was not Count Ericson?"

"My eyes. I know you well."

"And I recollect you also," said Charles, advancing to the young man with a manner very different from that which characterized him in his intercourse with the softer sex. "Where did you get that scar on the left temple?"

"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed the pride of the Russians."

"True, true!" cried Charles, his nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up the carnage of the battle. "You need but this as your passport," he continued, placing his finger on the wound, "to ask me any favour, ay, even to measure swords with you, as I daresay you would be delighted to do in so noble a quarrel as the present; for on the day of that glorious fight, I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier, and the true dignity of a brave man. By the balls that rattled about our heads so playfully, give me your hand, brother, for we were baptized together in fire!"

Charles appeared to Christina, at this time, quite a different man addressing his fellow soldier, from what he had done upsetting the chess-board. Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she lost not a word of the conversation. The King turned to her with a smile.

"By my sword, Christina! I am but a poor wooer; one movement of your hand," and he touched his ear playfully as he spoke, "has banished all the silly thoughts that in a most traitorous manner had taken my heart prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as you act. Do you love this brave soldier?"

"Yes, sire."

"Who hinders the marriage?"

"The courtship of Count Ericson, with which my father perpetually threatens me."

"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see how it is. The King must console himself with the kiss, and pass the blow on the ear to the minister. Christina," he added aloud, "your father refuses to give you to the man you love; but he'll do it now, for _it is my will_. You'll confess, I am sure that if I was your nightmare as a lover, I am not your enemy as king."

"I confess it on my knees;" replied the humble beauty, taking her place beside her cousin, who knelt to his sovereign. While Charles joined the hands of the youthful pair, he imprinted a kiss on the fair brow of Christina; the last he ever bestowed on woman.

"Your Majesty pardons me then?" enquired the trembling girl. "If I had known it was the King, I would not have hit so hard."

That same evening Count Gyllenborg signed a contract of marriage, to which the name of Count Ericson was not appended, though it was witnessed by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few days afterwards, the old politician presided at the wedding dinner, and, by royal command, did the honours so nobly, and appeared so well pleased on the occasion, that nobody suspected that he had ever had higher dreams of ambition than to see his daughter happy; and if such had been his object, all Sweden knew that in bestowing her on her cousin he was eminently successful.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.

If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize, frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?

What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America, in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange, in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary to navigation. Alexander _was_ a hero; Archimedes _is_ one.

Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally for a collateral effect of his existence.

As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil engineer.

The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The former was and is, _par excellence_, a hero of history--we should scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]

[17] From a rough calculation taken from the returns of
those left dead on the fields of battle in which
Napoleon commanded, from Montenotte to Waterloo, we make
the amount 1,811,500; and if we add those who died
subsequently of their wounds in the petty skirmishes,
the losses in which are not reported, and in the naval
fights, of which, though Napoleon was not present, he
was the cause, the number given in the text will be far
under the mark. A picture of the fathers, mothers,
wives, children, and relatives of these victims,
receiving the news of their death, would give a lively
idea of the benefits conferred upon the world by
Napoleon.

Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the Atlantic Ocean--in each and all of these, that giant slave, the steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services rendered to mankind by its subjugator.

Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England, in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?--"The introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs, such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time. Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]

[18] Nov. Org. Aph. 29.

The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without, however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate the importance of political services, civil or military, or to exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and durable than that of the active politician--if there be any truth in the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are, during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;--that they obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for, prospective than for present good--for benefits secured to their posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or appreciation.

Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their results. Men _talk_ of "a million;" how few have ever _counted_ one! Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their way--of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by--of the separate history, external and internal, of each--each possessing feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also, men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought--thought, not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated lucubration of minds, of which the term _thinking_ is emphatically predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial, by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a careless, occasional notice--are known but to few of those who daily reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that any one could have foreseen such discovery.

There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the _cause_ of science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.

In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good society--the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other, only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true, university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed; it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]

[19] Impetus Philosophici, p. 681.

Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas! Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered in another form and in another's name.[20]

[20] In any thing we have above said, we trust it is
unnecessary to disclaim the slightest intention of
discouraging those whose want of conventional advantages
only renders their merit more conspicuous; we find fault
not with the uneducated for cultivating science, but
with the educated for neglecting it.

While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly opposite cause--from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness, and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end, have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress of Physics."[21]

[21] Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. ii. p. 409.

The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have, like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_, which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science, giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate, collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can, and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.

It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the government should establish and support one academy as a head and front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up with all government appointments in England: their influence is at present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental _savans_; but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by government, without any permanent connexion with it?

If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings, a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom, reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the _archives of the Society_, according to the judgment of the unknown irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and passing interest is brought before it--comments, such as occur at the time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other member who likes to make an observation--the more elaborate memoirs are read by the authors themselves, and if any _quaere_ or suggestion occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered. The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it. Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting; that there is as much unseen man[oe]uvring and petty tyranny in this as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest or value.

[22] Each Fellow can, indeed, by express permission of
the Society, take with him two friends.

[23] An anonymous author, who has attracted some
attention in France, in commenting on the rejection of
Victor Hugo, and the election of a physician, says--that
nothing could be more natural or proper, as the senility
and feebleness of the Academie made it more in want of a
physician than a poet.

The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression, which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be entirely lost.

In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase, although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity, the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others--the different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to different minds--the unwillingness which the mind experiences in renouncing published but erroneous opinions--are points of human weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care. Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants on the arenae of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate, unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination, seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.