An Englishman of this day must be puzzled to bring back the time when Scotland was so completely aterra incognitato her sister, as that this rude and unlearned caricature could pass. Indeed, he hardly understands the hate—he to whom prose and verse, from one great hand, and poetry profusedly scattered like flowers all over the soil from another, have made hallowed the land of romance, and of dreams more beautiful than romance, and for whom the words, "Caledonia, stern and wild," mean any thing but repulsion. But one must remember, that poetry was at the time at a low ebb, almost stagnant in England, and that any thing that looked like an image was aprodigy. If Gray and Collins now and then struck the lyre, they stood apart from the prevailing prosaic and common-place tone of the times. An Englishman of to-day knows the name of Home by one of the most popular tragedies on his stage, if not one of the most vigorous, yetamongst modern dramas, one of the most affecting; and he wonders when that name is introduced by Churchill for the purpose of aggravating the contempt of Scotland, represented as a region Bœotian in wit, quite as much as by its atmosphere. He understands by what attraction Collins addressed to Home his "Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands." Political hatred, the dislike, the indignation, which may have been widely enough diffused through the nation, at the interloping of Scotchmen in the high places of power and emolument—this was the sentiment in the national bosom which gave a meaning to the poem, and found it a reception. Such a sentiment is not scrupulous or critical—it is passionate merely—and asks not the happinesses of humour, wit, fancy, of the graphical and the characteristic. It asks bitter animosity, and vile vituperation, and is satisfied.
The individuality of a nation is curiously made up. The country which they inhabit makes a part of it, the most easily understood. Their manners, customs, and institutions make another part of it, much of which is outward, picturesque, and easily seen. Their history, that which they have done, and that which they have endured, makes a part. And lastly, that which runs through all, rises out of all, animates all, their proper personality, their intellectual and moral character, makes a part—and now you have the whole. We demand of the writer who will, in earnest, paint the people, that he shall know all these things extensively, variously, profoundly. And of the Satirist, who will hold up the nation to dislike and to laughter, that he too shall show he knows them, their defects and their deformities, their crimes and their customs, their sins and their sorrows, their sufferings and their absurdities, their monstrosities and their misfortunes, God's curse or of their own consciences, that may have stricken their country and their condition, and starved the paupers in body and in soul. Such chastisement might be terrible, and not undeserved. But to inflict it, was far beyond the power of poor Charles Churchill.
"Waft me, some Muse, to Tweed's enchanting stream,Where all the little Loves and Graces dream:Where, slowly winding, the dull waters creep,And seem themselves to own the power of sleep;Where on the surface lead, like feathers, swims;There let me bathe my yet unhallow'd limbs,As once a Syrian bathed in Jordan's flood;Wash off my native stains, correct that bloodWhich mutinies at call of English pride,And, deaf to prudence, rolls a patriot tide."
Ay, much the better would he have been of a dip in the Tweed. He was a big, burly fellow; but, though no great swimmer, he would have found it buoyant after a debauch. His native stains, washed off, would, alas! have sadly discoloured the Angler's Delight. Worse than a hundred Sheep-washings. But at one gleam of the showery bow, the waters would have resumed their lustre. He was the last man in the world who ought to have abused brimstone; for his soul had the Itch. A wallow in the sweet mould—the pure mire of Cardronna Mains—on a dropping day, would have been of service to his body, bloated with foul blood. Smeared with that sanative soil, he might have been born again—no more a leper.
"I remember well," says Dr Kippis, "that he dressed his younger son [the son of his wife—not of the mistress for whom he abandoned her] in a Scottish plaid, like a little Highlander, and carried him every where in that garb. The boy being asked by a gentleman with whom I was in company, why he was clothed in such a manner, answeredwith great vivacity,—'Sir, my father hates the Scotch, and does it to plague them.'" For a father to dress up his son in the garb of a people, despised and detested with perpetual scunner, seems an odd demonstration either of party spite or of paternal fondness—about as sensible as, on the anniversary of his birth-day, in compliment to his mother, to have dressed him up like a monkey.
The Patriot Satirist! The question inevitably obtrudes itself—what is the pointing of destiny, which singles out Churchill for the indignant protector, in verse, of England's freedom and welfare? What calls his hand into the van of battle, with the strong lance of justice laid in rest, to tilt against the ill-defended breast of poor, proud, hungry, jacobinical, place-loving, coin-attached and coin-attaching, muse-left, gibbet-favoured, tartan-clad, sulphur-scented, and thistle-growing Scotland? The hero of liberty, the self-offered martyr for the rights and the wrongs of a great people, should carry on his front, one might suppose, some evidence of the over-mastering spirit which, like a necessity, finds him out, and throws him, as if a lot-drawn champion, alone into the jaws and jeopardy of the war. It should be one, of whom, if you knew him yet obscure, you might divine and say, "This ishishour—hisis the mind that consecrates its possessor to a consecrated cause, that discriminates, essentially as the spirits of light as divided from the spirits of darkness, the lover of his country from the factious partizan, and from the seditious demagogue." There should be a private life and character that but repeat themselves in the public ones, on a bolder and gigantic scale. Else how ready does the apprehension rise, that the professed hostility to unjust men in power is no more than the reluctance of an ill-disciplined spirit, under the offence and constraint of institutions which set superiors over his head, and gall him by bridling an unruly will;—whilst the clamorous zeal for the general good is purely the choice of the staking gamester between red and black, and the preference of the million-headed patron to the cheapener with a few heads or with one. The two known traits, which largely comprehend the private life of Churchill, do not prepossess one in his favour. He left his profession, the church; and he exchanged his wife, after many years' cohabitation, for a mistress; two paramount desecrations unhappily met. And the trumpet-call to the war-field of patriotism sings but uncheeringly, when the blast is winded by the breath of Wilkes.
When the shame of England burns in the heart of Cowper, you must believe him; for through that heart rolled the best of England's blood. But Churchill! Faugh!
Edinburgh: Printed Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.
Footnotes:
[1]Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq., R.A.Composed chiefly of his Letters. ByC. R. Leslie, R.A. Second Edition. Longmans.
[2]Even there we see that he viewed the matter as a task, and piqued himself only on having succeeded in atour-de-force. Writing to Archdeacon Fisher, he says—"It was the most difficult subject in landscape I ever had on my easel. I have not flinched at the windows, buttresses, &c.; but I have still kept to my grand organ, colour, and have as usual made my escape in the evanescence of chiaroscuro."—(P. 109.)
[3]"I cannot but recall here a passage in a letter to Mr Fisher, written by Constable nearly ten years before his death, in which, after speaking of having removed his family to Hampstead, he says, 'I could gladly exclaim, here let me take my everlasting rest!'"
[4]One of the greatest and most memorable of the Turkish princes was Mahmood the Ghaznavide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, A.D. 997-1028. His father, Sebactagi, arose from the condition of a slave to the command of the city and province of Ghazna. In the fall of the dynasty of the Sammanides, the fortune of Mahmood was confirmed. For him the title ofsultan(signifyinglordandmaster) was first invented, and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighbourhood of Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. The prowess and magnificence of Mahmood, his twelve expeditions into Hindostan, and the holy wars he waged against the idol-worship of that country, in one of which he destroyed an image of peculiar sanctity at Diu or Du in Guzerat, and carried off the gates of Somnauth, (so recently, once more, become a trophy of triumph and defeat,) the vast treasures amassed in his campaigns, and the extent and greatness of the Ghaznavide empire, have always been favourite subjects with Eastern historians. The instance of his justice recorded in the verses, is given by Gibbon, from whose history this note is chiefly taken.
Ghazna, from being the emporium of India, and the metropolis of a vast dominion, had almost shrunk from the eye of the geographer, until, under the modified appellation of Ghizni, it again emerged into importance in our Affghan war. A curious crowd of associations is suggested by the fact, that the town which gave its name to a dynasty that shook the successors of Mahomet on their thrones, now confers the dignity of Baron on a native of one of the obscurest villages in Ireland—Lord Keane of Ghizni,andof Cappoquin in the county of Waterford.
[5]Kaff of late years is considered to have been more a creation of Eastern mythology, than a genuine incontestable mountain. Its position is supposed to be at the highest point of the great Hindoo-Kosh range. Such was its astonishing altitude, that, says D'Herbelot, "vous trouvez souvent dans leurs anciens livres, pour exprimer le lever du soleil, cette façon de parler,aussitôt que cet astre parût sur la cime du Mont Cáf, le monde fut éclairé de sa lumière: de même pour comprendre toute l'etendue de la terre et de l'eau, ils disentDepuis Cáf à Cáf—c'est à dire, d'une de ses extremités à l'autre."
[6]The name of Sind, Attok, or Indus, is applied indifferently to the mighty stream that forms the western boundary of Hindostan.
[7]The tribes of savage warriors inhabiting the Kipchak, or table-land of Tartary, have been distinguished by the name of the Golden Hordes. There is a magnificent lyric on their Battle-charge, by Dr Croly, in theFriendship's Offeringfor 1834.
[8]Essays on Natural History, chiefly Ornithology.ByCharles Waterton, Esq., author of "Wanderings in South America." Second Series; with a continuation of the Autobiography of the Author.
[9]"'I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment within this realm,' &c. In framing that abominable oath, I don't believe that Sir Robert Peel cared one fig's-end whether the soul of a Catholic went up, after death, to the King of Brightness or descended to the King of Brimstone. His only aim seems to have been to secure to the Church by law established the full possession of the loaves and fishes."—Essays, 1st series, p. 19.
[10]A long-protracted lawsuit between this artist and Prince Giustiniani has since attracted much public notice. On cleaning a painting apparently of little value, which he had purchased at a sale of the refuse of the prince's gallery, Signor Vallati detected traces of a superior production beneath that painted over it, on removing which, the long-lost duplicate of Correggio's Reading Magdalen was brought to light. A claim was now set up by Prince Giustiniani for the restitution of the picture, or payment of its full value:—but the cause, after being carried from one tribunal to another, was at last decided in favour of the right of Vallati to his prize.
[11]A close analogy, according to this system, existed between pigs and humming-birds—each representing thegliriformtype in their respective circles, and resembling each other in their small eyes and suctorial propensities!—SeeSwainson'sClassification of Birds inLardner'sCabinet Cyclopædia, i. 43.
[12]
"Mopso Nisa datur. Quid non speremus amantes?Jungentur jam gryphes equis."Virgil,Eclog.viii. 26.
[13]A Popular and Practical Introduction to Law Studies, &c. &c. BySamuel Warren, Esq., F.R.S., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law.
[14]P. 71.
[15]The following extract from a memoir of Lord Wynford, written evidently by a lawyer, manifests, in rather an amusing manner, theesprit de corpsof the profession, and shows how the excitement of the contest between the advocates effaces the dull interest of what are called the merits of the case. Note how combative, how military, is the style:—"He (Lord Wynford) was a dangerous, because he was a most watchful and enterprising adversary. You could not any more sleep in his neighbourhood than could the Duke while Massena was near, though he might, in the neighbourhood of others, enjoy some repose. But if you never could be sure of his not making some venturous move himself, and were thus kept on the watch, so also you could not venture upon moves in the hope of his eyes being closed. It may almost safely be pronounced that he never failed to see or to profit by the slip of his adversary; to say that he never, seldom, made slips himself, would be very wide of the truth. In fact, he was not always a safe leader. Circumspect enough to see when his antagonist failed, he took a very narrow, or very one-sided, view of his own risks. Bold to rashness, hasty in his resolutions, quick in all his thoughts and all his movements, he was often in dangers wholly needless to be encountered; and though he would occasionally, by desperate courses, escape beyond all calculation from risks, both inevitable and of his own seeking, he could not be called a successful advocate."—Article onLord Wynford,No. III., Law Review.
[16]Correspondence between CountMünsterand the Baronvon Stein, in vol. ii. of theLebensbilder aus dem Befreiungskriege, Jena: 1841.
Letters of BaronSteinto BaronGagern, in Von Gagern'sAntheil an der Politik, vol. iv. Stuttgart and Tübingen: 1833.
[17]Besides the correspondence of Münster and Gagern, which refer only to the latter part of Stein's life, from 1811 to his death, we have only a notice in theConversations Lexikon, and a short biographical sketch by Arndt, (the Baron's secretary,) appended to hisErinnerungen, (Leipsig, 1840,) to guide us in the early part of Stein's career. There are some notices in the body ofArndt's Reminiscences, in Varnhagen's Memoirs, and in some others, none of which, however, go further back than the year 1811.
[18]In Prag halten sich die stärksten Mächte und Autriche zum Hassen gegen Napoleon Zugammengehäuft.—Varnhagen von Ense, iii. 195, first edition.
[19]"Donnerschwangere Fulgurationer."—Hormayr, in theLebensbilder, i. 63.
[20]Scharnhorst, CountDohna, and Presidentvon Schoen, mentioned by Stein in a previous letter not translated.
[21]Essai sur les Fictions.