"With every glen and every stream,The romance of some warrior dream."
This tour, taken when their minds were alive to the sublimities and beauties of the scenery, and when their poetic eye threw its young glance upon each filament of the drapery that song and story have spread over every spot between Tweed-dale and Loch Ness, gave form and color to all the subsequent writings of the Howitts. Returning home, they published another volume of poetry, which, like the first, was warmly eulogized by the public press. They were now fairly launched on the stream of English literature. For several years Mrs. Howitt gave much time to the preparation of works for the young. Being first enlisted in this department by the wants of her own rising household, she subsequently wrote for the public, throwing off scores of stories, which were bought, read, and admired by "the million" of her own country, are found in "morocco and gilt" on marble tables in American cities, and in yellow covers in the log huts beyond the mountains, while some, through the medium of translations, have found their way into the nurseries of Germany and the forest-homes of Poland.
After a variety of literary adventures in England, Mr. and Mrs. Howitt visited Germany, about 1840, where they resided some three years. Here they acquired a knowledge, among others, of the Swedish tongue. The result of their continental sojourn was the translation into English by him of the celebrated "Student Life in Germany," and the publication of his "Social and Rural Life in Germany," and her translation and introduction to British and American readers of the now widely known Swedish novels of Frederika Bremer. Deeply sympathizing with all efforts to elevate the mind and condition of their countrymen, and feeling the need of a weekly periodical that should combine high literary qualities with radical political doctrines, they started, in 1846, "The People's Journal." Mrs. Howitt was a large contributor to its pages, both under its original name and that of Howitt's Journal. Some numbers of the latter for the closing part of the year 1847 are now under my eye, and I am struck with the great amount, variedcharacter, and benevolent aim of her contributions. Stories for children; translations from Hans Christian Andersen; poetic gems; a sketch of Laura Bridgman; translations of Swedish and Hungarian tales; a sketch of "the Deserter in London," which kindles indignation against war; "Love passages in the lives of every-day people;" a most eloquent petition to the Queen, for commuting the sentence of a woman then lying in Newgate, whose execution had been postponed that she might give birth to a child—these, and such papers, scattered through the Journal, exhibit the mode in which Mrs. Howitt has spent her life of late years. And, her husband being witness, she is not only an industrious authoress, but a model wife and mother.
While the Journal gave an impulse to the cause of freedom, it was most disastrous to the pecuniary interests of the Howitts. They have had their full share of the joys and sorrows, honors and perplexities, profits and losses of literary life. They have encountered their checkered lot with as hopeful a brow as anybody can be expected to exhibit, that attempts to get a living by writing "books whicharebooks," in this age of "cheapliterature." In prosperity and adversity, they have given hand, heart and pen to progress and reform. Should they ever accomplish their purpose of visiting America, the friends of pure and pleasing literature would unite with the friends of social and political reform, to give them welcome hands with hearts in them.
The Literature of Freedom—The Liberal Literature of England—Periodicals—Edinburgh Review—Its Founders—Its Contributors—Its Standard and Style of Criticism—Its Influence—London Quarterly Review Started—Political Services of the Edinburgh—Its Ecclesiastical Tone—Sydney Smith—Decline of the Political Influence of the Edinburgh—Blackwood's Magazine—Tait's Magazine—Westminster Review—The Eclectic—The New Monthly—The Weekly Press—Cobbett's Register—Hunt's Examiner—Mr. Fonblanque—Mr. Landor—The Spectator—Douglas Jerrold—Punch—People's and Howitt's Journals—Mr. Howitt—Chambers's Journal—Penny Magazine and Cyclopedia.
The Literature of Freedom—The Liberal Literature of England—Periodicals—Edinburgh Review—Its Founders—Its Contributors—Its Standard and Style of Criticism—Its Influence—London Quarterly Review Started—Political Services of the Edinburgh—Its Ecclesiastical Tone—Sydney Smith—Decline of the Political Influence of the Edinburgh—Blackwood's Magazine—Tait's Magazine—Westminster Review—The Eclectic—The New Monthly—The Weekly Press—Cobbett's Register—Hunt's Examiner—Mr. Fonblanque—Mr. Landor—The Spectator—Douglas Jerrold—Punch—People's and Howitt's Journals—Mr. Howitt—Chambers's Journal—Penny Magazine and Cyclopedia.
In the times of the Commonwealth, when the mind of England was set free, Milton was the center of a constellation of intellects that exemplified in their writings the value of his own saying—"Give me the liberty to know and to argue freely, above all other liberties." After his sun set, liberty without licentiousness hid behind a cloud, which was not fully cleared away till the storm of the American and French revolutions. While the literature of England depended for sustenance upon the patronage of the great, it was marked, with occasional exceptions, by the brand of servility; and so long as authors looked for remuneration to the munificence of the lord or lady to whom they dedicated their works, they laid their choicest gifts at the footstool of power and title. As education became diffused, enlarging the circle of readers, writers began to look to the public for patronage, and adapted their works to the popular taste. Then the publishers and booksellers becamethe agents, the middle-men, between the author and the reader. Long after this change, however, it was hazardous for a writer to lift his pen against existing institutions in Church and State; and he who run a tilt against these, were he able to make sale of his works, might deem himself fortunate if he escaped a prosecution for libel or sedition, that emptied his purse of its guineas, or planted his feet in the stocks. Even so late as the beginning of this century, the instances were not a few where writers, who doubted the divinity of the royal Guelphs, and questioned whether all the religion in the kingdom emanated from Lambeth Palace, were fined, cropped, branded, and shipped beyond seas. The impulse given to European intellect by the first French revolution, was not confined to statesmen and warriors. It stimulated thought in all classes. As in politics, so in letters, fetters fell from men's minds, and reason, imagination, and utterance were emancipated. The Fox school of politicians encouraged the growth of a literature in England favorable to freedom. It immediately started up, rank and luxuriant; and though bearing every variety of fruit that could delight the eye, or regale the appetite, or poison the taste, the decided preponderance of the product has been congenial to rational liberty, healthy morals, and sound learning.
In estimating the literary influences which have contributed to the cause of Progress and Reform in Great Britain, during the present century, a high place should be assigned to theEdinburgh Review.
This celebrated periodical appeared at an era when independence of thought and manliness of utterance had almost ceased from the public journals and councils of the kingdom. The terrors of the French revolution had arrested the march of liberal opinions. The declamation of Burke and the ambition of Napoleon had frightened the isle from its propriety. Tooke had barely escaped the gallows through the courageous eloquence of Erskine. Fox had withdrawn from the contestin despair, and cherished in secret the fires of freedom, to burst forth in happier times.
Previous to 1802, the literary periodicals of Great Britain were mere repositories of miscellanies, relating to art, poetry, letters, and gossip, partly original and partly selected, huddled together without system, and making up a medley as varied and respectable as a first class weekly newspaper of the present day. The criticisms of books were jejune in the extreme, consisting chiefly of a few smart witticisms, and meager connecting remarks stringing together ample quotations from the work under review. They rarely ventured into deep water on philosophical subjects, and as seldom pushed out upon the tempestuous sea of political discussion. Perhaps one or two journals might plead a feeble exception to the general rule; but the mass was weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable.
The Edinburgh appeared. It bounded into the arena without the countenance of birth or station, without the imprimatur of the universities or literary clubs. Its avowed mission was to erect a higher standard of merit, and secure a bolder style and a purer taste in literature, and to apply philosophical principles and the maxims of truth and humanity to politics, aiming to be the manual of the scholar, the monitor of the statesman. As in its advent it had asked permission of no oneto be, so as to its future course it asked no advice as to what it shoulddo. Soliciting no quarter, promising no favors, its independent bearing and defiant tone broke the spell which held the mind of a nation in fetters. Its first number revived the discussion of great political principles. The splendid diction and searching philosophy of an essay on the causes and consequences of the French revolution at once arrested the public eye, and stamped the character of the journal. Pedants in the pulpit, and scribblers of Rosa-Matilda verses in printed albums, saw, from other articles in the manifesto, that exterminating war was declared on their inanities and sentimentalities. The new journal was perused with avidity, and produced a sensationin all classes of readers, exciting admiration and envy, love and hatred, defiance and fear. It rapidly obtained a large circulation, steadily rose to the highest position ever attained by any similar publication, reigned supreme in an empire of its own creation for a third of a century, accomplishing vast good mingled with no inconsiderable evil.
The honor of founding this Review belongs to Sydney Smith. He suggested the idea to Messrs. Jeffrey, Brougham, and Murray—he, a poor young curate of Salisbury Plain, "driven in stress of politics" into Edinburgh, while on a voyage to Germany—they, briefless young advocates of the northern capital. They all subsequently rose to eminence; all becoming lords except Smith, who might have been made a lord bishop if he had not been created the prince of wits. The four adventurers, who met in the eighth or ninth story of Buccleugh Place, and agreed to start a Review, provided they could get the first number published on trust, they not having money enough to pay the printer, could not have dreamed that the journal would be eagerly read for half a century, from London to Calcutta, from the Cape of Good Hope to the sources of the Mississippi, and that Brougham would become Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Jeffrey Lord Justice of the highest court of Scotland, Murray also Lord Justice of Scotland, and Smith Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, firing hot shot at Pennsylvanians for not paying interest on a small loan from his surplus of £70,000.
Did space permit, it might be interesting to attempt to trace the causes of the great power which this periodical exerted over public opinion. The temper of the times when it appeared in respect to politics, and the Dead Sea of dullness in literary criticism that spread all around, gave novelty to an enterprise which proposed to combine the highest literary and scientific excellences with the boldest discussion of public men and affairs. The execution of the plan came up to the lofty tone of the manifesto. In its infancy, and onward to its maturity,the Edinburgh surrounded itself with a host of contributors whose names have given and received celebrity from its pages. Smith, Jeffrey, Brougham, Murray, Scott, Playfair, Leslie, Brewster, Stewart, Horner, Romilly, Stephen, Mackintosh, Brown, Malthus, Ricardo, Hallam, Hamilton, Hazlitt, Forster, McCulloch, Macaulay, Carlyle, Talfourd—and these are but a tithe—have given it their choicest productions, ranging through the fields of politics, finance, jurisprudence, ethics, science, poetry, art, and letters, in all their multiform departments. The contributions of many of these writers have been extracted and published in separate volumes, which, in their turn, have challenged the criticism of celebrated reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nor was less zest imparted to its earlier pages because ability was not always accompanied with candor, and attacks upon distinguished authors and statesmen were no less fierce than assaults upon popular works and venerable institutions. Persons and principles were alike mixed in the melee. Nobody, nothing was spared that opposed the march of the literary Tamerlane. In the department of literary criticism, its standard was just, lofty, or capricious, according to its mood; its style, by turns and by authors, grave or sarcastic, eulogistic or saucy, argumentative or sentimental, chaste or slashing, classical or savage. A man-of-war of the first class, and of the regular service, when civil and ecclesiastical abuses were to be discovered and destroyed, in literary contests it often run up the flag and used the weapons of the buccaneer. Not only did it exterminate the small craft of penny-a-line novelists and poetasters, but it pursued Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Byron, Montgomery, Lamb, and all with whom they treated or sympathized, with a spirit akin to that of the "Red Corsair of the Mozambique," when chasing
——"Argosies with portly sail,Flying by him with their woven wings,Rich with Barbaric pearl and gold."
The very temerity of the Review, sustained by such rare learning, ability, and brilliancy, gave it currency with friends and foes. It was admitted by its enemies that no similar publication displayed so many rich veins of thought, uttered so many acute observations, or arrayed its offspring in such graceful drapery; and they found fault, not so much with the standards set up, or the principles inculcated, as with their alleged unjust application to their favorite books and authors. The answer of the reviewers was short and characteristic. If they used the stiletto or the scalping-knife when they ought to use the scimitar or the broad-sword, why, that was according to the canons of criticism they had in such cases made and provided, and the friends of the slain might resort to reprisals.
A specimen of the mode in which it drowned in ridicule pedantry and stupidity, is found in the first number, in a review, by Sydney Smith, of Rev. Dr. Langford's "Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society." After giving the title of the publication in the usual form, the reviewer says: "An accident which happened to the gentleman engaged in reviewing this sermon proves, in the most striking manner, the importance of this charity for restoring to life persons in whom the vital power is suspended. He was discovered with Dr. Langford's discourse lying open before him, in a state of the most profound sleep, from which he could not, by any means, be awakened for a great length of time. By attending, however, to the rules prescribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the smoke of tobacco, applying hot flannels, and carefully removing the discourse itself to a great distance, the critic was restored to his disconsolate brothers. The only account he could give of himself was, that he remembers reading on regularly, till he came to the following pathetic description of a drowned tradesman; beyond which he recollects nothing." Then follows a paragraph from the sermon, dropsical with dullness; and here the article ends.
A specimen of the style in which it pronounced sentence ofcontempt on an author is found at a later date, and is perfect of its kind. It is the introductory paragraph of Macaulay's review of Gleig's Life of Warren Hastings. "This book," says Macaulay, "seems to have been manufactured in pursuance of a contract, by which the representatives of Warren Hastings, on the one part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to furnish praise. It is but just to say, that the covenants on both sides have been most faithfully kept; and the result is before us in the form of three big bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric." Macaulay then goes on through seventy pages, giving his own brilliant portrait of Hastings, never noticing the author except at long intervals, when he turns aside for a moment to give him a blow in the face with his brush.
The Review gave an impulse to periodical literature, and elevated the tone of literary criticism and political disquisition. Grub street made a stand against the invader, worthy of its ancient garrets. It issued fifty pamphlets in a single year, explaining, extenuating, defending, defying. But dullness and insipidity at length gave way, and retreated rapidly to the trunk-makers and green grocers. Much evil was mingled with the good. The excellences of the new journal were not alone imitated. Ferocity and fire blazed out from the pages of cotemporaneous publications. But, they were the rush-light to Vesuvius. At length, soldiers of higher mettle and brighter armor than Grub street could muster took the field. Byron had shivered a lance with the Edinburgh. Southey, whose scalp it had mangled, was stung to madness, and vowed vengeance. Scott denounced its politics as rash, radical, and revolutionary. The great Whig rhinoceros from beyond the Tweed had ravaged the softer landscape of England, and tossed Tory politicians and poets on its horn for six years, when Brougham's celebrated article on Don Pedro de Cevallos and Spanish affairs appeared, avowing ultra-democratic doctrines.Scott, who had some time before ceased to be a contributor, now ordered his subscription stopped, and entered into correspondence with Ellis, Southey, Gifford, and others, in regard to starting a rival periodical, that should encounter the spoiler in his own field, and with weapons of like temper and force. The result was the establishment, in 1809, of the Quarterly Review, in London. Its editor was William Gifford; and in boldness, bitterness, dogmatism, and ferocity, he was a full match for any writer in the Edinburgh; though, in comprehension of broad principles and appreciation of the beautiful, in acuteness and originality, he fell below the journal he was set up to overthrow.
But, dazzling as has been the meteoric career of the Edinburgh in the firmament of letters, it is in the department of governmental reform that its greatest and best services have been rendered. Its founder has well said, that at its advent "it was always considered a piece of impertinence in England if a man of less than £2,000 or £3,000 a year had any opinion at all on important subjects." The Edinburgh Review has taught a Manchester calico-printer how to take the Government by the beard. In the forty-six years of its existence, it has seen the British slave trade abolished—a devastating European war terminated—the Holy Alliance broken up, and its anointed conspirators brought into contempt—the corporation and test acts repealed—the Catholics emancipated—the criminal code humanized—the death-penalty circumscribed—the reform bill carried, extending the suffrage to half a million of people—West India and East India slavery abolished—the commercial monopoly of the East India Company overthrown—municipal corporations reformed—the court of chancery opened, and sunlight let in upon its doings—the common law courts made more accessible to the masses—the law of libel made endurable—the poor-laws made more charitable—the game-laws brought nearer the verge of modern civilization—the corn-laws repealed—the post-office made subservient to allwho can raise a penny—the means of educating the poor increased—the privileges of the Established Church curtailed in three kingdoms—and a long catalogue of minor reforms effected, and dignity and intensity imparted to the popular demand for still larger concessions to the progressive genius of the age. And this journal may proudly say, that all these measures have received the support, and most of them the early, zealous, and powerful support of the Edinburgh Review. These measures gained advantages from the advocacy of the Review, far beyond the intrinsic force of the arguments with which it supported them; as, indeed, did the party of progress whose oracle it was. Its brilliant literary reputation shed a luster around the most radical political opinions, clothing them in bright raiment, and giving them an introduction into the halls of the learned and the saloons of the noble. Its numerous articles on liberal and general education, especially those written by Sydney Smith, are above all praise. And while it impaled bores and charlatans in literature, and scourged quacks and villains in the State, it was no less a terror to hypocrites and oppressors in the Church. But candor must admit, that if it was generally a terror to evil doers in the name of religion, it was not always a praise to them that did well.
The ecclesiastical and religious tone of the Review, during the first twenty years of its existence, was imparted to it mainly by Sydney Smith. He had a good deal more wit than charity; was not ashamed to steal his sermons from Taylor, Hooker and Barrow, that he might save time to shoot sarcasms at Wesley and "the nasty Methodists," and shower ridicule upon Wilberforce and "the patent Christians at Clapham;" and seemed to have little reverence for any part of the Establishment which he defended, except its tithes and its titles. He pleaded for toleration and emancipation, not so much because Dissenters and Catholics deserved them, but because to grant them would silence clamor, and more firmly secure the power and patronage, and exalt the dignity of "the Church." But,though it breathed a good deal of this spirit, the Review always contended for religious freedom, and, when need be, was as hearty in its assaults upon the miter of the primate, and its ridicule of the starched robes of the bench of bishops, as of ranters and patent Christians. Sydney Smith hated tyranny, but he loved money; he was a humane man, and no ascetic or bigot; and it was his superabundant wit, and the ludicrous light in which almost everything struck his mind, that gave edge to his sarcasms, and made him seem more uncharitable than he really was. Two of his articles in the Edinburgh carried through Parliament a bill extending to all grades of felons the full benefit of counsel when on trial. Previous to this, counsel, even in capital cases, were not allowed to address juries in favor of prisoners, and before a poor wretch could get half through a stammering speech in his own behalf, he was generally choked off by the judge, that he might be the more speedily strangled by the hangman. Ah! old Dean Swift humanized; few men have done more to explode error, shame bigotry, and expose abuses, than thou!
As a political journal, the influence of the Edinburgh Review has, to a great extent, passed away. Its power and glory culminated during the administration of Earl Grey. Till then, it shone in unrivaled splendor, pouring its beams in the path of progress, and shedding more light around the footsteps of reform than all other like sources combined. Other luminaries, fresher in their rising, and reflecting the opinions of the awakened mind of England, have dimmed its fires. It has grown wayward, timid, conservative, and aristocratic, touching gingerly, and with gloved fingers, topics which it once handled without mittens. From the hour it became the organ of power, it ceased to be the herald of the people. In its decline, it has occasionally roused itself, and struck a blow for freedom, which revived the memory of the glorious days before the blight of Conservatism came upon it. It has shared the fate of the Whigs, and of all Quarterlies, as the organs of politicalopinion. Periodical literature has seen a revolution in the public taste. Quarterlies and Monthlies hardly survived the advent of railways. The electric telegraph, which can barely keep pace with the revolutions of parties and states, has made even Weeklies seem stale. The Penny Magazine defies the Quarterly, and the Daily Press rules the hour. But, ten thousand thanks to the Edinburgh Review, for ushering in an era which has made its own existence no longer necessary to the politician and the statesman.
A brief notice of a few other liberal periodicals will close this chapter.
The London Quarterly having failed to destroy the influence of the Edinburgh, a less stately and more lively periodical was planted on the spot where the great Whig champion bore sway, to encounter its politics with the lighter weapons of wit and satire, and dispute its mastery in the field of polite letters and criticism. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine entered the lists in 1817. Reckoning among its contributors some of the ripest scholars and rarest wits of the times, it occupies a first place among literary journals, while able partisans sprinkle its pages with the spiciest vindications of ultra Tory politics. During the reform-bill excitement, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine was sent forth as an antidote to Blackwood. A corps of rare essayists and critics have given it a highly respectable position in the literary world, and its political articles, written with vigor and eloquence, have kept pace with the advancing step of the age.
After several unsuccessful attempts had been made to establish a permanent Quarterly journal in London, to support the liberal side in politics, Mr. Bentham and his disciples started the Westminster Review, in 1824. Leaping into the arena far ahead of the Edinburgh, it drew its blade in defense of the radicals, and proposed fundamental reforms in the Constitution of the country. Reflecting the views of its celebrated founder, it has advocated, with great ability, unqualified suffrage,freedom of trade, the dissolution of the union of Church and State, the abolition of the hereditary feature of the House of Peers, the abrogation of the court of chancery, and a complete remodeling and codification of the laws of the realm. Bentham, Bowring, Col. Thompson, and Roebuck have been among its political contributors, and many of its literary articles have been of a high order. Carlyle has published in it several characteristic essays. It exhibits more courage and soul than any of its cotemporaries, and is the most democratic Quarterly in the kingdom. The Eclectic Review, a periodical devoted rather to ecclesiastical reforms, though it indulges in literature and politics, has, under the control of Dr. Price, a distinguished Baptist clergyman, rendered good service in the cause of philanthropy. Robert Hall and John Foster, names familiar to scholars and divines in both hemispheres, used to contribute to its pages. The New Monthly Magazine, under the editorship of Campbell, and afterward of Bulwer, though chiefly devoted to literature, espoused the liberal side in politics. For a time it received the contributions of our accomplished countryman, Mr. Willis.
But, it is not the Quarterly and the Monthly that originate and guide public opinion. At best, they but follow in its wake. The Weekly and the Daily trace the channels in which its currents flow. And here we are launched upon an ocean of periodical literature. From the days of Wilkes' "North Briton," down to those of Punch's "Charivari," a constantly swelling mass of newspapers has borne the cause of the People forward from triumph to triumph. Confining our view to those standing out of the mass, on peculiar and independent ground, the eye is at once attracted by the Register and the Examiner—the greatest of their class. The former was founded by William Cobbett, the latter by Leigh Hunt; the one uttering the discontents of the lower class of radicals, the other reflecting the opinions of the higher. Of Cobbett's writings I have already spoken at considerable length. Hewas the best exponent of the wrongs, prejudices and hates of the subterranean strata of English society, that has ever appeared. The Examiner was established in 1809. It displayed a much higher order of literary talent than the Register, but was equally radical in politics, and scarcely less violent in its attacks on public men and institutions. Hunt was repeatedly prosecuted by the Government, and lay two years in prison for a libel on that decoction of treachery and lechery, the Prince of Wales. While in jail, he composed some of his best poems. The Examiner has always displayed marked ability and brilliancy, both in its political and literary departments. While under the editorship of Mr. Fonblanque, a writer of extraordinary vigor and taste, it ordinarily produced political articles executed in a style that would have adorned the Edinburgh Review, while their doctrines were congenial to the progressive genius of the times. Among its frequent contributors is the intrepid, proud, humane, eccentric Walter Savage Landor, a poet of keen sensibilities, an ardent lover of truth and freedom—a man, "take him all in all." Latterly, the reformatory tone of The Examiner is somewhat modified, but it maintains its place in the front rank of the weekly literary and political press. The Spectator deservedly holds a high position in this department of newspapers. At first it was strongly radical in its politics; but, like the Examiner, it has latterly abated its tone without diminishing its ability.
Belonging to the same general class as the Examiner and Spectator, are the various periodicals that have borne the name of Douglas Jerrold. Mr. Jerrold has written successful melodramas, comedies, and farces for the theaters; sparkling essays for the classic Blackwood; humorous and serious tales for the New Monthly; stories and squibs for Punch; political "leaders" for first-class newspapers; besides sketches, criticisms, and "articles" without number for the million. Abounding in wit, sarcasm, humor, pathos, philosophy andfun, there runs through his writings a large vein of unadulterated humanity, which gives life and heart to the whole. He wages holy war against fustian literature, sham statesmanship, sectarian cant, legalized injustice, and titled tyranny. If England's periodical writers were of his temper and metal, the good time foreshadowed by Mackay, would soon come, when
"The pen shall supersede the sword,And right, not might, shall be the lord."
Having unexpectedly fallen upon Punch, in connection with Mr. Jerrold, I will say that that eccentric person deserves honorable mention among English Reformers. His unparalleled wit is tempered with love to mankind; his sympathies are with the million; and he displays in his weekly walk and conversation a great deal more humanity, quite as much Christian charity, (though far less "religion,") as "The Church of England Quarterly Review," the organ of High Church Toryism. Punch is too much of a man to send Mr. Shore to prison, or to excommunicate Mr. Noel.
The People's Journal and Howitt's Journal are successful attempts to mingle tasteful literary essays with radical political disquisitions, and bring them within the reach of every-day men of business and toil. Though many accomplished writers contributed to their pages, the Howitts, who originated the enterprise, were for some time its animating soul. The educated radicalism of England found an organ in these journals, whose tone harmonized with their sympathies. High as is Mr. Howitt's literary reputation, it is as a political and social reformer that his name will be the most widely known. His "History of Priestcraft," published in 1834, while he lived in Nottingham, and which met a sale of some 20,000 copies, gave him eclat in a new field, brought him some money, which he needed, and an election as alderman of that town, which he did not want at all. Four years afterward, he published "Colonization and Christianity," which led to the formationof the British India Society, to the abolition of slavery in the peninsula of Hindostan, and to efforts to relieve from oppression and stimulate to enterprise the myriads that swarm in that long-neglected portion of the empire. Mr. Howitt's writings in behalf of Complete Suffrage, Religious Toleration, and Irish Relief, are as honorable to the benevolence of his heart as are his numerous literary works to the fertility of his genius.
Still confining myself toquasiliterary productions, I may mention in this connection a series of publications, adapted to the means and capacities of the common people, which, though not specially intended to promote social and political reform, exerted a powerful influence in that direction. Chambers' Edinburgh Journal was commenced in 1832; it consists of papers on literature, science, history and biography, and, being sold at a cheap rate, reached at one period a circulation of nearly 100,000 copies. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, founded in 1825, caused to be prepared, and placed at cheap prices in the hands of the working classes, numerous publications of the same general character, but of a higher order, as those of the Chambers; and it subsequently issued two weekly periodicals, the Penny Magazine and the Penny Cyclopedia, filled with entertaining knowledge, which circulated by thousands through all the workshops of the kingdom, and have found their way to the learned rich and the laboring poor on this side of the ocean. These publications imparted to the common mind of England that knowledge which is power, and, in conjunction with the political press, taught the people the nature and value of their rights, and inspired them with courage to demand and defend them.
So much for periodical literature. Another department of English letters, more strictly deserving the name of "Literature," which has rendered powerful aid to the cause of political reform during the present century, will be noticed in the next chapter.
The Liberal Literature of England—Poetry—Southey—Coleridge—Wordsworth—Burns—Rogers—Montgomery—Moore—Campbell—Herbert—Byron—Shelley—Keats—Hunt—Pringle—Nicoll—Peter—Barton—Hood—Procter—Tennyson—Milnes—Elliott—Horne—Mary Howitt—Eliza Cook—Mackay—Novels—Godwin—Holcraft—The Drama—Bage—Scott—Miss Edgeworth—Mrs. Opie—Miss Mitford—Mrs. Hall—Miss Martineau—Banim—Lever—Lover—Bulwer—Dickens—Essays—Jeffrey—Smith—Brougham—Mackintosh—Macaulay—Lamb—Hazlitt—Carlyle—Talfourd—Pamphlets—Holland House—French Literature and Louis Philippe.
The Liberal Literature of England—Poetry—Southey—Coleridge—Wordsworth—Burns—Rogers—Montgomery—Moore—Campbell—Herbert—Byron—Shelley—Keats—Hunt—Pringle—Nicoll—Peter—Barton—Hood—Procter—Tennyson—Milnes—Elliott—Horne—Mary Howitt—Eliza Cook—Mackay—Novels—Godwin—Holcraft—The Drama—Bage—Scott—Miss Edgeworth—Mrs. Opie—Miss Mitford—Mrs. Hall—Miss Martineau—Banim—Lever—Lover—Bulwer—Dickens—Essays—Jeffrey—Smith—Brougham—Mackintosh—Macaulay—Lamb—Hazlitt—Carlyle—Talfourd—Pamphlets—Holland House—French Literature and Louis Philippe.
Further notice will now be taken of the liberal literature of England, after the French revolution. We can enter only on the borders of this large field. Since the modern "revival of letters," thePoetsof England have furnished their quota of friends of Progress and Reform.
Among the strange theories concerning the regeneration of mankind, to which the great French convulsion gave birth, was a day-dream of Southey, Coleridge, and Lloyd, three young geniuses, then sojourning at Bristol. Having vainly endeavored to make England a republic, by writing a drama on the fall of Robespierre, delivering a course of lectures on the French revolution, and publishing two or three seditious pamphlets, they proposed to leave the kingdom in disgust, bury themselves in the aboriginal forests on the banks of the Susquehanna, and there erect a "Pantisocracy," in which property should be held in common, every man be a legislator, and a model democracy be wrought out, that should consummatethe happiness of its founders, while its reflex influence cured all the ills of European institutions. Unfortunately for the human race, the three poets happened just then to fall in with and fall in love with three tempting young Eves of Bristol, the Misses Fricker, one an actress, one a mantua-maker, and one a school-teacher; and giving up their scheme of regenerating the world, they wisely concluded, with Benedick, that it was better to people it, and so all got married. Thus endedtheir"Much Ado about Nothing."
Lloyd sunk into obscurity, Southey atoned for his Susquehanna sins by spending a long life in hostility to civil and religious freedom, and Coleridge lived and died a moderate friend of liberty and reform. Wordsworth early became acquainted with Coleridge and Southey, participated in their French enthusiasm, and, like them, his first poetic dreams were of freedom. In one of his earliest productions he proposes to invoke the restorative aid of the Royal Humane Society in behalf of crowned heads, as follows:
"Oh give, great God! to Freedom's waves to rideSublime o'er conquest, avarice, and pride;And grant that every sceptered child of clayWho cries, presumptuous, 'Here their tides shall stay,'Swept in their anger from the affrighted shore,With all his creatures sink to rise no more"
Through his long career, the productions of the greatest of the "Lake Poets" have exerted a calm but steady influence in favor of humanity.
About this time Burns appeared, "whistling at his plouw," and teaching the world that
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,The man's the gowd for a' that."
He, too, caught some of his inspiration from France. By force of his genius, the Scotch yeoman opened his way to the highestrank of cotemporary poets, carrying with him the sympathies of the class from which he sprung. No writer is oftener quoted to round a period in a Reform speech. I have seen a meeting of Scotch Chartists go wild with enthusiasm under the inspiration of one of his songs. The same year that Burns became an author, Rogers sent his first volume of poems to press, of whom Lord Brougham, in his Sketch of Grattan, says: "He is one of the greatest poets whom this country has produced, as well as one of its finest prose-writers; who to this unstable fame adds the more imperishable renown of being also one of the most uncompromising friends of civil and religious liberty who have appeared in any age."
In 1794, James Montgomery, a name honorably associated with the cause of humanity, published in theSheffield Iris, a newspaper edited by him, a ballad on the overthrow of the Bastile, which the Pitt Government saw fit to regard as a seditious libel. He was prosecuted, convicted, amerced in a fine, and imprisoned three months in York Castle. The next year the Government again prosecuted the amiable poet for an analogous offense, upon which he was again fined and shut up six months at York. These persecutions did not quench his zeal for human freedom; and despite a most offensive critique in the Edinburgh Review of his first volume of poems, he published another in 1807, celebrating the abolition of the slave trade, which was distinguished for vigor of expression and richness of coloring. These, and subsequent publications of kindred character, have given Montgomery an enduring place in the affections of Christian philanthropists.
At a later period, two poets appeared, who have exerted a wide sway over the mind, not of Britain only, but of every land where the English language is spoken—Moore and Campbell. The political tendency of their writings (and it has been considerable) is on the side of freedom. Moore's father was of the proscribed sect of Irish Catholics, who, in the language of the son, "hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the Frenchrevolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that the day of his deliverance was near at hand." When Moore was a boy of twelve, he sat on the chairman's knee at a celebration in honor of the revolution, when this toast was drank, with three times three: "May the breezes of France fan our Irish oak into verdure!" The poet has lived to see the foliage of the oak grow more sere and yellow, though another breeze from France has swept its branches. But, in all seasons, and when mixing in the brilliant revelries of London society, the idol of a devoted band of worshipers, he never ceased to love his native island. His "Irish Melodies" have inspired a strange sympathy in many climes for his blighted country, while they have taught Irishmen, in whatever corner of the earth they wander, to say—
"Wert thou all that I wish thee—great, glorious, and free—First flower of the earth and first gem of the seaI might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow,But, oh! could I love thee more deeply than now?"
Campbell's poetic offerings to the cause of Polish liberty are in the school-books of two continents, and have fired the indignation of two generations of youthful orators at that great European felony, the partition of Poland, when
"Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime."
The heroic struggle for Grecian independence animated the classic soul of Campbell, and he took an active part in rousing European sentiment in her behalf. And down to the last moment of his life he was proud to give his cordial support to the cause of liberty and humanity in every part of the world.
William Herbert, a scion of the ancient houses of Pembroke and Percy, is still more illustrious as a scholar of rare attainments, and as the author of "Attila," which the Edinburgh Review has declared the most Miltonic poem since Paradise Lost. Some of his poetic effusions were offered at the shrineof freedom; and while a member of Parliament, he coöperated with Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade; and after withdrawing from politics, and taking holy orders, and reaching stations of dignity in the Established Church, he gave his influence to liberal measures, advocating Catholic emancipation and the Reform bill.
The wayward genius of Byron, though it uttered much that good morals condemn, recorded nothing hostile to political liberty, but, on the contrary, something in its favor. On the few occasions that he addressed the House of Lords, he advocated the liberal cause, once vindicating in manly tones the character and life of Major Cartwright, the father of Parliamentary Reform. The conflict for Grecian independence, in which Byron's last days were spent, throws a broad ray of sunshine across the dark horizon of his career.
But we must dismiss a galaxy of bright names more summarily—some without mentioning them, others by the briefest allusions. Shelley, the unfortunate, calumniated, generous, and supereminent son of genius—Keats, an evanescent being, whose transparent soul was clad too thin for this prosaic world—Leigh Hunt, the founder of the London "Examiner," which ought to live forever, and the Italian "Liberal," which ought never to have lived at all, a true son of the Nine, whom Gifford could not kill, though Blackwood Wilson helped him try—Pringle, who died at the desk of the Anti-Slavery Society, and whose "Afar in the Desert" Coleridge ranked among the two or three most perfect lyrics in the language—Robert Nicoll, a Scotch plowman, an ardent and sincere radical, who, dying at twenty-three, lived long enough to write "The Ha' Bible," "We are brethren a'," and other poems, not unworthy of that other Scotch Robert who has canonized plowmen-bards—William Peter, now British consul for Pennsylvania, a graceful poet, but better known as a political pupil of the Fox school, a commoner advocating liberal measures, and the biographer of Romilly—Bernard Barton, the friend andcorrespondent of Lamb, a "Quaker poet," whose effusions show calm reflection and refined feeling, but have none of the strangely pleasing blending of the war song of the knight templar with the pastoral ballad of the mountain shepherd, of Peter the Hermit's crusade-preaching with Virgil the heathen's classic singing, which give life and beauty to the lays ofourQuaker poet—Hood, the prince of punsters, whose "Song of the Shirt," sung in all climes, and imitated on all themes, dignified sympathy with seamstresses, who toil twenty-four hours for twelve pence—Procter, the Harrow chum of Byron, whose "Rising of the North," "The Open Sea," and "Touch us Gently, Time," show that Barry Cornwall's harp can sound at will the highest and deepest, the wildest and the tenderest notes, and while giving volumes of "morocco and gilt" to the nobility and gentry, sends "poetry for the people" through Howitt's Journal—Tennyson, an inspired singer, whose "Princess" is a reformer—Milnes, who, though a Tory in the House of Commons, always appeared as a liberal when he entered the Temple of the Muses—Elliott, whose Corn-Law Rhymes roused a nation to arms against landlord monopoly, by kindling sympathy with the poor man's lot, and firing indignation against taxes on his bread—R. H. Horne, a true poet and sterling reformer, the author of "Orion," the editor of the "New Spirit of the Age," and a contributor to the People's and Howitt's Journals—Mary Howitt, whose sex never was permitted to prevent her doing valiant service for the right in the battles of freedom with tyranny—Eliza Cook, not unworthy, as a poetess and a reformer, to be associated with Mary Howitt—Mackay, whose prophecy of the "good time coming" has been applauded to the echo by voices that would have smothered in hisses the same sentiments if uttered in prose:—these, and a glorious company besides, have laid some of the richest gifts, where all genuine poetry is welcomed, on Freedom's altar.
In this summary, only here and there a star has been pointed out in the brilliant constellation which has shone in the firmamentof freedom, during the period we are now glancing over. The catalogue of slavery's poets is not yet published. It must be rather meager. If the poetry of liberty is inspired by airs from heaven, the poetry of despotism must rage in blasts from hell. Dante and Milton have given glowing descriptions of Pandemonium, and put splendid diction into the mouths of devils; but neither the descriptions nor the diction have won admirers for the domicil or its denizens, among the inhabitants of high latitudes.
Some of theNovelistsof this period have contributed not a little to the cause of political reform.
William Godwin, one of the remarkable men of the times, is known not only as the writer of that extraordinary tale, "Caleb Williams," but of the "Inquiry concerning Political Justice," a production whose style is as vigorous as its doctrines are radical, displaying rare originality and boldness of conception, and breathing the loftiest aspirations for the well-being of man. "Caleb Williams," which appeared soon after the "Inquiry," was intended to give wider currency to the author's views of social and political reform, by clothing them in the attractive colors of romance. Had Godwin been an ambitious politician, he might have placed himself at the head of a school of reformers. He chose to be a philosophical recluse; and in the storm of the French revolution, he sent out from his retreat breathing thoughts and burning words, that gave increased life and vigor to the heaving mass of mind around him. The friend and counselor of Tooke and Holcroft, he was obnoxious to the Government, but his retired habits saved him from the prosecutions that periled the lives of his more active associates. His numerous writings, like those of Jeremy Bentham, whom he in some respects strongly resembled, while in others no two men could be more dissimilar, have left abiding impressions on many of the noblest minds of England.
Holcroft imbibed liberal principles during the time of the French convulsions. He was the writer of several successfulplays, among which was the highly popular "Road to Ruin." He published various novels, which, on account of their political sentiments, attracted much notice. As mere romances they belong not to the first rank, the plots and characters being mere frame-work to hold aristocratic doctrines up to ridicule, and democratic principles to admiration. The dialogue is often lively and piquant, and many of the portraits are skillfully drawn. And in this connection, it may be said that the dramatists of this period poured some of their rills of philosophy, wit and satire into the popular channels. Even Rolla's fustian address to the Peruvians, which sounds like Sheridan's speeches against Napoleon, always stimulated the galleries to a higher pitch of hatred to tyranny. Colman's comedies made upstart noblemen and pedantic doctors of laws shade their faces, while the pit shook its sides with laughter. William Tell launched his arrow not in vain at Gesler, for George IV came near being shot in the royal box on an occasion when it was played; and Talfourd and Bulwer, in Ion and the Lady of Lyons, having disguised democracy in classic robes, introduced it to the admiration and applause of the dress circle. To return to novelists. Coeval with Holcroft, Robert Bage, a Tamworth Quaker, not having the fear of George Fox nor the Attorney General before his eyes, published some good political novels. He, like the dramatist, had caught some of the fire of liberty at the general conflagration of the old order of things in Europe, and he bore his "testimony" against the bigotry of Guelph and the arrogance of Pitt, in the form of romances, which, though they fell below Holcroft's, received the imprimatur of Walter Scott, when he included them in his "Novelist's Library."
The works of the Godwin, Holcroft and Bage school not only introduced a new era in novel writing, by making fiction the medium of communicating radical opinions, but they aided in evaporating the rose-water style of romance, which had so diluted the public taste that "novel" and "insipidity" hadcome to be synonymous terms. By and by, the public appetite was prepared for a more racy and invigorating regimen. Then appeared the gorgeous but manly and natural historical novels of Scott, too prone to flatter "blood," wealth, and noble lineage, but wearing an air of the most genialbonhommie, and looking with a brotherly eye upon humanity in its humblest forms. About the time that Scott was beginning his Waverley, came the piquant and beautiful stories of Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Opie, to be followed by those of Miss Mitford and Mrs. Hall, who, whether painting life and manners in the cottages of the lowly or the drawing-rooms of the great, place virtue and philanthropy in the foreground of the picture. At a later period, the philosophic and benevolent Miss Martineau, despite the maledictions of the London Quarterly, admirably succeeded in the till then doubtful experiment of conveying the principles of politico-economical science to the masses through the medium of tales and sketches. The English Miss Sedgwick deserves the thanks of humanity for putting Benthamism into clean purple and fine linen. Ireland has been prolific in delineators of her suffering and crimes, jocularities and bulls, both in poetry and prose. Banim, the author of theO'Hara Tales, and other stories, is the greatest of his class. He paints the times of Ninety-Eight in colors so vivid that the tragedy leaps living from the canvas. In theNonconformisthe depicts the evils and cruelties of the Catholic penal code in figures so graphic and truthful that the veriest bigot can hardly restrain his indignation at the Protestant oppressors. Lever places in a strong light the blarney and blunders of the Irish, and his stories generally begin in farce and end in caricature. Lover puts you at once into good humor; and, whether you read him, or hear him tell his stories or sing his songs, he makes you love the genuine Irish character, and you alternately cry and laugh at its miseries and drolleries to the end of the volume or ballad. Bulwer's world-read novels, attractive to the scholastic mind by their acute analysis of character, andto the poetic temperament by their deep coloring, though, like Byron's poems, they enunciate a good deal of doubtful ethics, drawing no very broad line between the morals of plowmen and highwaymen, yet their political tendencies are decidedly towards liberalism. But the writer of fiction who has done the most in our day for his race, is Charles Dickens. He is not merely a novelist, but a philanthropist, whose overflowing humanity surpasses even his abounding humor. No right-hearted man ever rose from the perusal of Dickens without feeling a deeper affection for human nature, a more cordial contempt for cant and hypocrisy, and a holier hatred of cruelty and meanness. His Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist have done more to drown in ridicule and smother in abhorrence the absurd private schools and the diabolical parish work-houses of England, than the "works" of all the didactic authors of the kingdom.
Another class of writers have, during the present century, secured a firm footing within the pale of English literature—theEssayists. Indeed, at one time, it looked as if the new comers would succeed in excluding everybody from it but themselves. At the head of this class stand the leading contributors of the Edinburgh Review, of whom Mr. Whipple has aptly said, "they made reviewing more respectable than authorship." Jeffrey, for twenty-six years its editor, shed over its pages a strong, steady, and beautiful light, which tempered and irradiated the whole. His papers are a rare compend of literary criticism. Though sometimes more sophistical than philosophical, more brilliant than profound, and betraying prejudices when he should elucidate principles, he was, upon the whole, not unworthy to be called "The Prince of Critics." For a quarter of a century his fiat was law in far the larger portion of the republic of English letters. Since he left the throne, many of his canons have been disputed, and some have been totally annulled. His contributions to the Review, when published in a separate form, appear more homogeneous, morelike a "work," than those of his brethren who have put theirs to press. Sydney Smith bore undisputed sway in the realm of wit and sarcasm. Papists, prisoners, poachers, paupers, school-boys, and chimney-sweepers, owe him a monument each, for he was their very friend; and if the Pennsylvanians repudiate, nonconformists might purchase a pension for his heirs with the lawn he tore from the shoulders of "persecuting bishops." Brougham glared from the pages of the Review a baleful meteor, striking terror into dunces in Grub street and charlatans in Downing street, now scorching a poetaster and then roasting a prime minister, nor quenching his fires till they had penetrated and lit up the royal harem of Carlton House and Windsor Castle. Mackintosh made the Edinburgh the medium for exhibiting to the public eye some of those philosophical disquisitions, laden with the lore of the school-men, and embellished with the graces of the poets, which justified the assertion of Robert Hall, that if he had been less indolent and discursive, he might have attained the first place amongst modern metaphysicians. Macaulay has been one of the chief literary attractions of the Review for the last eighteen years. His contributions are no morecriticismsthan are his descriptions of the state of England in 1685, or his sketch of the death-bed of Charles II, in his recent history. True, he places the title of a book at the head of a page. But his papers have men for their subjects rather than books, are essays rather than articles, panoramas of events instead of histories, living portraits of individuals rather than biographies of the dead. According to the old standards, they would have been more appropriate in the history of England than in the Edinburgh Review. But the old standards have decayed. They are read and imitated in two hemispheres. The scholar admires their learning, the philosopher their penetration, the rhetorician their art, the poet their imagery, the million their politics.
And these five are the greatest of the "Edinburgh Reviewers."Freedom in every part of the world owes them a heavy debt of gratitude.
Passing through a brilliant throng of essayists, each man of whom is worthy of special note, and stopping barely long enough to say of Lamb that he is one of the most quaint, humorous, witty, genial, and humane writers in the language, and of Hazlitt, that he is a mine of diamonds, all rich and disorderly, brilliant and cutting, but of the first water, we approach with no little awe and diffidence the strange but not stranger Thomas Carlyle, "a writer of books." He has done yoeman service in the conflict with "shams," and has made the bankrupt institutions of England echo their own hollowness, under the heavy blows of his German truncheon. The obscurity of his style is often alleged against him. In many passages, an interlined translation, or a glossary, would be convenient. But, he is readily understood by those familiar with his fanciful mode of backing up to a question, rather than going straight forward to it. His defects seem to lie deeper than the obscurities of his rhetoric. They pierce through words to things. A vein of profound reflection pervades much of his writing. But no inconsiderable portion of it is indebted to his style for its seeming profundity. Straighten some of his crooked sentences, which,prima facie, seem to embrace in their sinuosities some great idea too awful to be uttered in plain Saxon, and thus, as it were, having thrown out the meaning, lo, the matter turns out to be rather commonplace. This is not his worst fault; for no author is bound to be always saying original or profound things, and he may be excused sometimes for wrapping up a common idea in superfine clothing. As a writer on social and political evils—his chosen field—Carlyle whelms the reader deeper and deeper in the abyss of wide-weltering wrong—and there leaves him. He points out no way of escape; suggests no remedies. Read his "Chartism," his "Past and Present," his article in a recent Spectator on "Ireland and Sir Robert Peel"—and what then? He gives you clearly to understand that the governmentalmachine is sadly out of gear—that Poor-Laws are a "sham," and Emigration a delusion—that the "sans-potatoIrish" are rotting under bad rule—but what then? Why, so far as Mr. Carlyle tells you,Nothing!Rot to all eternity, for aught he proposes by way of remedy. His writings abound in hearty expressions of dissatisfaction with existing things; in vivid pictures of human suffering, more graphic than limner ever drew, more startling than poet ever painted; but, trusting to him, you look in vain for any relief, either for your own excited feelings, or for the pitiable objects in whose behalf he has aroused your sympathies. He leads you into a foul morass, tells you it is a "sham," and as you sink out of sight, surrounded by a mass of smothering humanity, he cries, "God help you," mounts some transcendental crotchet, and soars into the clouds. It is suspected that Carlyle has a theoretic remedy for bad government, but dislikes to disclose it. He has no faith in Toryism, Whigism, Liberalism, or Radicalism. To him, they are "shams all." If he belongs to any school, it would seem to be the absolute. He don't believe in the divine right of kings, though he holds that some men are born to command. Nor would he give the governed the right of selecting their commander. He recognizes a sort of intellectual and moral "might," the possession of which confers the "right" to govern. The abstract theory may be good; the difficulty is in reducing it to the concrete. Who is to decide as to the possession of the "might?" Jefferson would refer the decision to the governed; Nichols would leave it to the accidents of royal procreation; Carlyle says it belongs to——who knows what he says? He is a great "Hero"-worshiper, and a good many of his "Heroes" have been splendid tyrants. He despises imbecility, but idolizes power. His rather obscure chapter in "Chartism" on "Rights and Mights" can, with little effort, be turned into a special plea for absolutism. His eulogistic essay, in the Foreign Quarterly, on Dr. Francia, "the Perpetual Dictator of the Republic of Paraguay," seems to disclosethe kind of government and governor he glories in. Francia was a man of intellect and decision, and he was a despot. He erected a "workman's gallows," to terrify and hang laborers who failed to do their work well—a "not unbeneficial institution," says Carlyle. A poor shoemaker made some belts for the Dictator's grenadiers. He did not like the sample shown to him, though the shoemaker "had done his best." Francia ordered a rope about the neck of the trembling wretch, calling him "a most impertinent scoundrel," (a "very favorite word of the Dictator's," says Carlyle,) and had him marched back and forth under the gallows, in the momentary expectation of being hung. He was at length released, half dead with terror. Carlyle remarks upon this, in plain English, (his admiration for the scene is too intense for a crooked sentence,) that the shoemaker worked with such alacrity all night, that his belts on the morrow were without a parallel in South America. The whole story, drawn out through a page, shows that Francia was a brute; as, indeed, does the whole article in the Quarterly. Carlyle gloats over him with wild enthusiasm. But, it is often neither just nor generous to measure others by our own standards. Every man has hisforte, his mission. Carlyle's may be to point out existing evils, while leaving it to time and plain men to suggest remedies. His gigantic soul sits enshrouded, to common eyes, in clouds. To his own, it may bask in sunshine. Honest, humane, mystic, magnificent, the world cannot spare the great mind of the age, whose calling seems to be to set smaller minds in motion. Long live this "Writer of Books."
To relieve the picture, let us glance at the anti-counterpart of Carlyle—Thomas Noon Talfourd. He is one of the brightest and purest specimens of theliteratiof England. A lawyer, a poet, a dramatist, an orator, a statesman, an essayist, he has succeeded in each of these varied departments. The instances are not unfrequent in which persons have attained a high place both in politics and literature. Instancesof marked success both in law and literature are extremely rare. The most striking English examples of the attainment of eminence by the same individual in the profession of law and the cultivation of literature, are Jeffrey, Brougham, and Talfourd. The latter has achieved this by the versatility and elasticity of his genius, unaided by the accidents of birth, family, or wealth. There is a magnetic philosophy, a classical witchery, an intoxicating enthusiasm, about his literary productions, that make him one of the most attractive and delightful of authors. As a lawyer, he is at home in the grave and studied discussions atbanc, and in the showy and extemporaneous contests atnisi prius. His defense of Moxon, the poet bookseller, so foolishly and scandalously prosecuted, a few years ago, for publishing the works of Shelley, was a splendid vindication of the right of genius to conceive, and enterprise to print, some of the rarest productions of the century. His rhetoric, in the quiet retreat of letters, and his eloquence in the bustling road of politics, have been employed to instruct, delight and elevate his fellow-men.
There is a department of writing, not yet dignified with the title of "Literature," which exerts an influence over popular sentiment, second only to that of the weekly and daily press. It is peculiarly the offspring of this age, and bears the strong lineaments of its parent. I will call it theLiterature of Occasional Pamphlets. In England, the Catholic Controversy, Parliamentary Reform, Negro Slavery, Chartism, the Corn Laws, Church and State, General Education, and all those questions which have moved and do move the nation, have called out a mass of such literature, which, in intrinsic ability and artistic excellence, will bear comparison with any cotemporaneous branch of writing. In that country, and more especially in this, he who does not stock his library with volumes of selected pamphlets excludes from it some of the most valuable literature of the nineteenth century.
I cannot close this imperfect view of the liberal literature ofEngland, without a brief allusion to the peculiar but powerful aid rendered to it by the late Lord Holland. The nephew of Fox inherited much of the eloquence, all the democracy, and more than all the love for learning and the fine arts, of his illustrious uncle. For a third of a century, which carried England forward a hundred years in the path of improvement, "Holland House" was the center of attraction for liberal statesmen, orators, poets, painters, wits, and scholars. Mingling in the brilliant throngs that so often filled its gorgeous drawing-rooms, elegant picture-galleries, and ample libraries, were to be seen statesmen who guided Cabinets, and orators who swayed Senates; men of letters who had reached the hights of human knowledge, and modest genius just struggling into notice; poets reposing under the shadow of their fame, and poets just plucking their first laurel-leaf; sculptors who had engraven life in the marble, and painters who had impressed beauty on the canvas; the writer of the first article in the last Edinburgh, and the author of the best comedy then acting at Drury-Lane; here a Whig Duke with a long title and a landed air, and there a Radical Editor under indictment for a seditious libel on the Government; the Duchess of Sutherland shedding grace around this circle, and Mrs. Opie diffusing benevolence around that; Buxton, the brewer, discoursing on Prison Discipline with Bentham, the philosopher; Brougham explaining to a Polish refugee his plan for educating the people, while Moore delighted a bevy of belles by singing his last Irish melody; Sydney Smith enlivening this alcove with his humor, and Mackintosh enlightening that with his learning—all these varied and diverse elements meeting on terms of social equality, and impressing upon the literary mind of the country the all-influential lesson, that, so far from losing caste by embracing liberal political opinions, the man of letters, of science, and of art, might find the profession of that faith a passport to circles where fashion displayed its smiles and power dispensed its favors.