A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 23

[Sidenote: Quadruple alliance]

[Sidenote: Foreign intervention in Portugal]

[Sidenote: Pretenders withdraw]

The death of Pedro IV., the Emperor of Brazil and claimant king of Portugal, made matters worse in Portugal. Diego Antonio Fergio set himself up as Regent. Monasteries were suppressed and the Society of Jesus was expelled from the kingdom. Dom Miguel continued his fight for the throne.

Don Carlos, the Spanish pretender, remained with him. The situation grew so threatening for the established governments in Portugal and Spain that they, too, combined for mutual defence. Queen-Regent Christina of Spain found that she would have to rely for support upon the Spanish Liberals.

Martinez de la Rosa was made Prime Minister. His first measure was to give his country a const.i.tution, which was ratified, on April 10, by royal statute. He then entered into negotiations with Portugal as well as with England and France to crush the two rebellious pretenders by a combined effort. On April 22, a fourfold treaty was signed at London by the terms of which the Spanish and Portuguese Governments undertook to proceed conjointly against Miguel and Carlos. England promised to co-operate with her fleet. France agreed to send an army into the Peninsula if called upon.

Before the treaty had been ratified even by the English Parliament and French Chambers, General Rodil marched a Spanish division into Portugal.

Dom Miguel's forces were driven before him. The threatening demonstrations of British cruisers and the simultaneous publication of the terms of the quadruple alliance in Lisbon and Madrid cowed the revolutionists. On May 22, Dom Miguel yielded. On the promise of a handsome pension, he renounced his rights to the crown of Braganza and agreed to leave Portugal forever.

Don Carlos, while declining thus to sell his rights, took refuge with the British admiral on his flagship and was taken to London.

[Sidenote: Return of Don Carlos]

[Sidenote: Zumalacarregui]

For a while it seemed as if order had been restored in the Peninsula. The problem of Portugal was settled. Don Carlos' shrewd move, however, left matters open in Spain. The pretender had not been made a prisoner of war, nor was he placed under any constraint or obligations. After a short residence in England he crossed the Channel, and, travelling through France in disguise, reappeared on July 10 in Navarre, where Zumalacarregui, a brigand chief of considerable military ability, was conducting brilliant operations against the Spanish government forces. Of the detachments sent against him one after another was defeated in the mountains of Navarre.

[Sidenote: Spanish reverses]

All manner of help from the peasants was obtained by a system of ruthless intimidation. The personal presence of Don Carlos strengthened the cause.

It was in vain that old General Mina, who had won renown in these parts ten years ago, was sent against the Carlists. Unable to cope with them, the old soldier resigned from his command. The Spanish Minister, Valdes, thereupon took the field himself. His attempt to operate in Navarre with a large army resulted in the worst defeat that had yet befallen the government forces. He had to retreat before the victorious Carlists.

Zumalacarregui prepared to cross the Ebro to march upon Madrid.

[Sidenote: Delacey's expedition to Spain]

[Sidenote: French intervention refused]

[Sidenote: Fall of La Rosa's Ministry]

The Spanish Ministry in alarm turned to its allies for aid. The English Government would render no further aid beyond that already given by the British squadron in Spanish waters. Permission, however, was granted to enroll volunteers for the Spanish cause in England and in Ireland. Colonel Delacey Ebbons raised a corps of needy adventurers, and, having been supplied with arms and funds, crossed over to Spain. The first appeal for French intervention resulted in like failure. France had cause to hesitate before embarking in another Peninsular War. Lord Palmerston's refusal on behalf of the British Government to co-operate with France in any such undertaking gave Louis Philippe reason to reflect. A large party in France, moreover, was in sympathy with Don Carlos. The Spanish Government was informed that French military a.s.sistance, under the circ.u.mstances, was impossible. The first result of this refusal was the downfall of La Rosa's Ministry in Spain. The civil war continued.

[Sidenote: Revolts in France]

[Sidenote: Fall of Broglie's Ministry]

[Sidenote: Thiers, Prime Minister]

[Sidenote: Death of Lafayette]

In France, domestic troubles rather than international questions were the problems of the day. On April 5, a violent outbreak had been precipitated by Mazzini among the workingmen of Lyons, which arose from a labor strike involving thousands. Soon the whole city was in uproar. Barricades were thrown up. Blood was shed in hand-to-hand fights with the troops. Similar outbreaks had been prepared at St. Etienne, Vienne, Gren.o.ble, Chalons, Auxerre, Arbois, Ma.r.s.eilles, and Luneville. The insurrection spread to Paris. On April 13, a conflict of some workmen with the troops was followed by the building of barricades all over the city. The revolt was ruthlessly suppressed by General Bugeaud, the commandant of Paris, who was henceforth denounced as a butcher. After it was all over the Ministry of Duc de Broglie fell in consequence of an adverse vote of the Chambers on the subject of the indemnities due to America. The succeeding Ministry lasted just three days. Then came the recall of Thiers, Guizot, Duchatel, Humann, and Rigny. Marshal Mortier became President of the Council. The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved. The aged Prince Talleyrand quitted the emba.s.sy at London. A proposal to form a Ministry headed by Marquis de la Fayette for the last time brought the name of that venerable hero into the public affairs of France. Shortly afterward he died in peace at La Grange, surrounded by his children and calling for his dead wife. His burial in the graveyard of Picpus, consecrated to the memory of the victims of the Terror, was left undisturbed by political demonstrations.

[Sidenote: Lafayette's career]

The name of Lafayette is indissolubly linked with the cause of the American Revolution and struggle for independence. To join the revolutionists'

cause, Lafayette not only had to sacrifice his private fortune and brilliant prospects at home, but also to leave a young, dearly-loved wife with an unborn babe. Throughout the weary struggle of America against the overwhelming power of England, Lafayette, together with Kosciusko and De Kalb, stood by Washington and the cause for which he had drawn his sword.

Lafayette's presence in the American army, and the example of his constant financial sacrifices for the American cause, were instrumental in winning France over to that offensive alliance against England which helped to turn the tide of war against that country. Throughout his subsequent career, Lafayette sustained the reputation he had won in early manhood. He was one of the few prominent figures of the French Revolution who emerged from that ordeal with untainted reputation. From then until his closing days he was the foremost champion of liberal thought and political freedom in France.

[Sidenote: Delaroche]

[Sidenote: Death of Blackwood]

Another distinguished Frenchman who died during this year was Jacquard, the inventor of the loom which bears his name. In the French Salon in spring, "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey in the Tower," by Paul Hippolyte Delaroche, took the highest prize. The picture was a happy medium between the ultra-romantic method of Delacroix and the cla.s.sicism of David. Three years previous to this, Delaroche sent to the Salon his famous paintings "Cromwell at the Bier of Charles I.," and "The Children of Edward IV. in the Tower." At this same time he was engaged on the greatest of his works, "The Hemicycle," now in the Hall of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

England lost three men prominent in letters, Blackwood, Lamb, and Coleridge. Blackwood's contribution to English letters was the "Edinburgh Magazine," founded and maintained by him from 1817 until his death.

[Sidenote: Charles Lamb]

[Sidenote: "Essays of Elia"]

Charles Lamb appeared in the world of letters as "Elia," a fancifully adopted name of an Italian fellow clerk at the South Sea House, where Lamb served his literary apprenticeship. While serving as a clerk for the South Sea Company he published his first poems at the age of twenty-two, followed shortly by "Rosamond Gray" and "John Woodville," at the beginning of the century. With his sister Mary he shared in the publication of the two children's books, "Tales from Shakespeare" (1806), and "Poetry for Children" (1809). During this same period he compiled and edited the famous "Specimens of Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare." The "Essays of Elia," which made Lamb's reputation, did not appear until 1823. The charm of these essays is a frank note of autobiography tempered by a kindly humor and whimsicality peculiar to Lamb. His fond appreciation of the poetry of Elizabethan days, as revealed in these essays, was instrumental in bringing about that revival of Shakespeare and old English poetry which set in early in the Nineteenth Century.

[Sidenote: Death of Coleridge]

Thus it happened that Lamb and Coleridge were intimately a.s.sociated. Lamb's first poems appeared in a volume of Coleridge's. Lamb repaid the debt by his tribute to Coleridge in his letters. There he has aptly described him as a "logician, metaphysician and bard." It so happened that both friends, who were almost of the same age, died in the same year.

[Sidenote: The "Lake School"]

[Sidenote: "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"]

[Sidenote: Swinburne on Coleridge]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772 at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman. He studied at Cambridge and then went to London, where he enlisted as a trooper in a regiment of dragoons. Finding military service uncongenial, he obtained a discharge and devoted himself to literature. Together with Southey and Lovell he undertook to found a communistic colony on the banks of the Susquehanna in America. The project failed from lack of money. The three friends married the three sisters Fireckes of Bristol and settled in Stowey. There Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth founded their so-called "Lake School of Poetry." Coleridge has told in his "Biographia Literaria," how the "Lyrical Ballads," issued at that time, derived their inspiration from two sources; to wit, supernatural themes, which appealed to Coleridge, and homely every-day subjects, which Wordsworth loved to beautify. Occasionally Coleridge tried himself in the other field, as in his "Lines to a Young a.s.s." In the same year Coleridge brought out the famous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," his "Odes," and wrote his first version of "Christabel." The period at Nether Stowey, from 1797 to 1798, was Coleridge's most fruitful year as a poet. All his best poetic works had their origin at that time. Swinburne has said of Coleridge: "For height and perfection of imaginative quality he is the greatest of lyric poets, this was his special power and is his special praise." Much of the charm and magnetic suggestion of his famous poem "Christabel" rests on its exquisite vowel-music. The same is true of his wonderful "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." There the running prose glossary accompanying the poem displays the same delicate, fanciful tone as his most musical verse. By these two poems alone Coleridge proved himself the most successful of the English poets who have tried to imbue their verse with an eerie sense of the invisible and the unreal:

Like one that on a lonesome road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend, Doth close behind him tread.

[Sidenote: "Aids to Reflection"]

[Sidenote: "Sartor Resartus"]

After his twenty-fifth year, Coleridge's poetic qualities declined. As a result of his travels in Germany he published, in 1800, a translation of Schiller's "Wallenstein," after which he reluctantly undertook to edit the "Morning Post," a government organ. In 1804 he went to Malta as secretary of Governor Ball. His last works were "Biographia Literaria" (1817), "Zapolya" (1818), "Aids to Reflection" (1825), "Const.i.tution of the Church and State" (1826), as well as his posthumous "Literary Remains,"

"Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," and the "Theory of Life." In English literary annals this year is noted likewise for the appearance of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus."

[Sidenote: The Church of Ireland]

[Sidenote: Royal interference]

[Sidenote: Earl Grey resigns]

A Parliamentary bill admitting dissenters to university honors in England was thrown out by the House of Lords. Another bill for the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews was again carried in the Lower House only to be rejected by the Lords. Next, another coercion bill against Ireland was introduced by the Ministry early in July. In the Commons much fault was found with the Government's manner of dealing with Irish questions. In spite of the concessions to O'Connell, that formidable leader had not been won over. The Tories held that the Ministry had gone altogether too far. At this critical moment, on the King's birthday, the Irish prelates, with the Primate at their head, presented an address signed by fourteen Irish clergymen in which they deprecated the proposed changes in the discipline of the Church in Ireland. Instead of leaving the reply to his Ministers, the King answered it in person: "I had been by the circ.u.mstances of my life led to support toleration to the utmost extent of which it is justly capable, but toleration must not be suffered to go into licentiousness....

I have spoken more strongly than usual, because of unhappy circ.u.mstances that have forced themselves on the observation of all. The words which you hear from me have not been learned by heart, but do indeed flow from my heart." This speech was received with transports of joy by the opposition.

Earl Grey and his colleagues, on July 9, handed in their resignation.

Viscount Melbourne was called in with a heterogeneous Cabinet. During this interregnum, on October 16, the two Houses of Parliament burned down.

Westminster Hall, the Abbey and the Speaker's residence were saved, but all the rest, including the interior of the tower and the library of Parliament, was destroyed.

[Sidenote: Troubles in China]

[Sidenote: Opium trade resented]

[Sidenote: Lord Napier's defiance]