Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland Part 18

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

The Liberal Literature of England--Poetry--Southey--Coleridge--Wordsworth--Burns--Rogers-- Montgomery--Moore--Campbell--Herbert--Byron--Sh.e.l.ley--Keats--Hunt-- Pringle--Nicoll--Peter--Barton--Hood--Procter--Tennyson--Milnes-- Elliott--Horne--Mary Howitt--Eliza Cook--Mackay--Novels--G.o.dwin-- Holcraft--The Drama--Bage--Scott--Miss Edgeworth--Mrs. Opie--Miss Mitford--Mrs. Hall--Miss Martineau--Banim--Lever--Lover--Bulwer-- d.i.c.kens--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," the _Poets_ of 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 consummate the happiness of its founders, while its reflex influence cured all the ills of European inst.i.tutions. 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 Bened.i.c.k, that it was better to people it, and so all got married. Thus ended _their_ "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, partic.i.p.ated 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 G.o.d! to Freedom's waves to ride Sublime o'er conquest, avarice, and pride; And grant that every sceptered child of clay Who cries, presumptuous, 'Here their tides shall stay,'

Swept in their anger from the affrighted sh.o.r.e, 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 highest rank of cotemporary poets, carrying with him the sympathies of the cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociated with the cause of humanity, published in the _Sheffield 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 a.n.a.logous 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 French revolution 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 sea I 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 part.i.tion of Poland, when

"Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime."

The heroic struggle for Grecian independence animated the cla.s.sic 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 shrine of freedom; and while a member of Parliament, he cooperated 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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. Sh.e.l.ley, 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 and correspondent 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 cla.s.sic singing, which give life and beauty to the lays of _our_ Quaker 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 n.o.bility 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 s.e.x 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 a.s.sociated 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 firmament of 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 h.e.l.l. 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 lat.i.tudes.

Some of the _Novelists_ of this period have contributed not a little to the cause of political reform.

William G.o.dwin, 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 G.o.dwin 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sociates. 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 n.o.blest minds of England.

Holcroft imbibed liberal principles during the time of the French convulsions. He was the writer of several successful plays, 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 n.o.blemen 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 cla.s.sic 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 G.o.dwin, 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" had come to be synonymous terms. By and by, the public appet.i.te was prepared for a more racy and invigorating regimen. Then appeared the gorgeous but manly and natural historical novels of Scott, too p.r.o.ne to flatter "blood," wealth, and n.o.ble lineage, but wearing an air of the most genial _bonhommie_, 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 ma.s.ses 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 the _O'Hara Tales_, and other stories, is the greatest of his cla.s.s. He paints the times of Ninety-Eight in colors so vivid that the tragedy leaps living from the canvas. In the _Nonconformist_ he 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 a.n.a.lysis of character, and to 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 d.i.c.kens. He is not merely a novelist, but a philanthropist, whose overflowing humanity surpa.s.ses even his abounding humor. No right-hearted man ever rose from the perusal of d.i.c.kens 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 cla.s.s of writers have, during the present century, secured a firm footing within the pale of English literature--the _Essayists_.

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 cla.s.s 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 h.o.m.ogeneous, more like 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 a.s.sertion 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 more _criticisms_ than 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 t.i.tle 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 grat.i.tude.

Pa.s.sing 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 inst.i.tutions 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 pa.s.sages, 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 governmental machine is sadly out of gear--that Poor-Laws are a "sham,"

and Emigration a delusion--that the "_sans-potato_ Irish" 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 mora.s.s, tells you it is a "sham," and as you sink out of sight, surrounded by a ma.s.s of smothering humanity, he cries, "G.o.d 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 disclose the 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 inst.i.tution," 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 his _forte_, 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 the _literati_ of 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. Instances of 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 cla.s.sical 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 at _banc_, and in the showy and extemporaneous contests at _nisi prius_. His defense of Moxon, the poet bookseller, so foolishly and scandalously prosecuted, a few years ago, for publishing the works of Sh.e.l.ley, 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 t.i.tle 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 the _Literature 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 ma.s.s 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 of England, 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 t.i.tle and a landed air, and there a Radical Editor under indictment for a seditious libel on the Government; the d.u.c.h.ess 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 pa.s.sport to circles where fashion displayed its smiles and power dispensed its favors.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

Conclusion.

In the foregoing chapters, I have endeavored to trace the rise and progress of the GREAT BRITISH PARTY OF REFORM, which, adopting such changes in principle and policy as experience may suggest, will live and grow till every man has a voice in the election of both branches of the Legislature that governs him--till the burdens of taxation are impartially distributed among the people--till the sinecure and pension rolls are destroyed--till the public debt is paid or repudiated--till the main reliance for home defense rests with an organized militia--till the marine of a free commerce has chased the "wooden walls" from the ocean--till traffic in the land is as free as in the wheat it grows--till labor, fairly paid, becomes labor duly respected--till every sect supports its own church and clergy, and none other--till common schools, drawing nourishment from the bosom of the State, nestle in every valley--till the precepts of the law are made plain, and its admistration cheap--till Ireland becomes independent, or is allowed her just share in the national councils--till the dogma that a favored few are born booted and spurred, to ride the ma.s.ses "by the grace of G.o.d,"

has had its last day, and the England of the times "when George the Third was King" exists only in the chronicles of History.

Since these Sketches were commenced, Europe has been the theater of a series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. France rose, overthrew the Monarchy, and expelled Louis Philippe. In an evil hour, she thrust aside Lamartine, to make room for Louis Napoleon. Ireland, having made an attempt to break her chains, has fallen into the arms of despair.

Austria and Prussia kindled a flame which, for a time, gladdened the eye of Liberty. The expiring embers have been trodden out by the hoof of the Cossack. Rome expelled her Dictator, and founded a Republic more glorious and free than that of antiquity. She died under a.s.sa.s.sin blows dealt across the Alps by a professedly fraternal hand. Hungary made a stand for Freedom which electrified the world. Her immortal Kossuth and Bem have been compelled to flee to the mountains, while the hordes of Russia lay waste her plains, and Austria, the meanest of despots, rivets chains on the limbs of her sons. From this dark and dreary prospect, the eye turns to the Radical Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland. Acting through inst.i.tutions comparatively free, they will by slow but sure advances yet work out for themselves, and, by the aid of kindred spirits in other countries, for Europe, the great problem of Const.i.tutional liberty. In the present aspect of Continental affairs, they, with the Radical Republicans of France, must be regarded as the rallying point, the forlorn hope of the struggling ma.s.ses from the Gulf of Finland to the Straits of Gibraltar.

THE END.