Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 by Various

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

The Olympic Jupiter.

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

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

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

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

J.S.

* * * * *

A ROMAN IDYL.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J.S.

* * * * *

GOETHE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J.S.

* * * * *

HYMN OF A HERMIT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J.S.

* * * * *

THE LUCKLESS LOVER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J.S.

* * * * *

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION

THE CORN LAWS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nor is the difference less important and conspicuous in the _price_ at
which manufacturing and agricultural produce can be raised in the old and
the young state. This is the decisive circumstance which renders
reciprocity between them impossible. The rich old state is as superior to
the young one in the production of manufactures, as the poor young state
is to the rich old one in that of subsistence. The steam-engine, capital,
and machinery, have so enormously increased the power of manufacturing
production, that they have rendered the old commercial state omnipotent in
the foreign market in the supply of its articles. Nothing but fiscal
regulations and heavy duties can protect the young state from ruin in
those branches of industry. Heavy taxes, high wages, costly rents, dear
rude produce, all are at once compensated, and more than compensated, by
the gigantic powers of the steam-engine. Cotton goods are raised now in
Great Britain at a fifth of the price which they were during the war. A
gown, which formerly was cheap at L2, 10s., is now sold for ten shillings.
Silks, muslins, and all other articles of female apparel, have been
reduced in price in the same proportion. Colossal fortunes have been made
by the master manufacturers, unbounded wealth diffused through the
operative workmen in Lancashire and Lanarkshire, even at these extremely
reduced prices. This is the real reason of the universal effort made by
all nations which have the least pretensions to commercial industry, of
late years to exclude, by fixed duties, our staple manufactures; of which
the President of the Board of Trade so feelingly complains, and which the
advocates of free trade consider as so inexplicable. A very clear
principle has led to it, and will lead to it. It is the instinct of
SELF-PRESERVATION.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21