Chapter XII: Part IX (2)

How long I scrambled, or how often I felt sinking from mere weariness in that flight, I knew not. In the fever of my mind, I only knew that I twined my way through numberless streets, most of which have been since swept away; but, on turning the corner of a street which led into the Boulevard, and when I had some hope of taking refuge in my old hotel, I found that I had plunged into the heart of a considerable crowd of persons hurrying along, apparently on some business which strongly excited them. Some carried lanterns, some pikes, and there was a general appearance of more than republican enthusiasm, even savage ferocity, among them, that gave sufficient evidence of my having fallen into no good company. I attempted to draw back, but this would not be permitted; the words, "Spy, traitor, slave of the Monarchiques!" and, apparently as the blackest charge of all, "Cordelier!" were heaped upon me, and I ran the closest possible chance of being put to death on the spot. It may naturally be supposed that I made all kinds of protestations to escape being piked or pistoled. But they had no time to wait for apologies. The cry of "Death to the traitor!" was followed by the brandishing of half a dozen knives in the circle round me. At that moment, when I must have fallen helplessly, a figure stepped forward, and opening the slide of his dark lantern directly on his own face, whispered the word Mordecai. I recognised, I shall not say with what feelings, the police agent who had formerly conveyed me out of the city. He was dressed, like the majority of the crowd, in the republican costume; and certainly there never was a more extraordinary costume. He wore a red cap, like the cap of the butchers of the Faubourgs; an enormous beard covered his breast, a short Spanish mantle hung from his shoulders, a short leathern doublet, with a belt like an armoury, stuck with knives and pistols, a sabre, and huge trousers striped with red, in imitation of streams of gore, completed the patriot uniform. Some wore broad bands of linen round their waists, inscribed, "2d, 3d and 4th September,"--the days of massacre. These were its heros. I was in the midst of the _élite_ of murder.

"Citizens," exclaimed the Jew in a voice of thunder, driving back the foremost, "hold your hands up; are you about to destroy a friend of freedom? Your knives have drunk the blood of aristocrats; but they are the defence of liberty. This citizen, against whom they are now unsheathed, is one of ourselves. He has returned from the frontier, to join the brave men of Paris, in their march to the downfall of tyrants. But out friends await us in the glorious club of the Jacobins. This is the hour of victory. Advance, regenerated sons of freedom! Forward, Frenchmen!"

His speech had the effect. The rapid executors of public vengeance fell back; and the Jew, whispering to me, "You must follow us, or be killed,"--I chose the easier alternative at once, and stepped forward like a good citizen. As my protector pushed the crowd before him, in which he seemed to be a leader, he said to me from time to time, "Show no resistance. A word from you would be the signal for your death--we are going to the hall of the Jacobins. This is a great night among them, and the heads of the party will either be ruined to-night, or by morning will be masters of every thing. I pledge myself, if not for your safety, at least for doing all that I can to save you." I remained silent, as I was ordered; and we hurried on, until there was a halt in front of a huge old building. "The hall of the Jacobins," whispered the Jew, and again cautioned me against saying or doing any thing in the shape of reluctance.

We now plunged into the darkness of a vast pile, evidently once a convent, and where the chill of the massive walls struck to the marrow. I felt as if walking through a charnel-house. We hurried on; a trembling light, towards the end of an immense and lofty aisle, was our guide; and the crowd, long familiar with the way, rushed through the intricacies where so many feet of monks had trod before them, and where, perhaps, many a deed that shunned the day had been perpetrated. At length a spiral stair brought us to a large gallery, where our entrance was marked with a shout of congratulation; and tumbling over the benches and each other, we at length took our seats in the highest part, which, in both the club and the National Assembly, was called, from its height, the Mountain, and from the characters which generally held it, was a mountain of flame. In the area below, once the nave of the church, sat the Jacobin club. I now, for the first time, saw that memorable and terrible assemblage. And nothing could be more suited than its aspect to its deeds. The hall was of such extent that a large portion of it was scarcely visible, and few lights which hung from the walls scarcely displayed even the remainder. The French love of decoration had no place here; neither statues nor pictures, neither gilding nor sculpture, relieved the heaviness of the building. Nothing of the arts was visible but their rudest specimens; the grim effigies of monks and martyrs, or the coarse and blackened carvings of a barbarous age. The hall was full; for the club contained nearly two thousand members, and on this night all were present. Yet, except for the occasional cries of approval or anger when any speaker had concluded, and the habitual murmur of every huge assembly, they might have been taken for a host of spectres; the area had so entirely the aspect of a huge vault, the air felt so thick, and the gloom was so feebly dispersed by the chandeliers. All was sepulchral. The chair of the president even stood on a tomb, an antique structure of black marble. The elevated stand, from which the speakers generally addressed the assembly, had the strongest resemblance to a scaffold, and behind it, covering the wall, were suspended chains, and instruments of torture of every horrid kind, used in the dungeons of old times; and though placed there for the sake of contrast with the mercies of a more enlightened age, yet enhancing the general idea of a scene of death. It required no addition to render the hall of the Jacobins fearful; but the meetings were always held at night, often prolonged through the whole night. Always stormy, and often sanguinary, daggers were drawn and pistols fired--assassination in the streets sometimes followed bitter attacks on the benches; and at this period, the mutual wrath and terror of the factions had risen to such height, that every meeting might be only a prelude to exile or the axe; and the deliberation of this especial night must settle the question, whether the Monarchy or the Jacobin club was to ascend the scaffold. It was the debate on the execution of the unhappy Louis XVI.

The arrival of the crowd, among whom I had taken my unwilling seat, evidently gave new spirits to the regicides; the moment was critical. Even in Jacobinism all were not equally black, and the fear of the national revulsion at so desperate a deed startled many, who might not have been withheld by feelings of humanity. The leaders had held a secret consultation while the debate was drawing on its slow length, and Danton's old expedient of "terror" was resolved on. His emissaries had been sent round Paris to summon all his banditti; and the low _cafés_, the Faubourg taverns, and every haunt of violence, and the very drunkenness of crime, had poured forth. The remnant of the Marseillois--a gang of actual galley-slaves, who had led the late massacres--the paid assassins of the Marais, and the _sabreurs_ of the Royal Guard, who after treason to their king, had found profitable trade in living on the robbery and blood of the nobles and priests, formed this reinforcement; and their entrance into the gallery was recognised by a clapping of hands from below, which they answered by a roar, accompanied with the significant sign of clashing their knives and sabres.

Danton immediately rushed into the Tribune. I had seen him before, on the fearful night which prepared the attack on the palace; but he was then in the haste and affected savageness of the rabble. He now played the part of leader of a political sect; and the commencement of his address adopted something of the decorum of public council. In this there was an artifice; for, resistless as the club was, it still retained a jealousy of the superior legislative rank of the assembly of national representatives, the Convention. The forms of the Convention were strictly imitated; and even those Jacobins who usually led the debate, scrupulously wore the dress of the better orders. Robespierre was elaborately dressed whenever he appeared in the Tribune, and even Danton abandoned the _canaille_ costume for the time. I was struck with his showy stature, his bold forehead, and his commanding attitude, as he stood waving his hand over the multitude below, as if he waved a sceptre. His appearance was received with a general shout from the gallery, which he returned by one profound bow, and then stood erect, till all sounds had sunk. His powerful voice then rang through the extent of the hall. He began with congratulating the people on their having relieved the Republic from its external dangers. His language at first was moderate, and his recapitulation of the perils which must have befallen a conquered country, was sufficiently true and even touching; but his tone soon changed, and I saw the true democrat. "What!" he cried, "are those perils to the horrors of domestic perfidy? What are the ravages on the frontier to poison and the dagger at our firesides? What is the gallant death in the field to assassination in cold blood? Listen, fellow-citizens, there is at this hour a plot deeper laid for your destruction than ever existed in the shallow heads of, or could ever be executed by the coward hearts of, their soldiery. Where is that plot? In the streets? No. The courage of our brave patriots is as proof against corruption as against fear." This was followed by a shout from the gallery. "Is it in the Tuileries? No; there the national sabre has cut down the tree which cast its deadly fruits among the nation. Where then is the focus of the plot--where the gathering of the storm that is to shake the battlements of the Republic--where that terrible deposit of combustibles which the noble has gathered, the priest has piled, and the king has prepared to kindle? Brave citizens, that spot is ----," he paused, looking mysteriously round, while a silence deep as death pervaded the multitude; then, as if suddenly recovering himself, he thundered out--"The Temple!" No language can describe the shout or the scene that followed. The daring word was now spoken which all anticipated; but which Danton alone had the desperate audacity to utter. The gallery screamed, howled, roared, embraced each other, danced, flourished their weapons, and sang the Marseillaise and the Carmagnole. The club below were scarcely less violent in their demonstrations of furious joy. Danton had now accomplished his task; but his vanity thirsted for additional applause, and he entered into a catalogue of his services to Republicanism. In the midst of the detail, a low but singularly clear voice was heard, from the extremity of the hall.

"Descend, man of massacre!"

I saw Danton start back as if he had been shot. At length, recovering his breath, he said feebly--

"Citizens, of what am I accused?"

"Of the three days of September," uttered the voice again, in a tone so strongly sepulchral, that it palpably awed the whole assemblage.

"Who is it that insults me? who dares to malign me? What spy of the Girondists, what traitor of the Bourbons, what hireling of the gold of Pitt, is among us?" exclaimed the bold ruffian, yet with a visage which, even at the distance, I could observe had lost its usual fiery hue, and turned clay-colour. "Who accuses me?"

"I!" replied the voice, and I saw a thin tall figure stalk up the length of the hall, and stand at the foot of the tribune. "Descend!" was the only word which he spoke; and Danton, as if under a spell, to my astonishment, obeyed without a word, and came down. The stranger took his place, none knew his name; and the rapidity and boldness of his assault suspended all in wonder like my own. I can give but a most incomplete conception of the extraordinary eloquence of this mysterious intruder. He openly charged Danton with having constructed the whole conspiracy against the unfortunate prisoners of September; with having deceived the people by imaginary alarms of the approach of the enemy; with having plundered the national treasury to pay the assassins; and, last and most deadly charge of all, with having formed a plan for a National Dictatorship, of which he himself was to be the first possessor. The charge was sufficiently probable, and was not now heard for the first time. But the keenness and fiery promptitude with which the speaker poured the charge upon him, gave it a new aspect; and I could see in the changing physiognomies round me, that the great democrat was already in danger. He obviously felt this himself; for starting up from the bench to which he had returned, he cried out, or rather yelled--

"Citizens, this man thirsts for my blood. Am I to be sacrificed? Am I to be exposed to the daggers of assassins!" But no answering shout now arose; a dead silence reigned: all eyes were still turned on the tribune. I saw Danton, after a gaze of total helplessness on all sides, throw up his hands like a drowning man, and stagger back to his seat. Nothing could be more unfortunate than his interruption; for the speaker now poured the renewed invective, like a stream of molten iron, full on his personal character and career.

"Born a beggar, your only hope of bread was crime. Adopting the profession of an advocate, your only conception of law was chicanery. Coming to Paris, you took up patriotism as a trade, and turned the trade into an imposture. Trained to dependence, you always hung on some one till he spurned you. You licked the dust before Mirabeau; you betrayed him, and he trampled on you; you took refuge in the cavern of Marat, until he found you too base even for his base companionship, and he, too, spurned you; you then clung to the skirts of Robespierre, and clung only to ruin. Viper! known only by your coils and your poison; like the original serpent, degraded even from the brute into the reptile, you already feel your sentence. I pronounce it before all. The man to whom you now cling will crush you. Maximilien Robespierre, is not your heel already lifted up to tread out the life of this traitor? Maximilien Robespierre," he repeated with a still more piercing sound, "do I not speak the truth?" "Have I not stripped the veil from your thoughts? Am I not looking on your heart?" He then addressed each of the Jacobin leaders in a brief appeal. "Billaud Varennes, stand forth--do you not long to drive your dagger into the bosom of this new tyrant? Collot d'Herbois, are you not sworn to destroy him? Couthon, have you not pronounced him perjured, perfidious, and unfit to live? St Just, have you not in your bosom the list of those who have pledged themselves that Danton shall never be Dictator; that his grave shall be dug before he shall tread on the first step of the throne; that his ashes shall be scattered to the four winds of heaven; that he shall never gorge on France?"

A hollow murmur, like an echo of the vaults beneath, repeated the concluding words. The murmur had scarcely subsided when this extraordinary apparition, flinging round him a long white cloak, which he had hitherto carried on his arm, and which, in the dim light, gave him the look of one covered with a shroud, cried out in a voice of still deeper solemnity, "George Jacques Danton, you have this night pronounced the death of your king--I now pronounce your own. By the victims of the 20th of June--by the victims of the 10th of August--by the victims of the 2d of September--by the thousands whom your thirst of blood has slain--by the tens of thousands whom your treachery has sent to perish in a foreign grave--by the millions whom the war which you have kindled will lay in the field of slaughter--I cite you to appear before a tribunal, where sits a judge whom none can elude and none can defy. Within a year and a month, I cite you to meet the spirits of your victims before the throne of the Eternal."

He stopped; not a voice was heard. He descended the steps of the Tribune, and stalked slowly through the hall; not a hand was raised against him. He pursued his way with as much calmness and security as if he had been a supernatural visitant, until he vanished in the darkness.

This singular occurrence threw a complete damp on the regicidal ardour; and, as no one seemed inclined to mount the Tribune, the club would probably have broken up for the night, when a loud knocking at one of the gates, and the beating of drums, aroused the drowsy sitters on the benches. The gallery was as much awake as ever; but seemed occupied with evident expectation of either a new revolt, or a spectacle; pistols were taken out to be new primed, and the points and edges of knives duly examined. The doors at length were thrown open, and a crowd, one half of whom appeared to be in the last stage of intoxication, and the other half not far from insanity, came dancing and chorusing into the body of the building. In the midst of their troop they carried two busts covered with laurels--the busts of the regicides Ravaillac and Clement, with flags before them, inscribed, "They were glorious; for they slew kings!" The busts were presented to the president, and their bearers, a pair of _poissardes_, insisted on giving him the republican embrace, in sign of fraternization. The president, in return, invited them to the "honours of a sitting;" and thus reinforced, the discussion on the death of the unhappy monarch commenced once more, and the vote was carried by acclamation. The National Convention was still to be applied to for the completion of the sentence; but the decree of the Jacobins was the law of the land.

I had often looked towards the gallery door, during the night, for the means of escape; but my police friend had forbade my moving before his return. I therefore remained until the club were breaking up, and the gallery began to clear. Cautious as I had been, I could not help exhibiting, from time to time, some disturbance at the atrocities of the night, and especially at the condemnation of the helpless king. In all this I had found a sympathizing neighbour, who had exhibited marked civility in explaining the peculiarities of the place, and giving me brief sketches of the speakers as they rose in succession. He had especially agreed with me in deprecating the cruelty of the regicidal sentence. I now rose to bid my gentlemanlike _cicerone_ good-night; but, to my surprise, I saw him make a sign to two loiterers near the door, who instantly pinioned me.

"We cannot part quite so soon, Monsieur l'Aristocrat," said he; "and, though I much regret that I cannot have the honour of accommodating you in the Temple, near your friend Monsieur Louis Capet, yet you may rely on my services in procuring a lodging for you in one of the most agreeable prisons in Paris."

I had been entrapped in the most established style, and I had nothing to thank for it but fortune. Resistance was in vain, for they pointed to the pistols within their coats; and with a vexed heart, and making many an angry remark on the treachery of the villain who had ensnared me--matters which fell on his ear probably with about the same effect as water on the pavement at my feet--I was put into a close carriage, and, with ny captors, carried off to the nearest barrier, and consigned to the governor of the well-known and hideous St Lazare.

* * * * *

The Olympic Jupiter.

Calm the Olympian God sat in his marble fane,
High and complete in beauty too pure and vast to wane;
Full in his ample form, Nature appear'd to spread;
Thought and sovran Rule beam'd in his earnest head;
From the lofty foliaged brow, and the mightily bearded chin,
Down over all his frame was the strength of a life within.

Lovely a maid in twilight before the vision knelt,
Looking with upturn'd gaze the awe that her spirit felt.
Hung like the skies above her was bow'd the monarch mild,
Hearing the whisper'd words of the fair and panting child.
--Could she be dear to him as dews to ocean are,
Be in his wreath a leaf, on his robes a golden star!
Could she as incense float around his eternal throne,
Sound as the note of a hymn to his deep ear alone!

Lo! while her heart adoring still to the God exhales,
Speech from his glimmering lips on the silent air prevails:
--"Child of this earth, bewilder'd in thine aërial dream,
Turn thee to Powers that are, and not to those that seem.
All of fairest and noblest filling my graven form
First in a human spirit was breathing alive and warm.
Seek thou in him all else that he can evoke from nought,
Seek the creative master, the king of beautiful thought."

--Down the eyes of the maiden sank from the Thunderer's look,
Pale in her shame and terror, and yet with delight she shook
Swift on her brow she felt a crown by the God bestow'd,
Shading her face that now with a hope too lively glow'd.
Bending the Sculptor stood who wrought the work divine,
Godlike in voice he spake--Ever, oh, maid be mine!

J.S.

* * * * *

A ROMAN IDYL.

Oh! blame not, friend, with scoff unfeeling,
The gentle tale of grief and wrong,
Which, all the pain of life revealing,
Yet teaches peace by thoughtful song.

The landscape round us wide expanded
As ere was heard the name of Rome;
And Rome, though fallen, our souls commanded,
In this her empire's earliest home.

Her brightness beam'd on each far mountain,
Her life made green the grass we trode,
Her memory haunted still the fountain,
And spread her shadows o'er the sod.

Her ruins told their tale of glory,
Decreed to that eternal sky;
And through that ancient grove, her story
With sibyl whisper seem'd to sigh.

The pile her wealthiest mourner builded,
In glimpse we caught through ilex gloom--
Metella's Tower, by sunshine gilded,
That beams alike on feast or tomb.

And on this plain, not yet benighted,
'Mid awful ages mouldering there,
Young hands in new-bloom flowers delighted,
Young eyes look'd bright in sunniest air.

Till we, Viterbo's wine-cup quaffing,
Which fairer lips refused to grace,
Could win by jest those lips to laughing,
And veil'd in folly wisdom's face.

But say, my friend, thou sage mysterious,
What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strain
Which bade our heedless mirth be serious,
And woke our ears to nobler pain?

That region grave of plain and highland,
With Rome's grey ruin strewn around,
Is not a soft Calypso's island,
Nor fades at Truth's evoking sound.

High thoughts in words of quiet beauty
Accord with visions grand as these,
And song's imperishable duty
Has holier aims than but to please.

By word and image deeply wedded,
By cadence apt and varied rhyme,
To rouse the soul in sloth imbedded,
And tune its powers to life sublime.

By loftier shows of man's large being
Than man's dim actual hour displays,
To clear our eyes for purer seeing,
And nerve the flagging spirit's gaze.

By strains of bold heroic pleasure,
And action strong as thought conceives,
By many a doom-resounding measure
That best our selfish woes relieves;

By these to stir, by these to brighten,
By these to lift the soul from earth,
The Poet dares our joys to frighten,
And thrills the dirge of lazy mirth.

Ye Ruins, dust of empires vanish'd,
Ye mountains, clad with countless years,
From your great presence ne'er be banish'd
Sad songs that live in earnest ears:

Sad songs, the music of all sorrow,
Profound and calm as night's blue deep:
Accurst the dreams of any morrow
When man will feel he cannot weep.

J.S.

* * * * *

GOETHE

Alas! on earth his marvels done,
The noble German bosom lies,
His fatherland's Athenian son,
Amid the sage must largely rise!

Amid the sage the generous race
Of soaring thought and steadfast glow,
He breathes no more who gave a grace
To all our daily lot below.

He gave to man's encumber'd hours
The tuneful joys of truth serene,
And twined our life's neglected flowers
With nature's holiest evergreen.

Alas! for him the soul of fire,
For him of fancy's golden rays,
For him whose aims ascended higher
Than all that won a nation's praise!

We pause and ask--Why gloom'd the grave
For one of light so broadly mild?
And wonder beauty could not save
From death's deep night her eager child.

But could the lyre be heard again,
Its widow'd notes would seem to cry--
In all was he a man of men,
For them to live, like them to die.

What life inspires 'twas his to feel,
With ampler soul than all beside;
What earth's bright shows to few reveal,
His art for all expanded wide.

With earnest heed from hour to hour,
Through all his years of striving hope,
He fed his lamp, its light to shower
On paths where myriads dimly grope.

He taught nankind by toil, by love,
To cheer the world that must be theirs;
And ne'er to look for peace above,
By scorning earthly joys and cares.

Ah! pages full of grief and fear,
But all attuned to melody,
Vesuvio's flame reflected clear
In glassy seas of Napoli.

And on that sea we seem to float
In amber light, and catch from far,
'Mid ocean's boundless Voice, the note
Of girl who hymns the evening-star.

The sweetest word, the melting tone,
The pictured wisdom bright as day,
And Faust's remorse, and Tasso's groan,
And Dorothea's morning lay,

Glad Egmont, light of Clara's eyes,
Free Goetz, the warmth of manhood's noon,
And Mignon, all a tune of sighs,
And lorn Ottilia crush'd so soon.

Ah! tale that tells the life of all
To lovelier truth by fancy wrought,
And songs that e'en to us recall
The bliss a poet's vision caught!

All these are ours, yes, all--but he.
And who that lives can find a strain
Of worth like his the soul to free
From bonds of sublunary pain?

A strain like his we vainly seek
To sound above the singer's grave,
A voice empower'd like his to speak
The word our aching bosoms crave.

That word is not--Oh! not, farewell!
To thee whom all thy lays restore;
But deeply longs the heart to tell
A love thy smile accepts no more.

J.S.

* * * * *

HYMN OF A HERMIT.

Long the day, the task is longer;
Earth the strong by heaven the stronger.
Still is call'd to rise and brighten,
But, alas! how weak the soul;
While its inbred phantoms frighten,
While the past obscures the whole.

Shadows of the wise departed,
Be the brave, the loving-hearted;
Deathless dead, resounding, rushing,
From the morning-land of hope
Come, with viewless footsteps, crushing
Dreams that make the wing'd ones grope.

Socrates, the keen, the truthful,
In thy hoary wisdom youthful;
Smiling, fear-defying spirit,
From beside thy Grecian waves,
Teach us Norsemen to inherit
Thoughts whose dawn is life to graves.

Rome's Aurelius, thou the holy
King of earth, in goodness lowly,
From thy ruins by the Tiber,
Look with tearless aspect mild,
Till each agonizing fibre
Like thine own is reconciled.

Augustinus, bright and torrid,
Isles of green in deserts horrid
Once thy home, thy likeness ever!
We with sword no less divine
Would the good and evil sever,
In a larger world than thine.

Soft Petrarca, sweet and subtle,
Weaving still, with silver shuttle,
Moony veils for human feeling--
Thine the radiance from above,
Half-transfiguring, half-concealing,
Wounds and tears of earthly love.

Saxon rude, of thundering stammer,
Iron heart, by sin's dread hammer
Ground to better dust than golden,
May thy prophecy be true.
Melt the stern, the weak embolden;
Teach what Luther never knew.

Pale Spinosa, nursed in fable,
Painted hopes and portent sable,
Then an opener wisdom finding,
Let thy round and wintry sun
Chase the lurid vapour, blinding
Souls that seek the Holy One.

Thou from green Helvetia roaming,
Meteor pale in misty gloaming,
With a breast too fiercely burning;
Generous, tuneful, frail Rousseau!
Would that all to truth returning,
Gave, like thee, a tear to woe!

Eye of clear and diamond sparkle,
Where the Baltic waters darkle,
Lonely German seer of Reason,
Great and calm as Atlas old;
Through our formless foggy season,
Short thine adamantine cold.

Shelley, born of faith and passion,
Nobler far than gain and fashion;
Daring eaglet arm'd with lightning,
Firing soon thy native nest,
Still the eternal blaze is brightening
Ocean where thy pinions rest.

Heroes, prophets, bards, and sages,
Gods and men of climes and ages,
Conquerors of lifelong sorrow,
Torment that ye made your throne,
Help, Oh! help in us the morrow,
Full of triumph like your own.

J.S.

* * * * *

THE LUCKLESS LOVER

"If aught on earth assault may bide
Of ceaseless time and shifting tide,
Beloved! I swear to thee
It is the truth of hearts that love,
United in a world above
The moment's misty sea.

"Oh! sweeter than the light of dawn,
Than music in the woods withdrawn
From clamours of the crowd,
A new creation all our own,
Unvisited by scoff or groan,
Is faith in silence vow'd.

"Two hearts by reason nobly sad,
Nor rashly blind, nor lightly glad,
Possess they not a bliss
In their communion, felt and full,
Beyond all custom's deadly rule?
For life is only this.

"In sighs we met, in sighs and sobs,
Such grief as from the wretched robs
The hope to heaven allied:
Great calm was ours, a strength severe,
Though wet with many a scalding tear,
When soul to soul replied.

"Of thy dark eyes and gentle speech,
The memory has a power to teach
What know not many wise.
New stars may rise, the ancient fade,
But not for us, my own pale maid,
Be lost that pure surprise--

"The pure delight, the awful change,
Chief miracle in wonder's range,
That binds the twain in one;
While fear, foes, friends, and angry Fate,
And all that wreck our mortal state
Shall pass, like motes i' the sun.

"In his fine frame the throstle feels
The music that his note reveals;
And spite of shafts and nets,
How better is the dying bird
Than some dumb stone that ne'er was heard,
That arrow never threats?

"Disdaining man, the mountains rise;
Is love less kindred with the skies,
Or less their Maker's will?
The strains, without a human cause,
Flow on, unheeding lies and laws--
Will hearts for words be still?

"What cliffs oppose, what oceans roll,
What frowns o'ershade the weeping soul,
Alas! were long to tell.
But something is there more than these,
Than frowns and coldness, rocks and seas:
Until its hour--farewell!"

So sang the vassal bard by night,
Beneath his high-born lady's light
That from her turret shone.
Next morning in the forest glade
His corpse was found. Her brother's blade
Had cut his bosom's bone.

What reap'd Lord Wilfrid by the stroke?
Before another morning broke,
She, too, was with the blest:
And 'twas her last and only prayer,
That her sweet limbs might slumber where
The minstrel had his rest.

J.S.

* * * * *

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION

THE CORN LAWS.

It is remarkable that, while we hear so much of the advantages of free trade, the reciprocity of them is always in _prospect_ only. By throwing open our harbours to foreign nations, indeed, we give _them_ an immediate and obvious advantage over ourselves; but as to any corresponding advantages we are to gain in our intercourse with them, we are still waiting, in patient expectation of the anticipated benefit. Our patience is truly exemplary; it might furnish a model to Job himself. We resent nothing. No sooner do we receive a blow on one cheek, than we turn up the other to some new smiter. No sooner are we excluded, in return for our concessions, from the harbours of one state, than we begin making concessions to another. We are constantly in expectation of seeing the stream of human envy and jealousy run out:--

"Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis: at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum."

We are imitating the man who made the experiment of constantly reducing the food on which his horse is to live. Let us take care that, just as he is learning to live on nothing, we do not find him dead in his stall.

This, however, is no joking matter. The total failure of the free trade system to procure any, _even the smallest return_, coupled with the very serious injury it has inflicted on many of the staple branches of our industry, has now been completely demonstrated by experience, and is matter of universal notoriety. If any proof on the subject were required, it would be furnished by _Porter's Parliamentary Tables_, to which we earnestly request the attention of our readers. The first exhibits the effect of the reciprocity system, introduced by Mr Huskisson in Feb. 1823, in destroying our shipping with the Baltic powers, and quadrupling theirs with us. The second shows the trifling amount of our exports to these countries during the five last years, and thereby demonstrates the entire failure of the attempt to, extend our traffic with them by this gratuitous destruction of our shipping. The third shows the progress of our whole exports to Europe during the six years from 1814 to 1820, before the free trade began, and from 1833 to 1839, after it had been fifteen years in operation, and proves that it had _declined_ in the latter period as compared with the former, despite all our gratuitous sacrifices by free trade to augment our commerce.[12]

[12] See No. CCCXL, _Blackwood's Magazine_, p. 261.

The free traders fully admit, and deeply deplore, as we have shown on a former occasion, these unfavourable results; but they say that it is to be hoped they will not continue: that foreign nations must, in the end, come to see that they are as much interested as we are in enlightened system of free trade; and that, meantime, it is for our interest to continue the system; or even though it totally fails in producing any augmentation in our exports, it is obviously for our advantage to continue it, as it brings in the immediate benefit of purchasing articles imported at a cheaper rate. Supposing, say they, we obtain no corresponding advantage from other states, there is an immense benefit accrues to ourselves from admitting foreign goods at a nominal duty, from the low price at which they may be purchased by the British consumer. To that point we shall advert in the sequel; in the mean time, it may be considered as demonstrated, that the free trade system has entirely failed in procuring for us the slightest extension of our foreign exports, or abating in the slightest degree the jealousy of foreign nations at our maritime and manufacturing superiority. Nor is there any difficulty in discovering to what this failure has been owing. It arises from laws inherent in the nature of things, and which will remain unabated as long as we continue a great and prosperous nation.

It is related of the Lacedemonians, that while all the other citizens of Greece were careful to surround their towns with walls, they alone left a part open on all sides. Thus, superiority in the field rendered them indifferent to the adventitious protection of ramparts. It is for a similar reason that England is now willing to throw down the barriers of tariffs, and the impediments of custom-houses; and that all other nations are fain to raise them up. It is a secret sense of superiority on the one side, and of inferiority on the other, which is the cause of the difference. We advocate freedom of trade, because we are conscious that, in a fair unrestricted competition, we should succeed in beating them out of their own market. They resist it, and loudly clamour for protection, because they are aware that such a result would speedily take place, and that the superiority of the old commercial state is such, that on an open trial of strength, it must at once prove fatal to its younger rivals. As this effect is thus the result of permanent causes affecting both sides, it may fairly be presumed that it will be lasting; and that the more anxiously the old manufacturing state advocates or acts upon freedom of commercial intercourse, the more strenuously will the younger and rising ones advocate protection. Reciprocity, therefore, is out of the question between them: for it never could exist without the destruction of the manufactures of the younger state; and if that state has begun to enter on the path of manufacturing industry, it never will be permitted by its government.

But this is not all. If free trade must of necessity prove fatal to the manufactures of the younger state, it as certainly leads to the destruction _of the agriculture of the older;_ and it is this double effect this RECIPROCITY OF EVIL, which renders it so disastrous and impracticable an experiment for both the older and the younger community. The reason of this has not hitherto been generally attended to; but when once it is stated, its force becomes obvious, and it furnishes the true answer on principle to the delusive doctrines of free trade.

Nature has established, and, as it will immediately be shown, for very wise and important purposes, a permanent and indelible distinction between the effect of civilization and opulence on the production of food, and on the preparation of manufactures. In the latter, the discoveries of science, the exertions of skill, the application of capital, the introduction of machinery, are all-powerful, and give the older and more advanced state an immediate and decisive advantage over the younger and the ruder. In the former, the very reverse takes place: the additions made to productive power are comparatively inconsiderable, even by the most important discoveries; and as this capital and industry have in the end a powerful effect, and always enable the power of raising food for the human race to keep far a-head of the wants of mankind; yet this effect takes place very slowly, and the annual addition that can be made to the produce of the earth by such means is by no means considerable. The introduction of thorough draining will probably increase the productive power of the soil in Great Britain a third: scientific discovery may perhaps add another third; but at least ten years must elapse in the most favourable view before these effects generally take place--ere the judicious and well-directed labours of our husbandmen have formed rivulets for the superfluous wet of our fields, or overspread the soil with the now wasted animal remains of our cities. But our manufactures can in a few years quadruple their produce. So vast is the power which the steam-engine has made to the powers of production in commercial industry, that it is susceptible to almost indefinite and immediate extension; and the great difficulty always felt is, not to get hands to keep pace with the demand of the consumers, but to get a demand to keep pace with the hands employed in the production. Manchester and Glasgow could, in a few years, furnish muslin and cotton goods for the whole world.

Nor is the difference less important and conspicuous in the _price_ at which manufacturing and agricultural produce can be raised in the old and the young state. This is the decisive circumstance which renders reciprocity between them impossible. The rich old state is as superior to the young one in the production of manufactures, as the poor young state is to the rich old one in that of subsistence. The steam-engine, capital, and machinery, have so enormously increased the power of manufacturing production, that they have rendered the old commercial state omnipotent in the foreign market in the supply of its articles. Nothing but fiscal regulations and heavy duties can protect the young state from ruin in those branches of industry. Heavy taxes, high wages, costly rents, dear rude produce, all are at once compensated, and more than compensated, by the gigantic powers of the steam-engine. Cotton goods are raised now in Great Britain at a fifth of the price which they were during the war. A gown, which formerly was cheap at £2, 10s., is now sold for ten shillings. Silks, muslins, and all other articles of female apparel, have been reduced in price in the same proportion. Colossal fortunes have been made by the master manufacturers, unbounded wealth diffused through the operative workmen in Lancashire and Lanarkshire, even at these extremely reduced prices. This is the real reason of the universal effort made by all nations which have the least pretensions to commercial industry, of late years to exclude, by fixed duties, our staple manufactures; of which the President of the Board of Trade so feelingly complains, and which the advocates of free trade consider as so inexplicable. A very clear principle has led to it, and will lead to it. It is the instinct of SELF-PRESERVATION.

But there is no steam-engine in agriculture. The old state has no superiority over the young one in the price of producing food; on the contrary, it is decidedly its inferior. There, as in love, the apprentice is the master. The proof of this is decisive. Poland can raise wheat with ease at fifteen or twenty shillings a quarter, while England requires fifty. The serf of the Ukraine would make a fortune on the price at which the farmer of Kent or East Lothian would be rendered bankrupt. The Polish cultivators have no objection whatever to a free competition with the British; but the British anticipate, and with reason, total destruction from the free admission of Polish grain. These facts are so notorious, that they require no illustration; but nevertheless the conclusion to which they point is of the highest importance, and bears, with overwhelming force, on the theory of free trade as between an old and a young community. They demonstrate that that theory is not only practically pernicious, but on principle erroneous. It involves an oblivion of the fundamental law of nature as to the difference between the effect of wealth and civilization on the production of food and the raising of manufactures. It proceeds on insensibility to the difference in the age and advancement of nations, and the impossibility of a reciprocity being established between them without the ruin of an important branch of industry in each. It supposes nations to be of the same genus and age, like the trees in the larch plantation, not of all varieties and ages, as in the natural forest. If established in complete operation, it would only lead to the ruin of the manufactures of the younger state, and of the agriculture of the old one. The only reciprocity which it can ever introduce between such states is the reciprocity of evil.

Illustrations from everyday life occur on all sides to elucidate the utter absurdity, and, in fact, total impracticapability of the system of free trade, as applied to nations who are, or are becoming, rivals of each other in manufacturing industry. Those who have the advantage, will always advocate free competition; those who are labouring under impediments, will always exclaim against them. In some cases the young have the advantage, in others the old; but in all the free system is applauded by those in the sunshine, and execrated by those in the shade. The fair _debutante_ of eighteen, basking in the bright light of youth, beauty, birth, and connections, has no sort of objection to the freedom of choice in the ball-room. If the mature spinster of forty would divulge her real opinion, what would it be on the same scene of competition? Experience proves that she is glad to retire, in the general case, from the unequal struggle, and finds the system of established precedence and fixed rank at dinner parties, much more rational. The leaders on the North Circuit--Sir James Scarlett or Lord Brongham--have no objections to the free choice, by solicitors and attorneys, for professional talent; but their younger brethren of the gown are fain to take shelter from such formidable rivals in the exclusive employment of the Crown, the East India Company, the Bank of England, or some of the numerous chartered companies in the country. England is the old lawyer on the Cirucuit in manufactures--but Poland is the young beauty of the ball-room in agriculture. We should like to see what sort of reciprocity could be established between them. Possibly the young belle may exchange her beauty for the old lawyer's guineas, but it will prove a bad reciprocity for both.

It is usual for both philosophers and practical men to ascribe the superior cheapness with which subsistence can be raised in the young state to the old one, to the weight of taxes and of debt, public and private, with which the latter is burdened, from which the former is, in general, relieved. But, without disputing that these circumstances enter with considerable weight into the general result, it may safely be affirmed that the main cause of it is to be found in two laws of nature, of universal and permanent application. These are the low value of money in the rich state, in consequence of its plenty, compared with its high value in the poor one, in consequence of its poverty, and the experienced inapplicability of machinery or the division of labour to agricultural operations.

Labour is cheap in the poor state, such as Poland, Prussia, and the Ukraine, becuase guineas are few.--"It is not," as Johnson said of the Highlands, "that eggs are many, but that pence are few." Commercial transactions being scanty, and the want of a circulating medium inconsiderable, it exists to a very limited extent in the country. People do not need a large circulating medium, therefore they do not buy it; they are poor, therefore they cannot. In the opulent and highly advanced community, on the other hand, the reverse of all this takes place. Transactions are so frequent, the necessities of commerce so extensive, that a large circulating medium is soon felt to be indispensable. In addition to a considerable amount of specie, the aid of bank-notes, public and private, of Government securities and exchequer bills, and of private bills to an immense ammount, bcomes necessary. McCulloch calculates the circulating medium of Great Britain, including paper and gold, at L.72,000,000. The bills in circulation are probably in amount nearly as much more. A hundred and forty, or a hundred and fifty millions, between specie, bank-notes, exchequer bills, Government securities, on which advances are made, and private bills, constitute the ordinary circulating medium of twenty-seven millions in the British empire. The total circulation of Russia, with sixty millions of inhabitants, is not forty millions sterling. The effect of this difference is prodigions. It is no wonder, whten it is taken into account, that wages are 5-1/2d. or 6d. a-day in Poland or the Ukraine, and 2s. or 2s. 6d. a-day in England.

The clearest proof that this is the great cause of the superior cost of raising subsistence in the old than the young state, is afforded by the different value which money bears in different parts of the _same_ community. Ask any housekeeper what is the difference between the expense of living in London, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, and he will answer, that L.1500 a-year in Edingburgh, or L.750 in Aberdeen. Yet these different places are all situated in the same community, and their inhabitants pay the same public taxes, and very nearly the same of local ones. It is the vast results arising from the concentration of wealth and expediture in one place, compared with its abstraction from others, which occasions the difference. But if this effect is conspicuous, and matter of daily observation, in different parts of the same compact and moderately sized country, how much more must it obtain in regard to different countries, situated in different latitudes and politcal circumstances, and in different stages of wealth, civilization, and commercial opulence? Between England for example, and Poland or the Ukraine? The difference is there important and durable. Wheat can be raised with as good a profit to the cultivator for sixteen shillings per quarter in Poland, as for forty-eight shillings in England or Scotland.

This superior weight of wages, rent and all the elements of cost, in the old, when compared with the young community, affects the manufacturer as well as the farmer; and in some branches of manufactures it does so with an overwhelming effect. But, generally speaking, the advantages of capital, machinery, and the division of labour, render the old state altogether predominant over the young one in these particulars. It would seem to be a fixed law of nature, that the progress of society adds almost nothing to the application of machinery to agriculture, but indefinitely to its importance in manufactures. Observe an old man digging his garden with a spade--that is the most productive species of cultivation; it is the last stage of agricultural progress to return to it. No steam engines or steam ploughs will ever rival it. But what is the old weaver toiling with his hands, to the large steam-power mill, turning at once ten thousand spindles? As dust in the balance. Man, by a beneficent law of his Maker, is permanently secured in his first and best pursuit. It is in those which demoralize and degrade, that machinery progressively encroaches on the labour of his hands. England can undersell India in muslins and printed goods, manufactured in Lancashire or Lanarkshire, out of cotton which grew on the banks of the Ganges; for England though younger in years compared to India, is old in civilization, wealth, and power. We should like to see what profit would be made by exporting wheat from England, raised on land paying thirty shillings an acre of rent, by labourers paid at two shillings a-day, to Hindostan, where rice is raised twice a-year, on land paying five shillings an acre rent, by labourers receiving twopence a-day each.

It is the constant operation of this law of nature which ensures the equalization of empires, the happiness of society, and the dispersion of mankind. To be convinced of this, we have only to reflect on the results which would ensue if this were not the case; if no unvarying law gave man in remote situations an advantage in raising subsistence over what they enjoy in the centres of opulence; and agriculture, in the aged and wealthy community, was able to acquire the same decisive superiority over distant and comparatively poor ones, which we see daily examplified in the production of manufactures. Suppose, for example, that in consequence of the application of the steam-engine, capital, and machinery to the raising of subsistence, Great Britian could undersell the cultivatiors of Poland and the Ukraine as effectually as she does their manufacturers in the production of cotton goods; that she could sell in the Polish market wheat at five shillings a quarter, when they require fifteen shillings to remunerate the cost of production. Would not the result be, that commerce between them would be entirely destroyed; that subsistence would be exclusively raised in the old opulent community; that mankind would congregate in fearful multitudes round the great commercial emporium of the world; and that the industry and progress of the more distant nations would be irrevocably blighted? Whereas, by the operation of the present law of nature, that the rich state can always undersell the poor one in maufactures, and the poor one always undersell the rich one in subsistence, those dangers are removed, a check is provided to the undue multiplication of the species in particular situations, and the dispersion of mankind over the globe--a vital object in the system of nature--is secured, from the very necessities and difficulties in which, in the progress of society, the old and wealthy community becomes involved.