A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 10

[Sidenote: Santa Anna in power]

In Portugal, the revolution stirred up by Dom Miguel ended with the expulsion of that prince from Lisbon. His father, Dom Pedro, in Brazil, thought it wise to recognize the liberal const.i.tution imposed upon him by his people. In the other Latin-American countries the people rebelled against one-man rule. In Chile, General O'Higgins was forced to resign his dictatorship and a provisional Triumvirate a.s.sumed the government. At Lima, Bolivar found his powers curtailed. Mariano Prado was elected president.

The feeling against imperialism was so strong in Central America that all the smaller States joined in confederation to ward off this danger threatening them from Mexico. The Junta of San Salvador went so far as to pa.s.s a resolution favoring annexation by the United States of North America in case the Mexican imperialists crossed its borders. Eventually San Salvador, together with Nicaragua and Costa Rica, joined the Central American Union. The first Congress in Costa Rica elected Juan Mora president. In Mexico, in the meantime, a strong provisional government was established by Santa Anna. Ex-Emperor Iturbide, who in defiance of his exile returned to Mexico, was arrested as he landed at Sota la Marina in July. He was taken to the capital, tried, condemned, and shot. As he faced death he said: "Mexicans, I die because I came to help you. I die gladly, because I die among you. I die not as a traitor, but with honor." With Iturbide out of the way, Santa Anna established a government strong enough to accomplish the annexation of California. Henceforth there was no danger of a return to Spanish rule. In England, Canning followed Monroe with an absolute recognition of the independent governments in America.

[Sidenote: Death of Byron]

[Sidenote: Rhegas' hymn]

By this time public opinion in England had been aroused in behalf of the Greeks still struggling for their independence from the yoke of Turkey. A powerful impetus was given to this feeling by the tragic death of Lord Byron in Greece. A few months before the poet had sailed from Genoa for Greece to take active part in the war for freedom. He died of fever at Missolonghi on April 19, at the age of thirty-six. One of his last poems was a spirited translation of Rhegas' famous Greek national hymn:

Sons of the Greeks, arise!

The glorious hour shines forth, And, worthy of such ties, Display who gave us worth!

Sons of Greeks! let us go In arms against the foe, Till their hated blood shall flow In a river past our feet.

Then manfully despise The Turkish tyrant's yoke, Let your country see you rise, Till all her chains are broke.

Brave shades of chiefs and sages, Behold the coming strife!

Greeks of past ages, Oh, start again to life!

At the sound of my trumpet, Break your sleep, join with me!

And the seven-hill'd city seek, Fight, and win, till we are free!

[Sidenote: Goethe on Byron]

[Sidenote: Mazzini's verdict]

[Sidenote: Sh.e.l.ley's estimate]

[Sidenote: Symonds' judgment]

[Sidenote: Byron's best works]

Byron's death served the Greek cause better perhaps than all he could have achieved had his life been prolonged. It caused a greater stir throughout Continental Europe than it did in England. In truth Byron's poetry was more appreciated by the world at large than by his countrymen--a literary anomaly that has prevailed even to the end of the Nineteenth Century.

Goethe said of Byron after his death: "The English may think of Byron as they please; but this is certain, that they can show no poet who is to be compared with him. He is different from all the others, and for the most part greater." Mazzini, many years later, concluded his famous essay on Byron and Goethe with this vindication of the English poet's claim: "The day will come when Democracy will remember all that it owes to Byron.

England too, will, I hope, one day remember the mission--so entirely English, yet hitherto overlooked by her--which Byron fulfilled on the Continent; the European cast given by him to English literature, and the appreciation and sympathy for England which he awakened among us." Sh.e.l.ley, who knew Byron intimately, has given perhaps the best expression to the English view of him. He said of him in 1822: "The coa.r.s.e music which he produced touched a chord to which a million hearts responded.... s.p.a.ce wondered less at the swift and fair creations of G.o.d when he grew weary of vacancy, than I at this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body." To most Englishmen of his day, Byron, like Sh.e.l.ley, appeared as a monster of impious wickedness. Unlike Sh.e.l.ley, he attained thereby the vogue of the forbidden. His earliest poems achieved what the French call a _succes de scandal_. His satire, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," brought to the youthful poet a notoriety amounting to fame.

After the publication of the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," in 1812, according to his own phrase, he awoke to find himself famous, and became a spoiled child of society. Trelawney has recorded that Byron was what London in the days of the Prince Regent made him. One of Byron's ablest critics, Symonds, has put this even more strongly: "His judgment of the world was prematurely warped, while his naturally earnest feelings were overlaid with affectations and prejudices which he never succeeded in shaking off.... It was his misfortune to be well born, but ill bred, combining the pride of a peer with the self-consciousness of a parvenu." Byron's life in London between 1812 and 1816 certainly increased his tendency to cynicism, as did his divorce from his wife. While these experiences distorted his personal character, they supplied him, however, with much of the irony wrought into his masterpiece, "Don Juan." His poetic genius derived its strongest stimulus from his imbittered domestic life and from his travels in Spain, Italy and Greece. This twofold character of the poet it is that is revealed in his best poems, "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan." He used both works as receptacles for the most incongruous ideas. "If things are farcical," he once said to Trelawney, "they will do for 'Don Juan'; if heroical, you shall have another canto of 'Childe Harold.'" This means of disposing of his poetic ideas accounts for the great volume of Byron's verse as well as for its inequality. That "Don Juan" was never finished cannot therefore be regretted.

[Sidenote: His last verses]

Byron's last verses were lines written on January 22, 1824, at Missolonghi.

To one of his English military a.s.sociates in the expedition of Lepanto he remarked: "You were complaining that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write." They were the famous lines, "On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year":

'Tis time the heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move; Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!

Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!) Awake my spirit! Think through whom Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home!

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?

The land of honorable death Is here--Up, to the field, and give Away thy breath!

Seek out--less often sought than found-- A soldier's grave, for thee the best!

Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest!

[Sidenote: Russian suzerainty rejected by Greeks]

[Sidenote: Ibrahim invades Greece]

[Sidenote: Sack of Psara]

When Byron died, Missolonghi had been delivered from its first siege.

Greece was plunged in civil war. Kolokotrones, who set himself up against the government of Konduriottes and Kolletes, was overthrown and lodged in a prison on the island of Hydra. An offer of Russian intervention at the price of Russian suzerainty was rejected by the Greeks. Encouraged by this, the Sultan appealed to his va.s.sal, Mehemet Ali of Egypt, to help him exterminate the Greeks. The island of Crete was held out to Mehemet Ali as a prize. The ambitious ruler of Egypt responded with enthusiasm. He raised an army of 90,000 men and a fleet, and sent them forth under the command of his adopted son Ibrahim. Early in the spring the Egyptian expedition landed in Crete and all but exterminated its Greek population. The island of Kossos was next captured; and its inhabitants were butchered. In July, the Turkish fleet took advantage of the Greek Government's weakness to make a descent upon Psara, one of the choicest islands of Greece. In spite of desperate resistance, the citadel of Psara was stormed, and the Psariotes were put to the sword. Thousands were slain, while the women and children were carried off as slaves. How little the miseries of the Greeks affected the rulers of Europe may be gathered from this bright side light on Metternich given by his secretary Gentz:

[Sidenote: Metternich's comment]

[Sidenote: Defeat of Turkish fleet]

"Prince Metternich was taking an excursion, in which unfortunately I could not accompany him. I at once sent a letter after him from Ischl with the important news of the Psariote defeat.... The prince soon came back to me; and (pianissimo, in order that friends of Greece might not hear it) we congratulated one another on the event, which may very well prove the beginning of the end for the Greek insurrection." The Greeks, instead of desponding, were aroused to fiercer resistance than ever. A Hydriote fleet foiled Ibrahim Pasha's attempt on Samos. When he tried to return to Crete his fleet was beaten back with a signal reverse. Finally, late in the year, the Egyptians succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Hydriote sea-captains, and regained their base of supplies in Crete.

[Sidenote: Burmese war]

[Sidenote: Siege of Rangoon]

[Sidenote: British checked at Donabew]

While Canning's Ministry was still preparing the ground for European intervention in Greece, the British Government in India found itself with another native war on its hands. In 1822, the Burmese leader Bundula had invaded the countries between Burma and Bengal. The Burmese conquered the independent princ.i.p.alities of a.s.sam and Munipore, and threatened Cachar.

Next Bundula invaded British territory and cut off a detachment of British sepoys. It was evident that the Burmese were bent on the conquest of Bengal. Lord Amherst, who had a.s.sumed charge early in 1824, sent an expedition against them under Sir Archibald Campbell. The resistance of the Burmese was despicable. The British soldiers nowhere found foes worthy of their steel. In May, the British expedition, having marched straight to Burma, occupied the capital Rangoon, which was found deserted and denuded of all supplies. Ill fed and far from succor, the British had to spend a rainy season there. Taking advantage of their precarious position, Bundula returned late in the year with an army of 60,000 men. The Englishmen were besieged. In December they made a successful sortie and stormed the Burmese stockades. Bundula with the remains of his army was driven up the banks of the river Irawaddy. They made a stand at Donabew, some forty miles from Rangoon, where they held the British in check.

[Sidenote: German letters]

The rest of the world throughout this year lay in profound peace. In Germany the rulers of the various princ.i.p.alities were allowed to continue their reigns undisturbed. Only in Brunswick the a.s.sumption of the government by Charles Frederick William met with the disapproval of the German Diet. Although p.r.o.nounced incapable of reigning, he succeeded none the less in clinging to his throne. A more important event for the enlightened element in Germany was the appearance of the first of Leopold von Ranke's great histories of the Romance and Teutonic peoples. In the realm of poetry a stir was created by the publication of Rueckert's and Boerne's lyrics, and Heinrich Heine's "Alamansor" and "Ratcliffe."

[Sidenote: French literature]

[Sidenote: Clericals in the ascendant]

[Sidenote: Chateaubriand dismissed]

[Sidenote: Death of Louis XVIII.]

In France, Lamartine brought out his "Death of Socrates," and Louis Thiers published the first instalments of his great "History of the French Revolution." Simultaneously there appeared Francois Mignet's "History of the French Revolution." While these historians were expounding the lessons of this great regeneration of France, the Royalists in the Chambers did their best to undo its work. After the ejection of Manuel from the Chambers, and the Ministers' consequent appeal to the country, the elections were so manipulated by the government that only nineteen Liberal members were returned to the Chambers. Immediate advantage was taken of this to favor the Clericals and returned Emigrees, and to change the laws so as to elect a new House every seven years, instead of one-fifth part of the Chamber each year. Monseigneur Frayssinous, the leader of the Clericals, was made Minister of Public Instruction. The friction between Prime Minister Villele and Chateaubriand was ended by Villele's summary dismissal of Chateaubriand as Foreign Minister. Chateaubriand at once became the most formidable opponent of the Ministry in the "Journal des Debats," and in the Chamber of Peers. At this stage of public affairs Louis XVIII. died, on September 16, with the ancient pomp of royalty. Before he expired he said, pointing to his bed: "My brother will not die in that bed." The old King's prophecy was based on the character of the French people as much as on that of his brother. Indeed, Louis XVIII. was the only French ruler during the Nineteenth Century who died as a sovereign in his bed. He was duly succeeded by his brother, Count of Artois, who took the t.i.tle "Charles X." and retained Villele as Minister of France.