Chapter XIII: finds Eliza and her husband in the Quaker settlement, (2)

Legree in his lair resembles a huge tiger. As painted by the author, with graphic force,--sitting in his desolate apartment, drowning reflection in brandy-and-water,--admitting Sambo and Quimbo to his savage debauches,--and in their absence having his fierce bloodhounds for his companions--(anything better than being alone)--it seems wonderful that any human being could obtain over him any kind of influence, and much less ascendancy; yet Cassy has, in spite of himself, acquired--“the kind of influence which a strong impassioned woman can ever keep on the most brutal man.” Of late, however, she had become “more irritable and restless under the hideous yoke of her servitude, and her irritability sometimes burst forth in the ravings of insanity; and this liability made her an object of dread to Legree, who had that superstitious horror of insane persons which is common to coarse and uninstructed minds. When he brought Emmeline to the house, all the smouldering embers of womanly feeling flashed up in the exhausted heart of Cassy, and she took part with the girl.”

One night, very late, she was gliding about unknown, and came to the window of the room where he was wildly carousing with the twin-fiends, Sambo and Quimbo. “She rested her small slender hand on the window behind, and looked fixedly at them--a world of anguish, scorn, and fierce bitterness in her black eyes,” as she saw them “singing, whooping, upsetting chairs, and making all manner of ludicrous and horrid grimaces at each other. ‘_Would it be a sin to rid the world of such a wretch?_’ said she to herself.” Many subsequent scenes in his career passing before us must more and more have inclined Cassy to answer the fearful question in the negative; as though it had shaped itself--“Is it any harm to kill a rattlesnake that has located itself near your house?”

‘When he first bought her, Cassy was, indeed, a woman
delicately bred; and then he crushed her without scruple
beneath the hoof of his brutality. But as time, and
debasing influences, and despair, hardened womanhood
within her, and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she
had become, in a manner, his mistress; and he alternately
tyrannised over, and dreaded her. This influence had become
more harassing and decided, since partial insanity had
given a strange, weird, unsettled cast to all her language.’

In fact, her tormentor was on one occasion much nearer a ghastly climax than he had any idea of; for she had drugged his brandy--left him helpless--the back door unlocked--and then gone silently, at midnight, to Tom, to tell him that the hour of liberty was at hand.

‘“I shall have it, Misse, in God’s time,” said he.

“Ah, but you may have it to-night!” said Cassy, with a
flash of sudden energy. “Come on!”

Tom hesitated. “Come!” she whispered, fixing her black eyes
on him. “He’s asleep--sound! an axe is there! I’ll show
you the way! I’d have done it myself--only my arms are so
weak! Come along!”

“Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!” said Tom firmly,
stopping, and holding her back.... He flings himself on the
floor, grasping her arms, imploring her for the love of God
to abstain. “We must suffer, and wait the Lord’s time!”

“Wait!” said Cassy. “_Haven’t_ I waited? till my head is
dizzy, and my heart sick? What has he made me suffer? What
has he made hundreds of poor creatures suffer? Isn’t he
wringing the life blood out of you? I’m called on! I’m
called on! they call on me! His time’s come, and I’ll have
his heart’s blood!”

“No! no! no!” exclaimed Tom, holding her small hands, which
were clasped with spasmodic violence.’

The slave triumphed, and saved the life of--his murderer. He suggests to Cassy the attempt to escape, however desperate, “without blood-guiltiness;” and while he is speaking to her, “there flashed through her mind a plan so _simple_ and _feasible_ in all its details, as to awaken an instant hope.” We suspect that our readers will hardly be of her opinion. This was the nature of “the stratagem” which had occurred to her. Legree was very superstitious; and it is evident that some not very recent and barbarous murder of one of his slaves had largely developed his superstitious fears, and especially with reference to a particular apartment. Cassy, having taken Emmeline into her counsels, resolves to terrify Legree with the idea of this room being haunted, in order that, having a secret access to it, she may, when the proper time arrives, make it her safe and undisturbed retreat. She forthwith commences operations by training Legree’s mind into a more and more terrified mood with reference to this apartment, causing all sorts of strange, dismal, unearthly noises to issue from it, ghosts to be seen gliding in white out of it, and so forth. Thus far she succeeds; and having, in the meanwhile, made up two little beds in a huge box in the dreaded room, and provided food, candle-light, and clothes for their journey, she puts her scheme in operation. Late in the evening, she and Emmeline affect to make their escape, contriving to be seen in the act by Legree; on which he gallops homeward--orders out Sambo and Quimbo, and a posse of other willing myrmidons, and also the bloodhounds, and away they start on their cruel and perhaps bloody errand. In the meantime, the supposed fugitives have returned home unobserved, and taken up their abode in the haunted chamber. There they listen to the hunting party--men, horses, dogs--returning wearied and disappointed. The next day the search is renewed, with the like ill success; and, after a day or two’s seclusion in their hiding-place--near which ghosts are seen to glide, and from which unearthly noises issue--the adventurous pair start on their perilous journey--Cassy disguised as a Creole Spanish lady, dressed entirely in black, and Emmeline as her servant. She found no difficulty in assuming and sustaining the character. “Brought up from early life in the highest society, her language, air, and movements were all in accordance with it; and she had still sufficient left of her once splendid wardrobe and sets of jewels, to enable her to complete her personation. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face.” It was near sunrise when the two terrified and breathless travellers paused, for a moment, in a little knot of trees near the town. Having purchased a trunk in the outskirts, she requested the seller to send it with her; and thus, escorted by a boy wheeling her trunk, and Emmeline behind her carrying her carpet-bag and sundry bundles, she made her appearance at a small tavern, like a lady of consideration, and there encountered George Shelby, who, with herself, was awaiting the arrival of the boat. He handed her courteously to it, and provided her with a good state-room; but Cassy found it expedient, on the plea of indisposition, to keep her room, and her bed--sedulously attended, it may be imagined, by her maid Emmeline--during the whole time they were on the Red River. Arrived at the Mississippi, they entered the good steamboat _Cincinnati_. How she disclosed herself to George Shelby, and became acquainted with Madame de Thoux--how the latter proved to be Emily, the long-lost sister of George Harris, and Cassy the mother of George’s wife--somewhat compendious work, it must be owned--has been seen. It was, in truth, as the author seems to have suspected, _rather_ “a singular coincidence in their fortunes.” In due time they find their way to Montreal, where George and Eliza had established themselves in a neat tenement in the outskirts of the town, very happy and contented, he having found constant occupation in the shop of a worthy machinist. Cassy is now ending her days happily, “a devout and tender Christian.” Emmeline continued with them; and, on her passage to France, her beauty captivated the first mate of the vessel, and, shortly after entering the port, she became his wife. Before, however, this happy result has been effected, has occurred the crowning act of the tragedy--the martyrdom of poor Tom; who, being suspected by Legree of knowing of their escape, will not deny that he was privy to it, but will afford him no information. On this Legree, mortally infuriated, tells him that he “means to kill him”--“I’ve made up my mind to kill you.”

“‘It’s very likely, Mas’r!’ said Tom, calmly.”

We shall spare our readers the frightful scene, as one of simple butchery. One might as well describe, in detail, the slaughter of an ox by the slaughterer and his two assistants. He is felled to the ground by a blow of Legree, and Sambo and Quimbo flog him to death. These two grim instruments of their master’s murderous vengeance are filled with sudden remorse, when they shortly after revisit their victim, and hear from him words of resignation and forgiveness. They ask him “Who is _Jesus_, anyhow?” and on Tom, in a heavenly spirit, telling them, they ask _Him_ for mercy.

“Poor critturs!” said Tom, “I’d be willing to bar all I have, if it’ll only bring you to Christ! O Lord! _give me these two more souls, I pray!_” To very many of _our_ readers, these expressions will appear somewhat forced and _peculiar_; whilst others may recognise in them language with which poor Tom had become familiar in those scenes of religious exercise to which, we are told, he had been accustomed for four years before his introduction to the reader. “‘Tom,’ said Mr Shelby to Haley, ‘is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion _at a camp meeting_, four years ago; and I believe he really _did_ get it. I have trusted him, since then, with everything I have: money, house, horses--and let him come and go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything.” If such results follow “camp meetings,” they might be advantageously tried, and on a large scale, too, in this country. Some little time afterwards occurs the interview between dying Tom and young Mr Shelby, who had come to ransom him.

“‘Who--who--who shall separate us from the love of Christ?’ he said, in a voice that contended with mortal weakness; and with a smile he fell asleep.”

Regarded merely as a stroke of art, this closing scene may be contemplated with qualified feelings; but we shall offer no remarks upon what has evidently been conceived in a high religious, a nobly human spirit, and executed with no little power. Viewed in this light--and it ought to be viewed in no other, by a critic who has seized the scope and entered into the spirit of his author--objections to the development of Uncle Tom’s character melt away. He is not drawn to meet the views, or satisfy the exacting spirit of mere worldly persons, sickly novel-readers, or conceited supercilious critics. No, Tom is conceived in a lofty spirit, and adorned with all the meekness, the gentleness, the long-suffering, which can be drawn from the inexhaustible sources of our holy religion alone; he is set sublimely on a pinnacle to attract towards his oppressed race, represented by his crushed and bleeding form, the pitying eye of Christendom--to awaken, to encourage, to _warn_. “Suffering is,” indeed, “the badge of all _their_ tribe;” and Europe has felt it to be so more strongly and directly, since the publication of this work, than it ever felt before. In the soft, glorious sunlight of Christian sympathy, the blackness of our poor brother’s skin--his skin torn with the incessant lash--disappears. Uncle Tom is actuated by religious principles which _will not admit_ of his speaking or doing otherwise than he is represented as speaking and doing. His condition was that of _a slave_; it was a very hard one often, but had not always been such; and he was on the eve of escaping from it by lawful means, more than once, but the will of Providence had decreed otherwise. The sudden death of St Clare was permitted to consign unoffending Tom to the hideous Legree. But is not such an occurrence frequent in God’s ordinary all-wise, but inscrutable direction of human affairs? Presented to us under the conditions dictated by the objects and purposes of Mrs Stowe, how could she, without outraging propriety and defeating her whole, her only, and righteous purpose, have represented him, for instance, organising a revolt against the oppressor, in the course of which he and his maddened fellow-sufferers would have imbrued their hands in the blood of Legree? With Mrs Stowe’s proved powers of description, and her mastery over the feelings, she could have flashed before our eyes characters, scenes, and actions which only St Domingo could have paralleled! Instead, however, of playing the part of a mad incendiary, she has calmly and magnanimously addressed herself to the tribunal of public opinion, to the sense of justice, and of religion, by which all civilised mankind profess to be guided. She solemnly appeals to “the whole American church, of all denominations, unitedly to seek the entire abolition of slavery throughout America and throughout Christendom.” To “every individual Christian, who wishes to do something for the abolition of slavery,” she says--“Begin by doing what lies in your power for the coloured people in your vicinity.... The contest is to be carried on ‘with love unfeigned’--‘through every degree of opposition and persecution, a divine unprovokable spirit of love, which must finally conquer.... We must love both the slaveholder and the slave, never forgetting that both are our brethren.... We must use, as means, an earnest application of all straightforward, honourable, and just measures, for the removal of the system of slavery. Every man in his place should remonstrate against it. All its sophistical arguments should be answered, its biblical defences unmasked, by correct reasoning, and interpretation. Every mother should teach the evil of it to her children; every clergyman should fully and continually warn his church against any complicity with such a sin.” _These_ are the weapons, not carnal, but of holy temper, with which Mrs Stowe would enter upon this warfare; and who shall rebuke her, and say her Nay? Not _we_. We say to her, with a tender recollection that it is a WOMAN of whom we are writing, All hail, thou impersonation of Christian love and purity! Thou very genius of philanthropy! Verily thou wilt _have thy reward_. Not merely in the praises of men, though _they_ have been accorded already with an almost unanimous and universal assent; but in the reflections of a chastened and subdued--a warm, a loving, and devout spirit.

Taken as a _literary_ whole, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ is a work standing before the critical eye in large proportions, but somewhat irregularly and inartificially disposed; exhibiting, here and there, minor and easily removable marks of haste, and inexperienced workmanship. It would have been easy to contrive incidents, and that without deranging her general scheme, which would have kept curiosity on the stretch from first to last, and secured a sort of poetical justice which might have satisfied the minds of many of her readers;--by dealing, for instance, with Marie St Clare, a beautiful but venomous little reptile,--and the huge speckled monster Legree,--in a spirit of retribution, making their own acts entail upon them condign and appropriate punishment; but how could that have aided the declared moral purpose of the writer? She has done well, on the contrary, in representing a Haley, a Legree, a Marie St Clare, as still--_cumbering the ground_, as so many of the centres of innumerable circles of despotic barbarity.

The main defect of the construction of her work as a “story”--for such she terms it--is, its want of connectedness. The reader is hurried incessantly from side to side of the dividing line between the fortunes of Uncle Tom, and those of George and Eliza Harris, with the episodical incidents depending on them; coming to each with sympathies attuned to the _other_; which, again, as soon as they have begun to be attracted to the new object, are suddenly dissociated, to address themselves to the one which they had but recently quitted so abruptly.

With all its defects, however, this book is an instrument worthy of contributing to effect a grand purpose, to attack and subvert A SYSTEM: the only condition, in this view, being, that it is founded, not upon exaggeration and misrepresentation, but upon TRUTH. The moment that the work had attracted universal notice, it was obvious that it must challenge attention to the point of--TRUE, or FALSE, in its representations of the condition of American slavery. Mrs Stowe has cheerfully accepted the challenge thrown out to her--accepted it in a calm and temperate spirit, and with the resolute confidence of one believing herself right. She formally consents to have her book tried by the test proposed, always protesting that she has painted slavery _as it is_--has done ample justice to large portions of humane Southern slaveholders; but insisting that _that_ is no answer to her case, which is, that the SYSTEM is one altogether opposed to the spirit of Christianity, and subversive of the rights, and destructive of the best interests, of man. It is one, she would say, that tends to stamp out, in every newly-born slave, the noble image of his Maker, to _depress him beneath the level of humanity_; and it is no answer to this to assert, as is asserted by one of the keenest and sternest of her opponents, that “the peculiar falsity of the book consists in making _exceptional_ or impossible cases the representatives of the system.”[12] To establish her great _principle_, on the one hand, and to controvert by _evidence_, on the other, the charge in point of fact, of having made the exception the rule, she has published what she calls _A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, which is, in fact, simply a series of _Proofs and Illustrations_ of the truth of her representations. We have examined this _Key_ to the _Cabin_ with some attention, and are of opinion that its alleged _facts_ are such as must be _answered_; or those whose accusations provoked its publication, will have succeeded in only placing a professed Fiction upon the solid basis of Fact. No one who reads this _Key_ will tolerate being simply told, that _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ is founded on falsehood. She quotes (evidently, and even avowedly,) under the guidance of gentlemen of adequate experience and knowledge of the subject, from the authentic records of judicial decision, dealing with cases so appalling as, for a moment, even to make one think Legree painted in colours less dark than he might have been;--and also exhibits a vast mass of documents which cannot be disposed of, but by counterproof. We, of course, can deal with such statements but as we find them; knowing that they derive their value from the trustworthiness of a conscientious writer, _conclusively confirmed by the absence of substantial disproof_.--This volume, in a word, we commend to the serious consideration of every reflecting European and American reader of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_.

It were idle to class among these latter those who read simply to indulge a spurious whimpering sentimentality, or to have a morbid curiosity stimulated and inflamed by scenes of suffering and horror. But the Christian statesman, the enlightened politician, in either hemisphere, is bound, we think, to deal with the existence of this book, and the extensive effects produced by it, as a signal FACT. Great as are its literary merits, they are by no means sufficient, of themselves, to account for the universal attention which it has excited. It is because--to descend to a homely illustration--this book has acted like the sudden flash of the policeman’s lantern on a scene of secret midnight crime; it has painted in such vivid colours a condition of humanity hidden from European observation, as has attracted and fixed upon it the startled eyes of thinking Europe--of a FREE Christian people. In vain is it to hang beside it hasty recriminatory daubs of countervailing _white_ slavery, or of the charms of slavery, as exhibited by a _quasi_ paradisaical state, where such monsters as Legree, Mrs St Clare, Haley, Marks, and Tom Loker, exist not. All such attempts have already proved, as might have been anticipated, ridiculous failures, as far as they had been designed to stultify and falsify _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, and divert from it the stern eye of public morality. How to deal with slavery is a tremendous problem for enlightened Christian statesmanship. It cannot tolerate the meddling of an unfortunate, impulsive, unreasoning, unreflecting, however ardent and generous, so-called humanity. True humanity, in this instance, consists in a sincere, comprehensive, deliberate, and resolute effort to rouse the PUBLIC OPINION of America on behalf of its slave population; and we believe that that public opinion will ere long find--with more embarrassment and danger the longer the discovery takes to be made--that slavery is an ulcer, a foul spreading ulcer, eating its way, perilously, to the very vitals of the body politic.

_Will slavery--American slavery--will slavery at all--be in existence on the earth, a century hence?_ It is a vast question, and we will not presume to answer it. Perhaps our imaginary brother of the twentieth century may read what is here being written by his brother of the nineteenth, and applaud our caution. Slavery _may_ then have become a thing of the past; or, in the fortunes of the world, in the mysterious, sublime, and even then unaccomplished destiny of the human race, that institution may still have its monstrous strangling coils encircling large and helpless sections of the family of man.

But if our shadowy brother of 1953 come to any other conclusions than are favourable to the intelligence of us of 1853, in respect of our reception of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, as Maga will doubtless be then in flourishing existence, we look to our lineal successors, in our seat of critical justice, to take up the cudgels for us, and vindicate our opinions and cautious vaticinations. And, in the mean time, Harriet Beecher Stowe, be it known a century hence, that we are ashamed of neither yourself, nor our reception of your book; that one not of the least important names of the present century is your own--already, and though you should never write another book. We doubt, indeed, whether you ever will do so--whether, at least, it will, or can be, a great book; for this one embodies your life-long experiences, heart-yearnings, and long-cherished thoughts. Your whole soul is wrapped up in its single noble purpose; so, _Sis fœmina Unius Libri_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A Picture of Slave Life in America._ By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 1852.

_The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Presenting the original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is founded._ By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, author of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. 1853.

[2] Here the MS. becomes unfortunately illegible for some lines.

[3] Is this word a suggestion from good Mrs Stowe’s husband?

[4] Topsy--an incomparable sketch--excited at first sight no pleasureable sensations in good, starched Miss Ophelia. “Now, Augustine (Mr St Clare), what upon earth is _this_ for? Your house is so full of these little plagues already, that a body can’t set their foot down without treading on ’em! I get up in the morning, I find one asleep behind the door, see one black head poking out from under the table, one lying on the door-mat; and they are mopping, and mowing, and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over the kitchen floor! What on earth did you want to bring _this_ one for?”

“For you _to educate_--didn’t I tell you? You’re always preaching about educating. I thought _I would make you a present of a fresh-caught specimen_, and let you try your hand on her, and bring her up in the way she should go!... The fact is, this concern (!) belonged to a couple of drunken creatures, that kept a low restaurant which I have to pass every day, and I am tired of hearing her screaming, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright and funny, too, as if something might be made of her; so _I bought her_ (!) and I’ll give her to you. Try, now--and give her a good orthodox New England bringing up, and see what it’ll make of her!”

“Well--I’ll do what I can,” said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her new subject, very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black spider--supposing him to have benevolent designs towards it!

[5] _New York Courier_, Nov. 5, 1852. Quoted, _Key_, p. 97.

[6] “I mean to ask him _to_.” This is a form of expression continually occurring in this work. It is also one used by the vulgar in this country; but Mrs Stowe puts it into the mouths alike of educated and uneducated--black and white. We might notice many analogous vulgarisms in at least English eyes, but the critic is disposed heartily to act on the principle--

“Verum ubi plura nitent ... non ego paucis Offendar maculis.”

[7] Mrs Stowe is evidently very anxious to ingratiate her favourite hero with her readers--and perhaps with young ladies she may succeed--by constantly dwelling on his “large, blue, flashing eyes”--“large, melancholy, blue eyes”--“his _fine face_, classic as that of a Greek statue”--and so forth; but sterner touches are requisite to make him a _manly_ hero. It seems also somewhat odd to see him “sitting on the floor, and laying his head back in Miss Ophelia’s lap”--who lays her “hand on his forehead”--he saying to her, “Don’t _take on_, so awfully serious!”

[8] “Her theological tenets were all made up, labelled in the most positive and distinct forms, and put by, like the bundles in her patch trunk; there were just so many of them, and there were never to be any more. Underlaying all, deeper than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle of her being--conscientiousness. _Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing as with New England women._” [Bless them!] “It is the granite formation which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops of the highest mountains.” This last we suspect to be a touch of her relative--The “Professor!”

[9] Here, however, is an exquisite touch. When Eva can no longer walk, Tom carried her; and on one occasion her father seeks to perform that office. “Oh, papa! let Tom take me! Poor fellow, it pleases him; and you know, _it’s all he can do_, and he wants to do something!”

“So do I, Eva--.”

“Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me. You read to me,--you sit up at nights; but Tom _has only this_ one thing, and his singing!”

[10] The next sentence in the text is a striking instance of the superfluous and even irritating habit of Mrs Stowe already alluded to. As if she had not painted so vividly as to touch the most stolid feelings, she adds--“It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous--the little old stocking, black crape, text-book, fair soft curl, and Topsy’s utter distress.” Surely this is writing under the picture of a horse--“This is a horse: do you see its hair, head, neck, body, legs, hoofs, and tail? And it has eyes and nostrils!”

[11] The luckless girl bore her own penal letter-missive--“An order, written in Mrs St Clare’s _delicate Italian hand_, to the master of a whipping establishment, to give the bearer fifteen lashes!” and this for only a hastily-uttered saucy expression!

[12] See the _New York Enquirer_, Nov. 5, 1852. _Key_, 97.

RIGHT DIVINE.

[No state of things can subsist without the Divine
permission. It is therefore obviously true how “the powers
that be” must be “ordained of God.”

Yet truth is polygonous, and the Locke theory may be also
true. All existing and operating governments, of whatever
form, may be and work by Divine appointment, and yet
receive their authority by delegation from the People,[13]
that is, from the free Society at large.

But the case may arise (as we have a remarkable instance
in California) where a mass of civilised men go forth in
complete maturity, and in perfect independence of the
mother country; carrying only so much of the government as
is contained in certain maxims and general principles which
they have imbibed with their mother’s milk. We see at once
that they would choose for themselves whether they would
rub on under the auspices of Justice Lynch, or depute a
corporation of some sort to take the management of their
affairs. Now, as it is clearly the affair of society that
John should not encroach upon Thomas’s diggings, or Thomas
put John to a violent death for his aggressions, some
consultation, like the following, will sooner or later have
to be held.]

SCENE.--THE CAPITAL OF “WHAT NOT.”

Persons--JOHN, THOMAS, EXECUTIVE, and CHORUS. _Thirty-two.
_ Varlets--MUTE PERSONS.

JOHN.--O great Executive, be good as great,
And save me from that brutal ruffian Thomas.

THOMAS.--Hold, sir! no names; remember where you are:
I hoped you’d had enough of that before.

EXECUTIVE.--Nay, gentlemen, this is unseemly.

CHORUS.-- Very;
’Twere well if John and Thomas did not fight!

EX.--Well, good my masters, what am I to do?
I fain would help you; but I seem to lack
The means of action: how provide you now?

J. (_whimpering_).--I keep a dozen cudgel-men.

E. (_to Thomas_).--And you?

T.--A score.

E.--Heyday! why, this must cost you something:
But I presume it answers?

C.-- Does it though?
Lord bless your worship; Thomas and his men
Rob, beat, and laugh at John; who’d do the same
Had he the power: and, indeed, I’ve heard
That John intends to keep ten other varlets;
And, O that Tom and Jack would cease to fight!

E.--Why, so they may, if you will but be calm;
Let each man pay a trifle--scarce worth naming--
And _I_ will keep a thousand cudgel-men.

C.--Apapai! this is downright Beadledom.

E.--My thousand varlets shall protect you all;
Each man shall have his thousand--all and each.

C.--I see; but recollect yourself, my friend;
This were a standing army; don’t you see?

J.--Ay, recollect yourself, good sir, you are our servant,
And hold your office only at our pleasure.

T.--Ay, marry, do you; and if we should find
That we grow weary of you, or see cause
To wish you changed, pray, how will this be done,
You, with your thousand knaves? Answer me that.

C.--Answer me that.

J.-- I pause for a reply.

E.--Dear masters mine, a little patience, pray:
If you would change me, it can still be done:
You are a million; and my thousand knaves,
What would they do against you?

J.-- Out, you fox!
Your thousand knaves, with discipline and arms,
Will beat ten thousand peaceful men like me.

E. (_blandly_).--O! gentlemen, it must be as you please,
For, after all, the affair is yours, not mine;
Even _with_ constables, I do not seek
The task of ruling spirits such as you.

C.--O me! how John and Thomas will dispute!
This must not be: come, list to me, my boys;
Hark to me, Thomas; John, a word i’ your ear:
Our friend is right, as usual; his stout knaves
May beat ten thousand of us;--that’s a warning
That we must not attack him (_aside_) with that force.

(_Aloud_).--You pay a tithe of what your fellows cost you,
And waive the privilege of private war,
A right that wrongs me foully; those he keeps
Will see fair play between you; he, no doubt,
Will use his power most justly.

[EXECUTIVE bows to each of them, and exit in a state of
edifying meekness. Loud cheers from JOHN and THOMAS.]

CH. (_proceeds_).--Should he not,
So help me, Hookey Walker, he shall rue it;
The wiser sort will grieve and bide their time;
And fools will raise their thousands, eight or nine;
And our friend’s arm shall crush them; if the time,
The melancholy time, should come, when Fate, grown sick
Of his vagaries, shall have spun his thread,
Some twelve or fourteen thousands will be found
To work the righteous sentence; he will fall;
Vox Populi Vox Dei; and the Rights
Of kings and constables are both divine.

_Tableau._--JOHN and THOMAS stand apart, in thoughtful
attitudes, their respective followers having gone to seek
employment under the new system. The CHORUS stands pensive,
but firm, in the centre of the stage. Scene closes.

H. G. K.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Populus, not Plebs. These terms are often confounded, by the use of a word which may be said to be the translation of either. I do not here object to a nation’s being all Plebs, but protest against this reading when it is not.

LADY LEE’S WIDOWHOOD.