Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

"I must do the Provisional Government, so much abused, the justice to say, that towards the close of 1848, when these disgusting dances were again revived, the Gardiens de Paris interfered, and proceeded to clear the room if they were persevered in. If this had been done in 1845 and 1846 by that austere minister, who so much boasted of his independence and morality, events might have taken a different turn. But it is now too late to speculate, and it is easy to be wise after the event. But M. Guizot, his prefet de police, and the members of the Government, were warned long before 1845-6 of the profound immorality and indecency of these dances, and they made no effort to put a stop to them. It is because these scandals are now in a course of revival that I advert to this matter at such length. The subject is worthy the attention of M. Carlier, the Prefet of Police, and of wiser heads than M. Carlier. "_Selon qu'il est conduit_," said Richelieu, and he knew his nation well; "_Selon qu'il est conduit le peuple Francais est capable de tout._" I am no enemy of innocent recreation, as you are well aware, or of harmless, convivial, social, or saltatory enjoyment. But if lasciviousness, obscenity, or _des saletes_ be tolerated in public places, a blow is struck at the very foundations of society. I may not, even in a letter, enter into a minute description of these dances. Suffice it to say, they would not be endured in England, even by women who had fallen from the paths of virtue, unless their minds and hearts were wholly debauched. You see, after so much light gossip, I end with a sermon--a sermon which the least strait-laced would preach under the circumstances."

THEATRICAL CRITICISM.

The following dramatic bulletin which appeared in a Dublin newspaper on the first appearance of the celebrated Mrs. Siddons in that city, is quite as good a critique and as free from blunders, as some which have appeared in our own journals more recently:--

"On Saturday, May 30, 1784, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all the world has been talking, exposed her beautiful, adamantine, soft and lovely person for the first time, at the Smock Alley Theatre, in the bewitching, tearful, and all melting character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics in the impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a heavenly angel; but how were we supernaturally surprised into the most awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess. The house was crowded with hundreds more than it could hold--with thousands of admiring spectators who went away without obtaining a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun in the firmament of the muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen and princess of tears! this Donellan of the poisoned bowl! this empress of the pistol and dagger! this chaos of Shakspeare! this world of weeping clouds! this Terpsichore of the curtains and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and earthquake! this Katterfelto of wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief, and soared above all the natural powers of description! she was nature itself! she was the most exquisite work of art! she was the very daisy, primrose, tube rose, sweet-briar, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall-flower, cauliflower and rosemary! in short she was a bouquet of Parnassus. Where expectation was raised so high, it was thought she would be injured by her appearance; but it was the audience who were injured--several of them fainted before the curtain was drawn up.

"When she came to the scene of parting with her wedding ring, ah! what a sight was there! The very fiddlers in the orchestra, albeit unused to the melting mood, blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears fell from the bassoon player's eyes in such plentiful showers that they choked the finger stops; and making a spout of that instrument, poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience, and the noise of cork drawing from the smelling bottles, prevented the mistakes between flats and sharps being discovered.

"One hundred and nine ladies fainted, forty-six went into fits, and ninety-five had strong hysterics! The world will hardly credit the truth, when they are told that fourteen children, five women, one hundred tailors and six common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that flowed from the galleries, the slips and the boxes, to increase the briny pond in the pit; the water was three feet deep, and the people that were obliged to stand upon the benches, were, in that position, up to their ankles in tears!

"An act of parliament against her playing any more, will certainly pass."

THE FRENCH GENERALS OF TO-DAY.

A clever writer in _Fraser's Magazine_, dating at Paris, writes:--

"Of Changarnier I shall not say much. He is as taciturn as M. L. N. Bonaparte, _et possede un grand talent pour le silence_. Changarnier is a man of great nerve and energy, and is perfectly up to street warfare and to the management of the unruly Parisian population. He is popular with the soldiery and with the higher officers. As to his having any decided political opinions to which he would become a martyr, I don't believe a word of it. He wishes to preserve order, and to save France from anarchy; but, apart from this, would be guided by his personal interests. If royalty, hereditary or elective, become the order of the day--not a very likely occurrence within two or three years--he would adjust himself to the national arrangement on the best terms, and throw his sword into the scale that kicked the beam. But if the game of a president is to be played for in 1852 and 1856, Changarnier may put forward his own pretensions, as, at heart, he has neither love nor reverence for the Tenth of December. In the event of a war, however, Changarnier is more likely to look to the highest command, in which he might win the marshal's baton, and thus become still more important, personally, professionally, and politically. Military men, more especially of the African school, seem to allow that Changarnier possesses a rare combination of military qualities. Decision, energy, bravery, and the _coup d'oeil_, he exhibits in the highest degree; but he is, on the other hand, wholly without civil talents. He is no orator, no speaker even, and seems to entertain as great a contempt for _ideologues_ and deliberative assemblies as Napoleon himself. If Changarnier were ever invested with supreme power, it would go hard, so far as he was concerned, with the constitution and liberties of France."

There is in no country a more honorable, high-principled, and conscientious soldier than Cavaignac. Of all the men produced by the Revolution of 1848 (Lamartine and Dufaure were known as political men before), Cavaignac appears the most single-minded, honorable, and conscientious. Though a Republican _pur sang_, he yet rendered more important services to order in June, 1848, than any one of the Moderates, Royalists, or Burgraves, or generals of order, or than all of them together. It is significant that Cavaignac has openly declared to his friends--indeed, under his hand, that he will not support the candidature of Louis Napoleon, should he present himself in 1852, or become a party to any head of the Constitution.

Lamoriciere is, as a man and as a general, of infinite talent, and of brilliant courage. He is a good man of business, a brilliant speaker, and certainly has carried himself as a public character with independence and honor.

Bedeau is a general of very considerable literary and scientific talents, and perhaps of higher attainments in his profession than any other of the generals of the African school; but he is said to be deficient in energy, and unresolved, and of late he seems to be less thought of as a man of action than as an organizer and administrator. In the event of a war, it is likely the four men I speak of will play brilliant parts; and in civil affairs, it is possible, if not certain, that a great part may be reserved for Cavaignac.

WILLIAM PENN AND MACAULAY.

We find in the London _Times_ a reviewal of Mr. Forster's "Observations on the Charges made in Mr. Macaulay's History of England against the Character of William Penn," and transfer it to these pages, as likely to be not less interesting to Americans than to Englishmen, since Penn's name is most intimately connected with the history of this country. The book reviewed has been republished in New-York by Mr. John Wiley.

"Mr. Macaulay will not be likely to take offence at a comparison of his history with Burnet's, and certainly in one particular point the two productions have been attended with remarkably similar effects. The number of historical writers and pamphleteers who were called into being by the honest Bishop's account of his own times was astonishing. Every chapter in his narrative created a literary antagonist, and the spirit thus called into being was really instrumental, to a very considerable extent, in changing the whole style and tone of English history. It is too early to predict a precisely similar issue of Mr. Macaulay's labors; but things are certainly tending that way. There have been more discussions upon points of English history within the last twelve months than have usually occurred in as many years. The social and political condition of our ancestors, the motives of great acts, the characters of great men, and the general course of our national life for the last century and a half, have of late been perpetually brought before the public, and seldom without instructive results. It is not, of course, every joust which yields a respectable show, but Mr. Macaulay's shield has been once or twice struck by antagonists who have shown a title to the encounter, and one of these is now in the lists with the pamphlet specified below.

"Mr. Forster's challenge is on behalf of the personal character and political conduct of the famous William Penn--"the arch-Quaker," whom he conceives Mr. Macaulay to have treated with an injustice which, if it did not result from deliberate prejudice, was at all events chargeable to unbecoming negligence of inquiry. The cause thus asserted he defends in fifty pages of not unreasonable argument, and supports by the liberal quotation of accepted authorities. Unfortunately, the character of the controversy is such that it is almost impossible either to arbitrate conclusively between the parties or to convey an adequate idea of their respective positions. Mr. Macaulay's fashion of writing, too, makes sadly against any minute or critical investigation of his resources or his deductions. His habit is to throw off a single complete sketch of a character or a transaction, and at the foot of it to quote altogether the various authorities, from certain passages of which he derived the warrant for his own several touches. By this means we are incapacitated from closely following his observations, and we can only infer, with greater or less probability, what particular portion of a particular authority served for the foundation of any particular statement. To some extent this method of proceeding is inseparable from Mr. Macaulay's style, and its obvious disadvantage must be set off against that brilliancy and effect of the general picture which commands such universal admiration. Mr. Macaulay writes as it were from impressions. He consults and peruses the original records of the times he is describing, and out of the general deductions thus instinctively drawn his conception is formed. We believe this to be the best way of arriving at general truths, but it is a practice which greatly limits the application of ordinary tests of accuracy. Indeed, in many portions of Mr. Macaulay's history, a reader can do little more than compare his own previous impressions of the facts and scenes described with the impression of the writer who is describing them. Many of his descriptions are compounded of such numerous and minute ingredients, picked here and there from such a variety of quarters, that they can only be verified by a similar process to that in which they originated. A signal exemplification of our meaning will be found in his delineation of the character and position of the English clergy before the Revolution. We not only believe ourselves that this sketch is substantially correct, but we would even venture to say that the impressions of well-informed and unprejudiced minds as to the general truth would, in a majority of cases, coincide with our own. Yet of this we are perfectly certain--that it would not only be possible but easy to collect so many particular examples of a contrary tendency as would wholly bewilder the judgment of an ordinary reader. Mr. Macaulay, in fact, can too frequently only be judged by those who have followed, at however humble a distance, his own track of study. The temptations to this kind of writing will be considerably weaker in the case of the volumes which are yet to come, and we may there, perhaps, hope for a little more severity of quotation. Yet in the portraitures of individual characters these inducements will still remain, nor can they be very easily, or indeed very properly, overlooked.

"It is not enough to say that the character of an historical personage is to be drawn from the authentic record of his actions. No doubt it is so; but there are a thousand minute and almost indefinable suggestions, arising from the perusal of these actions with all their circumstances, which will exercise a most material influence upon the judgment. The motives, for instance, of an action, must be almost always matter of surmise, and yet upon these surmises the conclusion will mainly depend. It is to this cause we must attribute the contradiction which such conclusions occasionally exhibit, as in the conflicting characters drawn by various hands of Archbishop Cranmer, of General Monk, of James II., or, as in the case before us, of William Penn. Nevertheless, Mr. Forster does supply us with some means of estimating the justice and accuracy of Mr. Macaulay's decision; but as our limits preclude any thing like a comparison of the two theories in detail, we must confine ourselves to communicating a general idea of the disputed points in continuation and illustration of what we have already premised.

"William Penn, the Quaker, as we need hardly state, passed the early part of his life under heavy persecutions on account of his religious opinions. In the resolute spirit of fortitude with which he sustained these sufferings he gave utterance to many rigid and uncompromising doctrines. Things then took a turn with him, and from a poor persecuted pietist he became a close client of Royalty, and almost the chief of court favorites in an age of favoritism. That some of his sayings and doings in these two strangely-contrasted scenes of his life should be a little contradictory is, to say the least, no matter of wonder. Mr. Macaulay, accordingly, giving him full credit for religious principle, but not much for strength of mind, depicts the stubborn and fanatical Quaker of former days as having become in the reign of King James the compliant and, though well-meaning, not over-scrupulous agent of a monarch, whose designs were directed against the civil and religious liberty of his people. Mr. Forster, on the other hand, would ascribe Penn's appearance in these scenes exclusively to his good and charitable intentions. He would represent him solely as a peacemaker (which is, perhaps, not far from the truth), and he would exculpate him from all motives except those of charity; attributing to him a thorough and undisguised repugnance to the king's evil designs, and a resolution simply to realize out of these evil doings the great and permanent blessing of religious liberty for his countrymen at large.

"The first bone of contention is the participation of Penn in that nefarious transaction by which the Royal Maids of Honor extorted ransoms from the poor Taunton girls who had welcomed the arrival of Monmouth. It seems that the chief, if not the sole authority for Mr. Macaulay's remarks on this head is contained in a letter of Sunderland's, preserved in the State-Paper office, and addressed to "Mr. Penne." Mr. Forster, therefore, disputes the identity of the two persons. Now, we think that very few people, after a careful exercise of their judgment, would doubt either that this letter was addressed to Penn, or that another, subsequently alluded to, was written by him. Still we admit that its phraseology does not bear out all Mr. Macaulay's circumstantial details of the transaction, and it certainly cannot be denied that his conduct was, to say the least, _susceptible_ of an interpretation which should have called rather for the approval than the censure of the historian. The principal subject, however, of the controversy is the share taken by William Penn in the dealings of James with the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford. We feel it very difficult to give any sufficient statement of this case, not only by reason of our narrow limits, but for want of words so to express ourselves as not to assume what one or other of the disputants deny. Yet Mr. Forster must not complain if we assert that William Penn, in this as in other questionable transactions, was, if not an agent of the king, at least a kind of go-between, and generally with an inclination towards that conclusion which James desired. Perhaps he often interfered because nobody else could interfere so beneficially--this we are very willing to allow, but, to take the case now before us, it surely cannot be gainsayed that in his mediation, if Mr. Forster will accept the term, between the king and the college, he really did wish that, with as little unpleasantness as might be, the college should submit to the king. And even if we accept as not proved the allegation that he directly tempted the Fellows to perjury, yet Mr. Forster must not ask us to believe that Penn would not have been a great deal better pleased if the Fellows had quietly dropped the consideration of their oaths, and surrendered their foundation to the Papists without further struggle.

"We suspect the truth to be, that Mr. Macaulay has somewhat exceeded his specified warrants, not in the design, but in the coloring. We believe that many of Penn's acts were strangely inconsistent, if rigorously noted, with his principles as previously professed, but we doubt whether they will bear quite such hard words as Mr. Macaulay has given them. Nevertheless, to recur to an expression which we employed before, we are persuaded that in a majority of cases the _general impression_ of an unbiassed inquirer would be more nearly in accordance with Mr. Macaulay's sketch than with that flattering and stainless portrait which Mr. Forster, at the conclusion of his remarks, would fain have drawn. Mr. Macaulay may have painted his story a little too highly. His faults are less in his verbs and substantives than in his adjectives and his adverbs. Penn never in all probability became such an obsequious and pliant-principled courtier as he is represented in this history, but the simple facts which are authentically recorded of his court-life preclude any notion of the high-souled and spotless character which Mr. Forster would fain depict."

The subjects discussed in this volume have been much handled by our own writers, and in several cases with very decided ability. We incline to the side of Mr. Forster, throughout. An attentive study of the life of William Penn reveals to our view a character of singular purity, and in nearly all respects admirably composed. The judgment of Macaulay we hold in very little esteem. It was said of Voltaire that he would sacrifice Christ for an epigram; it may be said of Macaulay that he would sacrifice as liberally for an antithesis. He labors always for effect, and it must be admitted that he has evinced very extraordinary abilities for this end; he never fails in variety, contrast, or grouping; hence his popularity, and the absence from his pictures of the highest elements of history.

Although in State Papers and in the Transactions of Societies in this country, there is a large amount of important historical material in relation to Penn, we have no creditable memoir of him; which is remarkable, considering the attractive interest of the subject, and the jealousy which has been displayed in various quarters respecting every thing affecting his reputation.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[17]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

_Continued from Page 216._