Life Without and Life Within Part 14

"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of chance drives together the children of many a land.

"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with the tears of a common grief.

"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and greatness to the Fatherland!

"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm.

"'I pa.s.s musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as the cymbal sounds.'

"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, and takes no root in the dust of slavery.'

"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'"

To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!

A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view.

We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to sympathize in his feeling.

Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well a.s.sociated with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a scale so imperial.

OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]

A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book.

We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his narrative.

The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics,"

"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on which he formed his.

But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat"

"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like d.a.m.natory affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old "Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the character of Cromwell.

We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by receiving the men of destiny as always ent.i.tled to reverence. Sometimes a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in "Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, the result is no less delightful for us.

But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, (asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he thought it safest to stay with the squire."

Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, (usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with "sibylline execration" and extreme disgust.

Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:--

"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present.

We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a ma.s.s, and without any commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in G.o.d's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and piece of empty bl.u.s.ter this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bl.u.s.ter, not true, thou also art shutting men's minds against G.o.d's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the judgments of G.o.d; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but for making laws just. G.o.d the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the difference between heaven and h.e.l.l. It was a true notion, which all men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.

"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of G.o.d, have become to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this pa.s.sage and others, shall make of it what he can.

"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; s.h.a.ggy as the Numidian lion. A style rugged as crags; coa.r.s.e, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a G.o.d's truth in the heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary bl.u.s.tering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, bl.u.s.tering individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of G.o.d's law-book, to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not as a bl.u.s.tering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bl.u.s.ter this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man speaks out of him comes to pa.s.s as a fact; speech with this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor Ireland!"

Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,--

"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * *

Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames, 'G.o.d confound me! I burn, I burn!'

"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of G.o.d upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an exceeding great mercy."

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of "Cromwell's Curse!"

For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen n.o.bleness." Dimly, indeed, despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!

In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen circ.u.mstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to others--for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a n.o.ble contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no Stuart could surpa.s.s. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help--so rose-water imbecile are we!--admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for instance--poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle--for abiding by his principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly than a king.

The death of Charles I. was a boon to the world, for it marked the dawn of a new era, when kings, in common with other men, are to be held accountable by G.o.d and mankind for what they do. Many who took part in this act which _did_ require a courage and faith almost unparalleled, were, no doubt, moved by the n.o.blest sense of duty. We doubt not this had its share in the bosom counsels of Cromwell. But we cannot sympathize with the apparent satisfaction of Mr. Carlyle in seeing him engaged, two days after the execution, in marriage treaty for his son.

This seems more ruthlessness than calmness. One who devoted so many days to public fasting and prayer, on less occasions, might well make solemn pause on this. Mr. Carlyle thinks much of some pleasant domestic letters from Cromwell. What brigand, what pirate, fails to have some such soft and light feelings?

In short, we have no time to say all we think; but we stick to the received notions of Old Noll, with his great, red nose, hard heart, long head, and crafty ambiguities. n.o.body ever doubted his great abilities and force of will; neither doubt we that he was made an "instrument"

just as he professeth. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlyle's gla.s.ses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other proof to offer than is shown yet. And we resent the violence he offers both to our prejudices and our perceptions. If he has become interested in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any reason we should admit him to our Pantheon? No! our imbecility shall keep fast the door against any thing short of proofs that in the hyena a G.o.d is incarnated. Mr. Carlyle declares that he sees it, but we really cannot. The hyena is surely not out of the kingdom of G.o.d, but as to being the finest emblem of what is divine--no, no!

In short, we can sympathize with the words of John Maidstone:--

"He [Cromwell] was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone out in the others"--a poetic and sufficient account of the secret of his power.

But Mr. Carlyle goes on to gild the refined gold thus:--

"A genuine king among men, Mr. Maidstone! The divinest sight this world sees, when it is privileged to see such, and not be sickened with the unholy apery of such."

We know you do with all your soul love kings and heroes, Mr. Carlyle, but we are not sure you would always know the Sauls from the Davids. We fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to pour it on the head of him who is taller by the head than all his brethren, without sufficient care as to purity of inward testimony.

Such is the impression left on us by the book thus far, as to the view of its hero; but as to what difficulties attended the writing the history of Cromwell, the reader will like to see what Mr. Carlyle himself says:--

"These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself--I have gathered them from far and near; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires where they lay buried; I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean from foreign stupidities, (such a job of buck-washing as I do not long to repeat;) and the world shall now see them in their own shape."

For the rest, this book is of course entertaining, witty, dramatic, picturesque; all traits that are piquant, many that have profound interest, are brought out better than new. The "letters and speeches"

are put into readable state, and this alone is a great benefit. They are a relief after Mr. Carlyle's high-seasoned writing; and this again is a relief after their long-winded dimnesses. Most of the heroic anecdotes of the time had been used up before, but they lose nothing in the hands of Carlyle; and pictures of the scenes, such as of Naseby fight, for instance, it was left to him to give. We have pa.s.sed over the hackneyed ground attended by a torch-bearer, who has given a new animation to the procession of events, and cast a ruddy glow on many a striking physiognomy. That any truth of high value has been brought to light, we do not perceive--certainly nothing has been added to our own sense of the greatness of the times, nor any new view presented that we can adopt, as to the position and character of the agents.

We close with the only one of Cromwell's letters that we really like.

Here his religious words and his temper seem quite sincere.

"_To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton: These._

July, 1644.

"DEAR SIR: It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastis.e.m.e.nts or trials, so that we may sorrow together.

"Truly England and the church of G.o.d hath had a great favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the G.o.dly party princ.i.p.ally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. G.o.d make them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to G.o.d.