Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"The circumstance of all others which contributed most to the
_ultimate_ greatness of Rome, was the long-continued wars in
which its people were early involved. The Italian people had no
machines for conducting sieges; and in addition to this, as the
soldiers every where served without pay, it was impossible to
retain them long before a fortified town; thus few of their wars
were decisive. They fought for the pillage of a camp, or the
booty of the fields, after which victors and vanquished retired
alike into their respective cities. It was this circumstance
which occasioned the long resistance of the Italian cities, and,
at the same time, the obstinacy of the Romans in their endeavours
to subjugate them; it was that which gave them victories which
did not enervate, and conquests which left them their poverty.
Had they rapidly conquered the neighbouring cities, they would
have arrived at their decline before the days of Pyrrhus, of the
Gauls, and of Hannibal; and, following the destiny of all the
nations in the world, they would _too quickly_ have gone through
the transition from poverty to riches, and from riches to
corruption."--C. 1.

What a subject for reflection is presented in this single paragraph! Rome, without any knowledge of siege equipage, thrown in the midst of the Italian states bristling with strongholds; and slowly learning, during centuries of indecisive, and often calamitous contests, that military art by which she was afterwards to subdue the world! It was in like manner, in the long, bloody, and nearly balanced contests of the Grecian republics with each other, that the discipline was learned which gave Alexander and the Macedonian phalanx the empire of Asia; and in the protracted struggles of the Anglo-Saxons, first with each other in the Heptarchy, and then with the Danes and Normans in defence of their coasts, that the foundation was laid of the energy and perseverance which have given the British race their present eminence and dominion among men.

"It has been often observed," says Montesquieu, "that our armies
generally melt away under the fatigue of the soldiers, while
those of the Romans never failed to preserve their health by it.
The reason is, that their fatigues were _continued_; whereas our
soldiers are destroyed by passing from a life of almost total
inactivity to one of vehement exertion--the thing of all others
most destructive to health. Not only were the Roman soldiers
accustomed, during war, to incessant marching, and fortifying of
the camps, but in peace they were daily trained to the same
active habits. They were all habituated to the military step,
that is, to go twenty miles, and sometimes twenty-four, in five
hours. They did this bearing burdens of sixty pounds. They were
daily trained to run and leap with their whole equipment on; in
their ordinary drills the swords, javelins, and arrows were of a
weight double of that used in war, and the exercises were
continued."--C. 2.

There can be no doubt that this passage both explains much of the astonishing conquests of the Roman legions, and furnishes ample subject for reflection to a modern observer. The constant employment of these troops in the construction of great public works, as highways, bridges, harbours, or the like, was at once the best security for the health of the soldiers and the circumstance, of all others, which rendered their maintenance tolerable to the people. If we examine the inscriptions found in all parts of the world, where Roman remains are to be met with, we shall find that they were raised by the hands of the legions. It was their persevering and incessant toil which formed the magnificent highways, which, emanating from the Roman Forum, extended to the furthest extremity of the empire. The prodigious labour required for these great undertakings; the vast bridges and viaducts which required to be constructed; the mountains to be levelled; morasses and valleys to be filled up, habituated the legionary soldiers to such an amount of daily labour, that their engaging in the fatigues of a campaign was felt rather as a recreation than a burden. Hence, the dreadful sickness which in modern armies invariably attends the commencement of a campaign, and in general halves its numerical strength before a sword has been drawn, was for the most part unknown, and hence, too, the extraordinary achievements performed by small bodies of these iron veterans. How great the difference in modern times, where the naval and military forces are every where kept up during peace in almost total idleness; and the consequence is, that they are at once an eyesore to the citizens whose substance they consume in what is deemed useless ostentation, and are deprived of half their numerical strength, and more than half their efficiency, on first engaging in the fatigues of real warfare.

No province hails the arrival of a modern division of troops, no seaport longs for the presence of a man-of-war, as the signal for the commencement of great and beneficent pacific undertakings, as was the case in the Roman empire. Of what incalculable use might the British navy be, if even a part of it was employed in transporting the hundred thousand colonists who annually seek in our distant possessions, or in the American States, that profitable market for their industry, which they cannot find amidst our crowded manufactories at home? And this is an instance of the manner in which the reflections of Montesquieu, though made in reference only to the Roman empire, are in truth applicable to all ages and countries; as the parables in the Gospels, though delivered only to the fishermen of Judea, contain the rules of conduct for the human race to the end of the world.

Regarding the comparative causes of corruption in a military and commercial state, Montesquieu makes the following observation. Let him that feels it not applicable to this nation and ourselves, throw the first stone:--

"Carthage having become richer than Rome, was also more
corrupted. For this reason, while at Rome public employments
were chiefly awarded to ability and virtue, and conferred no
advantage, but a greater share of fatigues to be endured, and
dangers incurred, every thing which the public had to bestow was
sold at Carthage, and every service rendered by individuals was
paid by the state. The tyranny of a prince does not bring a
despotic state nearer its ruin than indifference to the public
good does a republic. The advantage of a free state consists in
this, that its revenues are in general better administered; and
even where this is not the case, it has at first the advantage of
not being governed by court favourites. But, on the other hand,
the corrupting power in a democracy, when once brought into
action, erelong becomes more dissolving than in a despotism; for
instead of paying court merely to the friends and relations of
the prince, it becomes necessary to provide for the friends and
relations of the multitude who have a share in political power.
All is then lost. The laws are eluded in a more dangerous manner
than by the violence of a despot; for they are so by the
interests of the changing many, not the passions of one, whose
position at the head of the state being fixed and unchangeable,
gives him a lasting interest in its preservation."--C. 4.

How many reflections does this passage, written in France above a century ago, awaken in the breast of a British citizen at this time!--"Si monumentum quæris, circumspice!" So true it is, that real political truth belongs to no age or locality--"non alia Romæ, alia Athenis;" it is of eternal application, and is destined to receive confirmation from the experience of men, and the lessons of history, to the end of the world.

"Powers," says Montesquieu, "which owe their greatness to
commerce, may exist long in mediocrity, but their grandeur can
never be of long duration. The reason is, that they rise to
greatness by little and little, without any one being aware of
their growth, as they have done nothing which attracts attention,
awakens alarm, or indicates their power. But when it has risen to
that point, that no one can avoid seeing it, all the surrounding
nations secretly endeavour to deprive the great commercial state
of advantages which they all envy, and which have taken them, as
it were, by surprise."--C. 4.

Few persons who contemplate the present state of the British empire, its astonishing rise to greatness in the space of less than a century--the general, it may be said universal jealousy with which it is regarded, and the perilous pinnacle on which it now stands, will deny the justice of this observation. May the remark, as to the short duration of power founded on such a basis, not receive an additional, and even more memorable confirmation in ourselves! But one thing is perfectly clear. This remark indicates the impossibility of conciliating the adjoining and poorer states while our commercial superiority continues, and thus strikes at the very foundation of the reciprocity system, on which our whole commercial policy for the last quarter of a century has been founded. That system proceeds on the principle, that by opening to the adjoining states a fair communication of advantages, it is in the power of a great commercial state, not only to conciliate their good-will, but obtain with them a great and mutually beneficial mercantile intercourse. Montesquieu's observation points to the undying and universal jealousy by its neighbours with which such a power is ever surrounded, and the futility of all attempts, while its superiority exists, to avert their mercantile hostility, or preserve with them any considerable commercial traffic. Which is the better option, let the hedge of hostile tariffs with which, after boundless concessions to purchase commercial good-will, we are surrounded in every direction, give the answer.

On the comparative value of infantry and cavalry in war, Montesquieu, though no professional soldier, makes the following observation, on which those who are so, would do well to ponder:--

"The Carthaginian cavalry was superior to that of the Romans, for
two reasons. One was, that the Numidian and Spanish horses were
better than those of Italy; the other, that the Roman cavalry was
ill armed; for Polybius tells us, that it was not till they had
carried on war in Greece, that they changed their manner of
equipping that limb of military strength. In the first Punic
war, Regulus was beat as soon as the Carthaginians made choice of
plains for combat, where their cavalry could act to advantage; in
the second, Hannibal owed to the Numidian horse his principal
victories. It was not till whole corps of them began to go over
to the Romans in Italy, that the latter began to breathe. Scipio
having conquered Spain, and contracted an alliance with
Masinissa, deprived the Carthaginians of that advantage. He did
more, he gained it for himself. It was the Numidian cavalry which
gained the battle of Zama, and terminated the war in favour of
the Romans."--C. 4.

It is impossible to read the admirable account of Hannibal's campaign in the last volume of Arnold's _History of Rome_, without perceiving that this observation, as to the decisive effect of the Numidian cavalry upon the fortunes of the war, in first giving victory to the Carthaginians when they were entirely on their side, and gradually, and at length decisively restoring it to that of the Romans, when they were won over to their eagles, is entirely well-founded. Napoleon was of the same opinion, and has repeatedly expressed it in various parts of his works. "Give me," said that great man, "the French infantry and the Mameluke horse, and I will conquer the world." It was his constant affirmation that cavalry, equally brave and skillfully led, should always, other things being equal, overthrow infantry; and that the contrary opinion which generally prevails, was owing to horse, considered as the sole strength of war during the feudal ages, having been unduly decried since the invention of fire-arms. All the world knows the immense use he made of his heavy cavalry in all his campaigns; how often, in circumstances the most critical, it chained victory to his standards; how nearly it re-established his affairs, and replaced the imperial crown upon his head on the field of Waterloo. How striking a proof of human sagacity that the philosophic sage, in the early part of the seventeenth century, should have divined a truth which the researches of the historian and the exploits of the conqueror were to confirm in the middle of the eighteenth!

"Those who are governed by a king," says Montesquieu, "are less
tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an
hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his
subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them
that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the
nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all,
and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are
made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the people
detest their senators, though they frequently love their king.
Republics, where birth confers no title to power, are in that
respect in a better situation than aristocracies; for the people
feel less jealousy of an authority which they give to whom they
please, and take from whom they incline."--C. 8.

How many confirmations of this remark have the history of France during the Revolution, and of England during the Reform mania afforded! And this affords an illustration of a truth, which, the more history is studied, will be rendered more apparent, viz., that the principles which lie at the bottom of the greatest changes in the political world, and produce the most devastating evils to society, are in reality the same which we see acting every day around us in common life. In the jealousies of the tea-table, the animosities of the market-place, the envy of trade, we may see the passions working, which, infused into a whole people, tear society in pieces. It is only supposing the same malevolent or selfish desires working in every breast, directed against one object, and rendered irresistible from that very multiplication, and we have the envy of the coterie transformed into the fury of revolution. Whoever will closely observe the working of that mainspring of human actions--selfishness--on the society, whether in a village, a city, a country, or a metropolis in which he resides, will have no difficulty in discerning the real but secret, and therefore unobserved spring of the greatest changes that ever occur in the political and social world. Voltaire said the factions at Geneva were storms in a teacup; if any man will study the motion of water in a teacup, he will be at no loss to understand the hurricanes of the Atlantic.

On the division of the Roman people into centuries and tribes, which was the cardinal point of their constitution, Montesquieu makes the following important observation:--

"Servius Tullius was the author of the famous division of the
people into centuries, which Livy and Dionysius Halicarnassus
have so well described. He distributed an hundred and
ninety-three centuries into six classes, and put the whole lower
people into the last century, which singly formed the sixth
class. It is easy to see that that arrangement virtually excluded
the lower classes from the suffrage, not _de jure_, but _de
facto_. Subsequently it was agreed, that except in some
particular cases they should, in voting, follow the division into
tribes. There were thirty-five of these tribes who gave each
their vote: _four were from the city, thirty-one from the
country_. The principal citizens, being all rural proprietors,
were naturally classed in the country tribes: the lower people
were all massed together in the four urban ones. This
circumstance was regarded, and with reason, as the salvation of
the republic. Appius Claudius had distributed the lower people
among the whole tribes, but Fabius classed then again in the four
urban ones, and thence acquired the surname of 'Maximus.' The
Censors very five years took a survey of the citizens, and
distributed the people in the tribes to which they legally
belonged; so that the ambitious could not render themselves
masters of their suffrages, nor the people abuse their own
power."--C. 8.

The Romans had good reason for styling Fabius "Maximus," who discovered this way of preventing the lower classes, by their number, from acquiring an overwhelming superiority in the government of the state. He achieved as great a good for his country by so doing, as by baffling Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ. But for that circumstance the Roman constitution would have become, after the change of Appius Claudius, a mere prototype of the American democracy; a government constantly swayed by a numerical majority of the lowest class of citizens. There can be no doubt that the matter at issue, in this question, is the most material which can engage the attention of political philosophers and statesmen in a free country, and that, on its determination, its ultimate fate is entirely dependant. So great is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible. Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in ancient, which has destroyed Poland in modern times, and is fast undermining the foundations of the social union in America. The Roman method of giving every citizen a vote, but classifying them in such a way that the paramount influence of a mere numerical majority was prevented, and the practical direction of affairs was thrown into the hands of the better class of citizens, though not free from objection, is the most perfect method of combining universal suffrage in the citizens, with the real direction of affairs by those fitted to conduct them, which the wit of man has ever divined.

In truth, it deserves consideration by those who think on human affairs, and the probable form of government which may be expected to prevail in future among men, whether _universal_ suffrage is the real evil to be dreaded; and whether _equality_ of suffrage is not the real poison which destroys society. Abstractly considered, there is much justice in the plea so constantly advanced by the working-classes, that being members of the community, and contributing to its support or opulence by their labour, they are entitled to a certain voice in the direction of its affairs. If no one has a voice at all but the sovereign, as in a despotism, or no one except a few magnates, as in an aristocracy, the humbler classes cannot complain at least of inconsistency, whatever they may of injustice, if they are excluded. But if a vast body of electors, as in Great Britain, are admitted, and still the great bulk of the working-classes are excluded, it is not easy to see on what principle the exclusion of some can be rendered consistent with the admission of others. It deserves consideration whether the true principle would not be to give every able-bodied working man, major and not receiving parochial relief, a vote, but a _vote of much less weight than his superiors in intelligence, property, or station_. This might be done either as the Romans did, by making the votes be taken by centuries, and classing all the votes of the poorer electors in a limited number of centuries, or giving each man a _personal_ vote, and giving the holders of property, in addition, more votes for their property; as one for every pound of direct taxes paid. Louis XVI. proposed a plan of this sort to Turgot before the Revolution; but that minister, deeply embued with the principles of democracy, rejected it; and Neckar, following out his views, practically established universal suffrage. Possibly the plan, if adopted and honestly carried into execution, might have prevented the whole calamities of the Revolution.

Of the dangers of such a multiplication of votes, without any restriction, Roman history affords a memorable example.

"Rome," says Montesquieu, "had conquered the world with the aid
of the Italian cities, and, in return, she had communicated to
them a great variety of privileges. At first they cared little
for these advantages; but when the rights of Roman citizenship
was that of universal empire, when no one was any thing in the
world if he was not a Roman citizen, and with that little he was
every thing, the Italian people resolved to perish or acquire
that envied distinction. Being unable to attain this object by
prayers and remonstrances, they had recourse to arms: the whole
allies on the Eastern coast of the Peninsula revolted, those on
the Western side were about to follow their example. Rome,
obliged to combat as it were the hands by which it had conquered
the world, was lost; it was about to be reduced to its walls,
when it extricated itself from the difficulty by extending the
privilege to the allies who had remained faithful, and shortly
after to the whole.

"From that moment Rome ceased to be a city of which the people
had the same spirit, the same interest, the same love of freedom,
the same reverence for the Senate. The people of Italy having
become citizens, every town brought thither its dispositions, its
separate interests, its dependence on some neighbouring
protector. The city, torn with divisions, formed no longer a
whole; and as the vast majority of the citizens were so only by a
species of fiction, had neither the same magistrates, the same
walls, the same temples, the same gods, nor the same places of
sepulture, Rome was no longer seen with the same eyes; the
undivided love of country was gone; Rome was no more. The
inhabitants of whole provinces and cities were brought up to the
capital to give their suffrages, or compel others to give them;
the popular assemblies degenerated into vast conspiracies, a
troop or seditious band usurped the sacred name of Comitia; the
authority of the people, their laws, even themselves, became a
mere chimera; and the anarchy rose to such a point that it became
impossible to tell whether the people had made an ordinance, or
had not. Writers are never tired of descanting on the divisions
which ruined Rome; but they have not seen that those divisions
always existed, and ever must exist in a free community. It was
solely the greatness of the republic which was the cause of the
evil, by changing popular tumults into civil wars. Faction was
unavoidable in Rome; its warriors, so fierce, so proud, so
terrible abroad, would not be moderate at home. To expect in a
free state men at once bold in war, and timid in peace, is to
look for an impossibility. It may be assumed as a fixed
principle, that wherever you see every one tranquil in a state
which bears the name of a republic, liberty there has been long
since extinct."--C. 9.

The representative system has saved Great Britain and America from these terrible popular _comitia_, in which, as Montesquieu has truly said, the mobs of the people became the convulsions of an empire; and which tore in pieces Poland in modern, as it had done Rome in ancient times. But does not the real evil exist, despite this liberation from the actual tumult, in the representative government of a great empire, as much as in the stormy _comitia_ of an overgrown republic? It is not the mere strife in the streets, and shedding of blood in civil warfare, bad as it is, and truly as the "bellum plusquam civile" exceeds all others in horror, which is the only evil. The separation of interests, the disregard of common objects in the struggle for individual elevation, the tyranny of one class by another class, is the thing which really dissolves the national bonds in every wide-spread and free community. We see this source of discord operating with as much force in the divided representation of great popular states, as in the bloody contests of the Roman forum or the plain of Volo in Poland. The nullification of South Carolina, the obnoxious tariff of America, the fierce demands for the repeal of the union in Ireland, the sacrifice of agricultural and producing, to commercial and monied interests in Great Britain, prove that these evils are in full operation among ourselves, as well as our descendants on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a confusion of tongues, and separation of mankind from the undue amalgamation of interests, as well as individuals. Providence has a sure way to punish the selfishness and presumption of men who seek to build up a Babel of human construction; and that is to leave them to the consequences of their own extravagance.

The style of Montesquieu may be judged from the extracts, few and imperfect as they are, given in the preceding pages. It is not vehement, eloquent, or forcible; but condensed, nervous, and epigrammatic. No writer has furnished to succeeding times so many brilliant passages to quote; but there are many who can be read _en suite_ with more satisfaction. This is not unfrequently the case with writers on philosophical subjects of the highest class of intellect; and it arises from the variety and originality of their ideas. The mind of the reader is fatigued by following out the multitude of thoughts which their works engender. At the close of every paragraph almost, you involuntarily close the book, to reflect on the subjects of meditation which it has presented. The same peculiarity may be remarked in the annals of Tacitus, the essays of Bacon, the poetry of Milton, the _Inferno_ of Dante, the _Discorsi_ of Machiavel. In the habit of expansion which has arisen in more recent times from the multiplication of books, the profits made by writing, and the necessity of satisfying the craving of a voracious public for something new, is to be found the cause of the remarkable difference in the modes of composition which has since become prevalent. When men write for the monthly or quarterly press, there is no time to be condensed or profound. What has been gained, however, in animation and fervour, has too often been lost in thought; and it may be doubted whether, among the many writers of the present day, whether in Great Britain or the Continent, there is one whose works, a century hence, will be deemed to contain as much of original and valuable ideas as even the preceding sketch, imperfect as it is, has presented in Montesquieu.

A REMINISCENCE OF BOYHOOD.

By Delta.

"Life is a dream, whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
When all the comforts man can share
As wandering as his fancies are:
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away."

Bishop King.

I.

'Twas a blithe morning in the aureate month
Of July, when, in pride of summer power,
The sun enliven'd nature: dew-besprent,
A wilderness of flowers their scent exhaled
Into the soft, warm zephyr; early a-foot,
On public roads, and by each hedge-way path,
From the far North, and from Hybernia's strand,
With vestures many-hued, and ceaseless chat,
The reapers to the coming harvest plied--
Father and mother, stripling and young child,
On back or shoulder borne. I trode again
A scene of youth, bright in its natural lines
Even to a stranger's eyes when first time seen,
But sanctified to mine by many a fond
And faithful recognition. O'er the Esk,
Swoln by nocturnal showers, the hawthorn hung
Its garland of green berries, and the bramble
Trail'd 'mid the camomile its ripening fruit.
Most lovely was the verdure of the hills--
A rich luxuriant green, o'er which the sky
Of blue, translucent, clear without a cloud,
Outspread its arching amplitude serene.
With many a gush of music, from each brake
Sang forth the choral linnets; and the lark,
Ascending from the clover field, by fits
Soar'd as it sang, and dwindled from the sight.
'Mid the tall meadow grass the ox reclined,
Or bent his knee, or from beneath the shade
Of the broad beech, with ruminant mouth, gazed forth.
Rustling with wealth, a tissue of fair fields,
Outstretch'd to left and right in luxury;
And the fir forests on the upland slopes
Contrasted darkly with the golden grain.

II.

Pensively by the river's bank I stray'd--
Now gazing on the corn-fields ripe and rich;
Now listening to the carol of the birds
From bush and brake, that with mellifluous notes
Fill'd the wide air; and now in mournful thought--
That yet was full of pleasure--running through
The mazy past. I know not how it was,
But from the sounds--the season--and the scene--
Soften'd my heart; and, as the swallow wings
In autumn back to softer sunnier climes--
When summer, like a bright fallacious dream,
Hath with its flowers and fragrance pass'd away--
So, from the turmoil of maturer years,
In boyish thoughts my spirit sought relief.

III.

Embathed in beauty pass'd before my sight,
Like blossoms that with sunlight shut and ope,
The half-lost dreams of many a holiday,
In boyhood spent on that blue river side
With those whose names, even now, as alien sounds
Ring in the ear, though then our cordial arms
Enwreathed each other's necks, while on we roam'd,
Singing or silent, pranksome, never at rest,
As life were but a jocund pilgrimage,
Whose pleasant wanderings found a goal in heaven.
But when I reach'd a winding of the stream,
By hazels overarch'd, whose swollen nuts
Hung in rich clusters, from his marginal bank
Of yellow sand, ribb'd by receding waves,
I scared the ousel, that, like elfin sprite,
Amid the water-lilies lithe and green,
Zig-zagg'd from stone to stone; and, turning round
The sudden jut, reveal'd before me stood,
Silent, within that solitary place--
In that green solitude so calm and deep--
An aged angler, plying wistfully,
Amid o'erhanging banks and shelvy rocks,
Far from the bustle and the din of men,
His sinless pastime. Silver were his locks,
His figure lank; his dark eye, like a hawk's,
Glisten'd beneath his hat of whitest straw,
Lightsome of wear, with flies and gut begirt:
The osier creel, athwart his shoulders slung,
Became full well his coat of velveteen,
Square-tail'd, four-pocket'd, and worn for years,
As told by weather stains. His quarter-boots,
Lash'd with stout leather thongs, and ankles bare,
Spoke the adept--and of full many a day,
Through many a changeable and checquer'd year,
By mountain torrent, or smooth meadow stream,
To that calm sport devoted. O'er him spread
A tall, broad sycamore; and, at his feet,
Amid the yellow ragwort, rough and high,
An undisturbing spaniel lay, whose lids,
Half-opening, told his master my approach.

IV.

I turn'd away, I could not bear to gaze
On that grey angler with his rod and line;
I turn'd away--for to my heart the sight
Brought back, from out the twilight labyrinth
Of bypast things, the memory of a day,
So sever'd from the present by the lapse
Of many a motley'd, life-destroying year,
That on my thoughts the recognition came
Faintly at first--as breaks the timid dawn
Above the sea, or evening's earliest star
Through the pavilion of the twilight dim--
Faintly at first--then kindling to the glow
Of that refulgent sunshine, only known
To boyhood's careless and unclouded hours.

V.

Even yet I feel around my heart the flush
Of that calm, windless morning, glorified
With summer sunshine brilliant and intense!
A tiny boy, scarcely ten summers old,
Along blue Esk, under the whispering trees,
And by the crumbling banks, daisy-o'ergrown,
A cloudless, livelong day I trode with one
Whose soul was in his pastime, and whose skill
Upon its shores that day no equal saw:--
O'er my small shoulders was the wicker creel
Slung proudly, and the net whose meshes held
The minnow, from the shallows deftly raised.
Hour after hour augmenting our success,
Turn'd what was pleasure first, to pleasant toil,
Lent languor to my loitering steps, and gave
Red to the cheek, and dew-damp to the brow:
It was a day that cannot be forgot--
A jubilee in childhood's calendar--
A green hill-top seen o'er the billowy waste
Of dim oblivion's flood:--and so it is,
That on my morning couch--what time the sun
Tinges the honeysuckle flowers with gold,
That cluster round the porch--and in the calm
Of evening meditation, when the past
Spontaneously unfolds the treasuries
Of half-forgotten and fragmental things,
To memory's ceaseless roamings--it comes back,
Fragrant and fresh, as if 'twere yesterday.
From morn till noon, his light assiduous toil
The angler plied; and when the mid-day sun
Was high in heaven, under a spreading tree,
(Methinks I hear the hum amid its leaves!)
Upon a couch of wild-flowers, down we sat
With healthful palates to our slight repast
Of biscuits, and of cheese, and bottled milk;
The sward our table, and the boughs our roof:
And oh! in banquet hall, where richest cates
Luxurious woo the pamper'd appetite,
Never did viands proffer such delight,
To Sybarite upon his silken couch,
As did to us our simple fair that day.

VI.

Bright shone the afternoon, say rather burn'd,
In floods of molten gold, with all its rich
Array of blossoms by that river's side--
Wild camomile, and lychnis in whose cups
The bee delights to murmur, harebells blue,
And violets breathing fragrance; nor remote
The aureate furze, that to the west-winds sigh,
Lent its peculiar perfume blandly soft.
At times we near'd the wild-duck and her brood
In the far angle of some dim-seen pool,
Silent and sable, underneath the boughs
Of low hung willow; and, at times, the bleat
Of a stray lamb would bid us raise our eyes
To where it stood above us on the rock,
Knee-deep amid the broom--a sportive elf.
Enshrined in recollection--sleep those hours
So brilliant and so beautiful--the scene
So full of pastoral loveliness--the heart
With pleasure overflowing--and the sky
Pavilion'd over all, an arch of peace--
God with his fair creation reconciled:
And oh! to be forgotten only with
The last fond thoughts of memory, I behold
That grand and gorgeous evening, in whose blaze
Homeward with laden paniers we return'd.
Through the green woods outshot the level rays
Of flooding sunlight, tinging the hoar bark
Of the old pine-trees, and in crimson dyes
Bathing the waste of flowers that sprang beneath;
It was an hour of Paradise restored--
Eden forth mirror'd to the view again,
As yet ere Happiness forsook its bowers,
Or sinless creatures own'd the sway of death.
All was repose--and peace--and harmony;
The flocks upon the soft knolls resting lay,
Or straying nibbled at the pastures green;
Up from its clovery lurking-place, the hare
Arose; the pheasant from the coppice stray'd;
The cony from its hole disporting leapt;
The cattle in the bloomy meadows lay
Ruminant; the shy foal scarcely swerved aside
At our approach from under the tall tree
Of his delight, shaking his forelocks long
In wanton play; while, overhead, his hymn,
As 'twere to herald the approach of night,
With all her gathering stars, the blackbird sang
Melodiously, mellifluously, and Earth
Look'd up, reflecting back the smiles of Heaven!
For Innocence, o'er hill and dale again
Seem'd to have spread her mantle, and the voice
Of all but joy in grove and glade was hush'd.

VII.

Thro' the deep glen of Roslin--where arise
Proud castle and chapelle of high St Clair,
And Scotland's prowess speaking--we had traced
The mazy Esk by cavern'd Hawthornden,
Perch'd like an eagle's nest upon the cliffs,
And eloquent for aye with Drummond's song--
Through Melville's flowery glades--and down the park
Of fair Dalkeith, scaring the antler'd deer
'Neath the huge oaks of Morton and of Monk,
Whispering, as stir their boughs the midnight winds.
These left behind, with purpling evening, now
We stood beside St Michael's holy fane,
With its nine centuries of gravestones girt;
And, from the slopes of Inveresk, gazed down
Upon the Frith of Forth, whose waveless tide
Glow'd like a plain of fire. In majesty,
O'ercanopied with many-vestured clouds,
The mighty sun, low in the farthest west,
With orb dilated, o'er the Grampian chain,
Mountain up-piled on mountain, huge and blue,
Was shedding his last rays, adorn'd the shores
Of Fife, with all its towns, and woods, and fields,
And bathing Ben-Ean and Ben-Ledi's peaks
In hues of amethyst. Ray after ray,
From the twin Lomond's conic heights declined,
And died away the glory; and, at length,
As sank the last, low horizontal beams,
And Twilight drew her azure curtains round,
From out the south, twinkled the Evening star!

VIII.

Since then full often hath the snow-drop shown
Its early flower--hath summer waved its corn--
Hath autumn shed its leaves--and Arctic gales
Brought wintry desolation on their wings!
When Memory ponders on that boyish scene,
Broken seems almost every tie that links
That day to this--and to the child the man:
The world is alter'd quite in all its thoughts--
In all its works and ways--its sights and sounds--
With the same name it is another sphere,
And by another race inhabited.
The old familiar dwellings, with their trees
Coeval, mouldering wall, and dovecot rent--
The old familiar faces from the streets,
One after one, have now all disappear'd,
And sober sires are they who then were sons,
Giddy and gay:--a generation new
Dwells where they dwelt--whose tongues are silent quite--
Whose bodily forms are reminiscences
Fading:--the leaden talisman of Truth
Hath disenchanted of its rainbow hues
The sky, and robb'd the fields of half their bloom.
I start, to conjure from the gulf of death
The myriads that have gone to come no more:--
And where is he, the Angler, by whose side
That livelong day delightedly I roam'd,
While life to both a sunny pastime seem'd?
Ask of the winds that from the Atlantic blow,
When last they stirr'd the wild-flowers on his grave!

DE BURTIN ON PICTURES.

The writings of enthusiasts, however dry the subjects upon which they employ their pens, have always some power of fascination. Many a one who has never hooked a fish, has found delight in Isaac Walton. He is still the pleasant companion by river and brooklet, and the cause why,

"He that has fishing loved should fish the more,
And he should fish who never fish'd before."

But then the subject is the loveliest of arts, Painting--embracing as it does the beautiful, the great, and the pathetic, whatever charms the eye and moves the heart--we are sensible of more than common pleasure, and become soothed into dreams and visions of our own, even by the gentle garrulity of a connoisseur. Is there any one who pretends to acquaintance with literature, however uninitiated he may be in the mysteries of the arts, who has not read the _Discourses_ of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and who has not wished, after reading them, to be enabled to say, "anche io son pittore?" When we are told of picture galleries with their thousand works of art, and are warmed by the descriptions, feeble though they must be, of many of them, we seem to be suddenly led by a lamp of more magical power than Aladdin's; for what was his gallery of fruit-trees bearing, precious stones, to a gallery rich in pictures, the still brighter fruits of genius, presenting endless variety, each one almost a world in itself, and all, enticing the imagination into regions unbounded, of charm and loveliness, suggested, though not made visible, but to the mind's eye? We remember in our school days giving Virgil credit for much tact in endeavouring to make a gentleman of Æneas, and succeeding too for a while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and giving him leisure to contemplate and to criticise, and poetically to describe to his silent and spiritless lounger-friend many noble and many touching works. In this passage we also obtain the great Latin poet's opinion of the ameliorating effect of "collections." The hero of the Æneid knew immediately he was among an amiable people. The picture-gallery was the "nova res oblata" which "timorem leniit"--

"Hic primum Æneas sperare salutem
Ausus, et afflictis melius confidere rebus;
Namque"----

It is singular that all the courts of Europe have, for more than two centuries, been earnestly engaged in forming public galleries, a national benefit and honour which England had neglected with her great wealth, and with opportunities singularly favourable, until within a few years; and even now we are making but very slow progress, and works of art of the olden and golden time are becoming more rare, and immensely rising in value. Had we, as a nation, collected even fifty years ago--speaking of the transactions as a money speculation, in which view, according to the taste of the day, we must look at every thing--our purchases would now have been worth treble the first cost in money. The unhappy fate of Charles I. was most adverse to the arts here. It not only scattered the collection made by him, but, by the triumph of Puritanism, plunged the country first into a dislike of, and, for long subsequent periods, into an indifference for art. We even doubt if this gross feeling has altogether subsided. We do not yet take a national pride in works of genius, unless they immediately bear upon the art of living. No country is so rich as ours in private, and none so poor in public collections. And if we progress so slowly in our National Gallery, we can scarcely wonder that public institutions of the kind have not been dreamed of in the provinces. We sincerely hope that the movement Mr Ewart is making will be crowned with success, and that in time "collections" in our cities and towns will be the result.

The Musée of Paris, in 1844, contained upwards of fifteen hundred pictures. According to the catalogue compiled in 1781, the Imperial Gallery of Vienna then contained twelve hundred and thirty-four. According to the catalogue of 1839, the Dresden gallery contained eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. At Munich, the present king has erected a spacious building, into which he has draughted a selection, from among several thousands, of about fifteen hundred. And what have we done to improve the national taste? And strange, indeed, does it appear, that whenever such a subject is brought before the public mind in Parliament, it is solely with a view to the connexion of art with manufactures. There must be in the nature of things a certain connexion; but unnecessarily to bind them in union is to bind then unnaturally, and to put the shackles upon the higher, which cannot bear them without degradation. We hail with great pleasure every publication whose object is to promote a love for the fine arts; and more particularly those which show a due reverence for the old masters; for, however unwilling we may be to limit the power of genius, no one who has any pretensions to taste, and is of a cultivated mind, will deny that, if their works are not perfection, they are at least in a right direction. The novelties which more modern art has sought will pass away, we are persuaded, as not founded upon true principles, and we shall best advance by properly appreciating what has been done before us. We will not here enter into the subject of the _décadence_ of art, nor its causes. We believe that if adequate national and provincial galleries were formed, more especially at our universities, the improved public taste would create a demand which this country would not lack genius to supply. We are not in the exact condition of Italy at the sudden rise of art there. The public, in the days of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, had nothing, or but little _to unlearn_; the previous aim had fortunately not been very multifarious; the sentiment of art was right, and the direction true. It remained only to enlarge the sphere; the principles were in being; they required but confirmation. Grace and power naturally arose; for there was no counteracting education, nothing positively bad altogether to lay aside, though there was something to correct. Now with us, on the contrary, art has run into very strange vagaries; the enlargement of the boundaries has been unlimited, but it has been in regions far below the Parnassian Mount. We have talked of the High Ideal, and practised and encouraged _ad infinitum_ the Low Natural, and too often have descended to the worse, the Low Unnatural; so that, upon the whole, we have to unlearn very much before we can be said to be in the rudiments of Real Art. Let us suppose one born with every natural endowment, with imagination, and a power of imitation. The mind, after all, is fed with _realities_; there is in it also process of digestion, which converts the real into the imaginative. Now, in early years, how rare it is that the naturally endowed artist is not ill fed--unhealthy diet of the mind entices him every where. If in the country, he is sparingly fed--sees little or nothing of Art, little perhaps beyond the Sign of an Inn--and is scarcely, from other sources of education, taught to look with the mind's eye, through the undignified appearance, to the actual dignity even of the nature he sees:--if he has lived in the city, the Print shops are inevitable lures to cheat him by little and little out of his natural taste, if there be one; for at first it can be but a mere germ. The works of greatness, of goodness, will be the last things that he will see; for seldom indeed will they be presented to his sight. For the pure, the sweet, the graceful, the dignified, he will have thrust before his eyes gaudy, tawdry caricature and grimace; and, worse still, perhaps wholly vulgar obscenities. Were he in his boyhood given a present in the pictorial line, it would be of an Opera-dancer or a race-course, or an abomination of London low life. What "slang" is to the ear, so would it be to the eye; and such is in nine cases out of ten the first education of those aspirants in art, who, ere they have unlearned any thing, set up for themselves--and abuse the old masters. Generally speaking, they are brought up in an anti-ideal school; the powers, therefore, that nature has given them, are not only uncultivated, but led astray; and similar education and similar tastes in the public, find them a market for very low, very worthless commodities. We have, in fact, a great deal to unlearn. The first step with us all, is, to unlearn. Could we see nothing bad it would not be so. That which would, at first view, be thought the greatest benefit to art, engraving, has but spread the wider the pestilence of false taste. It is from all this the earlier and greater painters were free. The evil, however, having once so spread, is not to be easily corrected. Bad taste has claimed a perpetuity of copyright. Good taste must proceed from an opposite source, and work in spite of the bad. It must come from publications, just criticisms, lives of painters,[4] familiar treatises on the principles of art; and more especially from national and other public galleries, to direct attention, and indeed to create a demand for those other auxiliary works. People will seek to understand and feel that which is continually put before them. Could they never see any but fine productions, they would soon have a relish for them that now is impossible; but by little and little, the sight of what is good will create a liking, and the liking will soon reach an adoration, and the unlearning process is imperceptibly going on. Corrupted as our eyes now are, we would venture to assert, that were you to offer, either in prints or originals, to boys of fourth and fifth forms at our public schools, in one hand a vile and gaudy horse and jockey, and in the other a pure and lovely picture by Raffaelle, the former would be taken. Here is a lamentable neglect in education; the ear must suffer the probing and the torture of metres and verse-making, but the eye is left unguarded, unprotected, to shift for itself, or to yield to the fascinations the first pander of evil chooses to offer. The school-boy might be improved at the universities; but there, too, is the same neglect. In our time, it was a rare thing to see a "man's" room without many engravings; and that sufficiently shows how much a school of art is wanted in those places, and what a hold they would have upon youth. But we cannot say much for the taste of the productions, that generally we will not say _graced_ the walls. We had hoped that the Taylor bequest would have established at Oxford, not only a picture gallery, but a professorship of Painting and Sculpture. A large Building has been erected; and we have heard of an intention to remove to it some rubbish called pictures. If that threat be accomplished, we shall despair of seeing them removed to give place to better things. The majority will be satisfied with seeing walls covered, and look no further. We have heard likewise that some very valuable pictures have been offered upon very favourable terms to the university. If there be amongst any an intention of forming a gallery, we would urge them to use their best endeavours to make as soon as may be a beginning. For every succeeding year not only increases the difficulty in obtaining the concurrence of influential persons, but the annually rising value of pictures makes delay an imprudence. Besides, if a beginning were once made--were it once shown that the universities are in earnest--valuable bequests might greatly promote the great object. And this is an advantage that admits not of being put off to the morrow.

We have digressed from our purpose, which was to acknowledge the pleasure we have received from the pages of M. de Burtin's work; or we should rather say, from Mr White's translation. We have been some years acquainted with the original work in French. Its value in its present form is not lessened by the number of years that have passed between the original French edition and the translation; for general remarks on art are of all times, and there is much in the particular information the volume contains, such as lists of prices, and some other matters, from which useful comparisons may be now made.

The author very modestly, in his introduction, professes not to write "for artists nor accomplished connoisseurs;" yet to such, we believe, the volume, in its compressed form, will be of most value. He has the honesty to confess that he has learned his connoisseurship at some cost--that he has been victimized into a knowledge of art. And as this is generally the case with most collectors in the beginning, and not unfrequently in the end too, he thinks he may be of some use to others in showing "how to judge pictures well"--"what is a good picture;" and not of the least value, how to use it when you have it. His qualification as teacher cannot be denied; for he has not only collected, but travelled much, visited all the important collections, and by comparing picture with picture, and style with style, he has been enabled to speak with accuracy upon the distinguishing marks of schools and masters. A universal admiration, a love that will embrace all schools and all styles, is of very rare attainment, and perhaps hardly to be desired; for every man of any strength, of any fixed tone of character, must necessarily have a bias. And besides, one man naturally receives more powerfully impressions through form, another through colour. It is not inconsistent that a perfect connoisseur should be equally affected by both; but the mind is not allowed the same latitude with regard to subject; the passion will ever be for that which is congenial; whatever is foreign to it will receive but a cold and passing admiration. We should collect from the whole contents of this volume, that the author was never an enthusiastic admirer of what is termed high Italian art. He seldom dwells upon "the sublime and beautiful." Gifted rather with a complacent acquiescence in what is great, than stirred by it to any heat of rapture, it is probable that at least the sphere of his pleasures was enlarged; and his nice sense of the beauty, touch, and colour, rendered pictures, of subjects of little interest, more pleasing to him, than they could be to the connoisseur of more exclusive taste. His predilection is, however, for Colour; and we agree with him, "that without the science of colouring, that so difficult science, about which the exclusive partisans of ideal beauty trouble themselves so little, their antiques and their ideal perfection may produce designs, but never can pictures."