Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various

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"The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property," remarked the
prince. "I wish Charles would remember, that his strength lies in the
aristocracy."

"No man knows it better," observed W----. "But I strongly doubt whether
his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment
tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people, nay, the populace,
are a new element to him, and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent
ability, as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted
with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long, and has bridled them
with so much the hand of a master, that what he might have once considered
as an achievement, he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming
Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy, I scarcely think that, after
passing the Granicus, he would have been proud of his fame as a
horse-breaker. Fox sees, as all men see, that great changes, for either
good or ill, are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king,
perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great
demagogue."

The glitter of Sheridan's eye, and the glow which passed across his cheek,
as he looked at the speaker, showed how fully he agreed with the
sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But, with that
sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious
characteristics of the man, he laughingly said, "At all events, whatever
the Revolution may do to our neighbours, it will do a vast deal of good to
ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull, that I began to think of
withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily
yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country,
where, at least, their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained
enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers, like the herbs of a 'Hortus
siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's
strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the
midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the
effects were miraculous--the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men
no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's
Street, and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people
grew communicative, and puns were committed that would have struck their
forefathers with amazement. As Burke said, in one of his sybilline
speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come, at once bending down the
summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the
aldermen, on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal,
said, that if the Dutch would take _his_ advice, and if iron spikes were
not enough, they should _glass_ their _wall_."

The newspapers now arrived, and France for a while engrossed the
conversation. The famous Mirabeau had just made an oration with which all
France was ringing.

"That man's character," said the prince, after reading some vehement
portions of his speech, "perplexes me more and more. An aristocrat by
birth, he is a democrat by passion; but he has palpably come into the
world too early, or too late, for power. Under Louis XIV., he would have
made a magnificent minister; under his successor, a splendid courtier; but
under the present unfortunate king, he must be either the brawler or the
buffoon, the incendiary, or the sport, of the people. Yet he is evidently
a man of singular ability, and if he knows how to manage his popularity,
he may yet do great things."

"I always," said Sheridan, "am inclined to predict well of the man who
takes advantage of his time. That is the true faculty for public life; the
true test of commanding capacity. There are thousands who have ability,
for one who knows how to make use of it; as we are told that there are
monsters in the depths of the ocean which never come up to the light. But
I prefer your leviathan, which, whether he slumbers in the calm or rushes
through the storm, shows all his magnitude to the eye."

"And gets himself harpooned for his pains," observed W----.

"Well, then, at least he dies the death of a hero," was the
reply--"tempesting the brine, and perhaps even sinking the harpooner." He
uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour, that all listened while he
declaimed--"I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to
linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while
he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct, his political
ear losing the voice of man, his passions growing stagnant, all his
sensibilities palpably paralyzing, while the world is as loud, busy, and
brilliant round him as ever--with but one sense remaining, the unhappy
consciousness that, though not _yet_ dead, he is buried; a figure, if not
of scorn, of pity, entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind, and
forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his
life, would wish to drag on existence like _Somers_, coming to the Council
day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough, babbling out
his own imbecility? If I am to die, let me die in hot blood, let me die
like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart, or springing
upon the hunter who has struck him--not like the crushed snake, miserable
and mutilated, hiding itself in its hole, and torpid before it is turned
into clay!"

"Will Mirabeau redeem France?" asked the prince; "or will he overwhelm the
throne?"

"I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher," said Sheridan,
sportively, "who could walk through the ocean, and yet keep his head above
water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already."

"Burke," said F----, "predicts that he must perish; that the Revolution
will go on, increasing in terrors; and that it would be as easy to stop a
planet launched through space, as the progress of France to ruin."

"So be it," said Sheridan with sudden animation. "There have been
revolutions in every age of the world, but the world has outlived them
all. Like tempests, they may wreck a royal fleet now and then, but they
prevent the ocean from being a pond, and the air from being a pestilence.
I am content if the world is the better for all this, though France may be
the worse. I am a political optimist, in spite of Voltaire; or, I agree
with a better man and a greater poet--'All's well that ends well.'"

The prince looked grave; and significantly asked, "Whether too high a
present price might not be paid for prospective good?"

Sheridan turned off the question with a smile. "The man who has as little
to pay as I have," said he, "seldom thinks of price one way or the other.
Possibly, if I were his Grace of Bedford, or my Lord Fitzwilliam, I might
begin to balance my rent-roll against my raptures. Or, if I were higher
still, I might be only more prudent. But," said he, with a bow, "if what
was fit for Parmenio was not fit for Alexander, neither would what was fit
for Alexander be fit for Parmenio."

The prince soon after rose from table, and led the way into the library,
where we spent some time in looking over an exquisite collection of
drawings of Greece and Albania, a present from the French king to his
royal highness. The windows were thrown open, and the fresh scents of the
flower garden were delicious; the night was calm, and the moon gleamed far
over the quiet ocean.

At this moment a soft sound of music arose at a distance. I looked in vain
for the musicians--none were visible. The strain, incomparably managed,
now approached, now receded, now seemed to ascend from the sea, now to
stoop from the sky. All crowded to the casement--to me, a stranger and
unexpecting, all was surprise and spell. I, almost unconsciously, repeated
the fine lines in the Tempest:--

"Where should this music be? I' the air, or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
Some god of the island--
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air--But 'tis gone!
No, it begins again."

The prince returned my quotation with a gracious smile, and the words of
the great poet,

"This is no mortal business, nor no sound
This the earth owns."

The private band, stationed in one of the thickets, had been the
magicians. Supper was laid in this handsome apartment, not precisely

"The spare Sabine feast,
A radish and an egg,"

but perfectly simple, and perfectly elegant. The service was Sevre, and I
observed on it the arms of the Duke of Orleans, combined with those of the
Prince. It had been a present from the most luxurious, and most
unfortunate, man on earth. And thus closed my first day in the exclusive
world.

On the next evening, I had exchanged fresh breezes and bright skies for
the sullen atmosphere and perpetual smoke of the great city; stars for
lamps, and the gentle murmurs of the tide, for the turbid rush and heavy
roar of the million of London. During the day, I had been abandoned
sufficiently to my own meditations. For though we did not leave Brighton
till noon, Marianne remained steadily, and I feared angrily, invisible.
Mordecai, during the journey, consulted nothing but his tablets, and was
evidently plunged in some huge financial speculation; and when he dropped
me at a hotel in St James's, and hurried towards his den in the depths of
the city, like a bat to its cave, I felt as solitary as if I had dropped
from the moon.

But an English hotel is a cure for most of the sorrows of English life.
The well-served table--the excellent sherry--a blazing fire, not at all
unrequired in the first sharp evenings of our autumn--and the newspaper
"just come in," are capital "medicines for the mind diseased." And like
old Marechal Louvois, who recommended roast pigeons as a cure for
grief--observing that, "whenever he heard of the loss of any of his
friends, he ordered a pair, and found himself always much comforted after
eating them"--I was beginning to sink into that easy oblivion of the
rules of life, which, without actual sleep, has all the placid enjoyment
of slumber; when a voice pronounced my name, and I was startled and half
suffocated by the embrace of a figure who rushed from an opposite box,
and in a torrent of French poured out a torrent of raptures on my
arriving in London.

When I contrived at last to disengage myself, I saw Lafontaine; but so
hollow-cheeked and pale-visaged, that I could scarcely recognize my showy
friend in the skeleton knight who stood gesticulating his ultra-happiness
before me.

At length he drew, with a trembling touch and a glistening eye, from his
bosom a letter, which he placed in my hand with a squeeze of eternal
friendship. "Read," said he, "read, and then wonder, if you can, at my
misery and my gratitude." The letter was from Mariamne, and certainly a
very pretty one--gay and tender at once; gracefully alluding to some
little fretfulness on her part, or his, I could scarcely tell which; but
assuring him that all this was at an end--that she foreswore the world
henceforth, and was quite his own. All this was expressed with an elegance
which I was not quite prepared to find in the fair one, and with a tone of
sincerity for which I was still less prepared; yet with the coquette in
every line.

I should have been glad to see him at any time, but now I received him as
a resource from solitude, or rather from those restless thoughts which
made solitude so painful to me. Another bottle, perhaps, made me more
sensitive, and him more willing to communicate; and before it was
finished, he had opened his whole heart and emptied his letter-case, and I
had consulted him on the _im_probabilities of my ever being able to
succeed in the object which had so strangely, yet so totally, occupied all
my feelings.

It was clear, from her correspondence, that his pretty Jewess had played
him much as the angler plays the trout which he has secured on his hook.
She evidently enjoyed the display of her skill in tormenting: every second
letter was almost a declaration of breaking off the correspondence
altogether; or, what was even worse, mingled with those menaces, there
were from time to time allusions to my opinions, and quotations of my
chance remarks, which, rather to my surprise, showed me that the proverb,
"_Les absens ont toujours tort_," was true in more senses than one, and
that the Frenchman occasionally lost ground by being fifty miles off. Once
or twice it seemed to me that the little "betrothed" was evidently
thinking of the error of precipitate vows, and was beginning to change her
mind. But her last letter was a complete extinguisher of all my vanity, if
it had ever been awakened. It was a curious mingling of poignancy and
penitence; an acknowledgment of the pain which she felt in ever having
given pain, and almost an entreaty that he would hasten his affairs in
London, and return to Brighton, to "guard her against herself, once and
for ever."

All this was quite as it should be; but the envelope contained an enormous
postscript, of which I happened to be the theme. It was evidently written
in another mood of mind; and except that passion is blind, and even
refuses to see, when it might, I should probably have had another
rencontre with the best swordsman in the _Chevaux Legers_. After speaking
of me and my prospects in life, with an interest which reached at least to
the full amount of friendship, the subject of my reveries came on the
tapis. "My father and Mr Marston are on the point of going to town," said
the postscript; "the latter to dream of Mademoiselle De Tourville, without
the smallest hope of ever obtaining her hand. But I scarcely know what to
think of him and his feelings--if feelings they can be called--which
change like the fashions of the day, and at the mercy of all the triflers
of the day; or like the butterfly fluttering round the garden, as if
merely to show that it can flutter. This habit must make him for ever
incapable of the generous devotedness of heart and truth of affection
which I so much value in my '_friend_.'" But here Lafontaine interfered,
obviously through fear of my plunging into some discovery of my own
demerits, which had not struck him on his first perusal; and I surrendered
the letter, postscript and all, having first ascertained by a glance, that
the former was dated at the very hour of the discovery of my unlucky
stanzas to Clotilde, and the latter probably after the "fair penitent" had
time to reflect on the matter, and let compassion make its way. Woman is a
brilliant problem--but a problem after all.

A sudden trampling of cavalry and loud rush of carriages prevented my
attempting the solution--at least for that sitting. All the guests crowded
to the door. "His Majesty was going to Drury-Lane!" It was a performance
"by command." The never-failing pulse in the foreign heart was touched.
Lafontaine crushed his correspondence into his bosom, sprang on his feet,
wiped his eyes of all their sorrows, and proposed that we should see the
display. I was rejoiced to escape a topic too delicate for my handling. A
carriage was called, and by a double fee we contrived, through many a
hazard, in the narrowest and most dangerous defiles of any Christian city,
to reach the stately entrance, just as the troopers were brushing away the
mob from the steps, and the trumpets were outringing the cries of the
orangewomen.

By another bribe we contrived to make our way into a box, whose doors were
more unrelenting than brass or marble to the crowd in the lobby, less
acquainted with the mode of getting through the English world; and I had
my first view of national loyalty, in the handsomest theatre which I have
ever seen. How often it has been burnt down and built since, is beyond my
calculation. It was then perfection.

We had galloped to some purpose; for we had distanced the monarch and his
eight carriages. The royal party had not yet entered the house; and I
enjoyed, for a few minutes, one of the most striking displays that the
opulence and animation of a great country can possibly produce--the
_coup-d'oeil_ of a well-dressed audience in a fine and spacious theatre.
Multitudes spread over hill and dale may be picturesque; the aspect of
great public meetings may be startling, stern, or powerfully impressive;
the British House of Lords, on the opening of the session, exhibits a
majestic spectacle; but for a concentration of all the effects of art,
beauty, and magnificence, I have yet seen nothing like one of the English
theatres in their better days. To compare it in point of importance with
any other great assemblage, would in general be idle. But at this time,
even the assemblage before me, collected as it was for indulgence, had a
character of remarkable interest. The times were anxious. The nation was
avowedly on the eve of a struggle of which no human foresight could
discover the termination. The presence of the king was the presence of the
monarchy; the presence of the assemblage was the presence of the nation.
The house was only a levee on a large scale, and the crowd, composed as it
was of the most distinguished individuals of the country--the ministers,
the peerage, the heads of legislature--and the whole completed by an
immense mass of the middle order, gave a strong and admirable
representation of the power and feelings of the empire.

At length the sound of the trumpets was heard, the door of the royal box
was thrown open, and "God save the King" began. Noble as this noblest of
national songs is, it had, at that period, a higher meaning. It is
impossible to describe the spirit and ardour in which it was received;
nay, the almost sacred enthusiasm in which it was joined by all, and in
which every sentiment was followed with boundless acclamation. It was more
than an honourable and pleased welcome of a popular king. It was a
national pledge to the throne--a proud declaration of public principle--a
triumphant defiance of the enemy and the Earth to strike the stability of
a British throne, or subdue the hearts of a British people.

The king advanced to the front of the box, and bowed in return to the
general plaudits. It was the first time that I had seen George the Third,
and I was struck at once with the stateliness of his figure and the
kindliness of his countenance. Combined, they perfectly realized all that
I had conceived of a monarch, to whose steadiness of determination, and
sincerity of good-will, the empire had been already indebted in periods of
faction and foreign hostility; and to whom it was to be indebted still
more in coming periods of still wilder faction, and of hostility which
brought the world in arms against his crown.

As I glanced around for a moment, to see the effect on the house, which
was then thundering with applause, I observed a slight confusion, like a
personal quarrel, in the pit; and in the next instant saw a hand raised
above the crowd, and a pistol fired full in the direction of the royal
box. The King started back a pace or two, and the general apprehension
that he had been struck, produced a loud cry of horror. He evidently
understood the public feeling, and instantly came forward, and by a bow,
with his hand on his heart, at once assured them of his gratitude and his
safety. This was acknowledged by a shout of universal congratulation; and
many a bright eye, and many a manly one, too, streamed with tears. In the
midst of all, the Queen and the royal family rushed into the box, flung
themselves round the king, and all was embracing, fainting, and terror.
Cries for the seizure of the assassin now resounded on every side. He was
grasped by a hundred hands, and torn out of the house. Then the universal
voice demanded "God save the King" once more: the performers came forward
and the national chant, now almost elevated to a hymn, was sung by the
audience with a solemnity scarcely less than an act of devotion. All the
powers of the stage never furnished a more touching, perhaps a more
sublime scene, than the simple reality of the whole occurrence before my
eyes.

But at length the tumult sank; the order of the theatre was resumed; and
the curtain rose, displaying a remarkably fine view of Roman architecture,
a vista of temples and palaces, the opening scene of Coriolanus.

The fame of the admirable actor who played the leading character was then
at its height; and John Kemble shared with his splendid sister the honour
of being the twin leaders of the theatrical galaxy. I am not about to
dwell on Shakspeare's conception of the magnificent republican, nor on the
scarcely less magnificent representative which it found in the actor of
the night. But I speak to a generation which have never seen either
Siddons or Kemble, and will probably never see their equals. I may be
suffered, too, to indulge my own admiration of forms and faculties which
once gave me a higher sense of the beauty and the powers of which our
being is capable. Is this a dream? or, if so, is it not a dream that tends
to ennoble the spirit of man? The dimness and dulness of the passing world
require relief, and I look for it in the world of recollections.

Kemble was, at that time, in the prime of his powers; his features
strongly resembling those of Siddons; and his form the perfection of manly
grace and heroic beauty. His voice was his failing part; for it was hollow
and interrupted; yet its tone was naturally sweet, and it could, at times,
swell to the highest storm of passion. In later days he seemed to take a
strange pride in feebleness, and, in his voice and his person, affected
old age. But when I saw him first, he was all force, one of the handsomest
of human beings, and, beyond all comparison, the most accomplished classic
actor that ever realized the form and feelings of the classic age. His
manners in private life completed his public charm; and, in seeing Kemble
on the stage, we saw the grace and refinement acquired by the
companionship of princes and nobles, the accomplished, the high-born, and
the high-bred of the land.

From the mingled tenderness and loftiness of Kemble's playing, a new idea
of Coriolanus struck me. I had hitherto imagined him simply a bold
patrician, aristocratically contemptuous of the multitude, indignant at
public ingratitude, and taking a ruthless revenge. But the performance of
the great actor on this night opened another and a finer view to me. Till
now, I had seen the hero, a Roman, merely a gallant chieftain of the most
unromantic of all commonwealths, the land of inflexibility, remorseless
daring, and fierce devotement to public duty. But, by throwing the softer
feelings of the character into light, Kemble made him less a Roman than a
Greek--a loftier and purer Alcibiades, or a republican Alexander, or, most
and truest of all, a Roman Achilles--the same dazzling valour, the same
sudden affections, the same deep conviction of wrong, and the same
generous, but unyielding, sense of superiority. Say what we will of the
subordination of the actor to the author, the great actor shares his
laurels. He, too, is a creator.

But while I followed, with eye and mind, the movements of the stage,
Lafontaine was otherwise employed. His opera-glass was roving the boxes;
and he continually poured into my most ungrateful ear remarks on the
diplomatic body, and recognitions of the _merveilleux_ glittering round
the circle. At last, growing petulant at being thus disturbed, I turned to
beg of him to be silent, when he simply said--"La Voila!" and pointed to a
group which had just taken their seats in one of the private boxes. From
that moment I saw no more of the tragedy. The party consisted of Clotilde,
Madame la Marechal, and a stern but stately-looking man, in a rich
uniform, who paid them the most marked attention.

"There is the Marquis," said my companion; "he has never smiled probably,
since he was born, or, I suppose, he would smile to-night; for the
secretary to the embassy told me, not half an hour ago, that his
marriage-contract had just come over, with the king's signature."

My heart sank within me at the sound. Still my gay informant went on,
without much concerning himself about feelings which I felt alternately
flushing and chilling me. "The match will be a capital one, if matters
hold out for us. For Montrecour is one of the largest proprietors in
France; but, as he is rather of the new noblesse, the blood of the De
Tourvilles will be of considerable service to his pedigree. His new
uniform shows me that he has got the colonelcy of my regiment, and, of
course, I must attend his levee tomorrow. Will you come?"

My look was a sufficient answer.

"Ah!" said he, "you will not. Ah! there is exactly the national
difference. Marriage opens the world to a French _belle_, as much as it
shuts the world to an English one. Mademoiselle is certainly very
handsome," said he, pausing, and fixing his opera-glass on her. "The
contour of her countenance is positively fine; it reminds me of a picture
of Clairon in Medea, in the King's private apartments--her smile charming,
her eyes brilliant, and her diamonds perfect."

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