CHAPTER XVIII.

DRUM IST’S SO WOHL MIR IN DER WELT.

Our new friends lived for a while contentedly enough at Boulogne, where they found comrades and acquaintances gathered together from those many regions which they had visited in the course of their military career. Mrs. Baynes, out of the field, was the commanding officer over the general. She ordered his clothes for him, tied his neckcloth into a neat bow, and, on tea-party evenings, pinned his brooch into his shirt-frill. She gave him to understand when he had had enough to eat or drink at dinner, and explained, with great frankness, how this or that dish did not agree with him. If he was disposed to exceed, she would call out, in a loud voice: “Remember, general, what you took this morning!” Knowing his constitution, as she said, she knew the remedies which were necessary for her husband, and administered them to him with great liberality. Resistance was impossible, as the veteran officer acknowledged. “The boys have fought about the medicine since we came home,” he confessed, “but she has me under her thumb, by George. She really is a magnificent physician, now. She has got some invaluable prescriptions, and in India she used to doctor the whole station.” She would have taken the present writer’s little household under her care, and proposed several remedies for my children, until their alarmed mother was obliged to keep them out of her sight. I am not saying this was an agreeable woman. Her voice was loud and harsh. The anecdotes which she was for ever narrating related to military personages in foreign countries with whom I was unacquainted, and whose history failed to interest me. She took her wine with much spirit, whilst engaged in this prattle. I have heard talk not less foolish in much finer company, and known people delighted to listen to anecdotes of the duchess and the marchioness who would yawn over the history of Captain Jones’s quarrels with his lady, or Mrs. Major Wolfe’s monstrous flirtations with young Ensign Kyd. My wife, with the mischievousness of her sex, would mimic the Baynes’ conversation very drolly, but always insisted that she was not more really vulgar than many much greater persons.

For all this, Mrs. General Baynes did not hesitate to declare that we were “stuck-up” people; and from the very first setting eyes on us, she declared, that she viewed us with a constant darkling suspicion. Mrs. P. was a harmless, washed-out creature with nothing in her. As for that high and mighty Mr. P. and _his_ airs, she would be glad to know whether the wife of a British general officer who had seen service in _every part of the globe_, and met the _most distinguished_ governors, generals, and their ladies, several of whom _were noblemen_—she would be glad to know whether such people were not good enough for, &c. &c. Who has not met with these difficulties in life, and who can escape them? “Hang it, sir,” Phil would say, twirling the red mustachios, “I like to be hated by some fellows;” and it must be owned that Mr. Philip got what he liked. I suppose Mr. Philip’s friend and biographer had something of the same feeling. At any rate, in regard of this lady the hypocrisy of politeness was very hard to keep up; wanting us for reasons of her own, she covered the dagger with which she would have stabbed us: but we knew it was there clenched in her skinny hand in her meagre pocket. She would pay us the most fulsome compliments with anger raging out of her eyes—a little hate-bearing woman, envious, malicious, but loving her cubs, and nursing them, and clutching them in her lean arms with a jealous strain. It was “Good-bye, darling! I shall leave you here with your friends. Oh, how kind you are to her, Mrs. Pendennis! How can I ever thank you, and Mr. P. I am sure;” and she looked as if she could poison both of us, as she went away, curtseying and darting dreary parting smiles.

This lady had an intimate friend and companion in arms, Mrs. Colonel Bunch, in fact, of the—the Bengal cavalry, who was now in Europe with Bunch and their children, who were residing at Paris for the young folks’ education. At first, as we have heard, Mrs. Baynes’ predilections had been all for Tours, where her sister was living, and where lodgings were cheap and food reasonable in proportion. But Bunch happening to pass through Boulogne on his way to his wife at Paris, and meeting his old comrade, gave General Baynes such an account of the cheapness and pleasures of the French capital, as to induce the general to think of bending his steps thither. Mrs. Baynes would not hear of such a plan. She was all for her dear sister and Tours; but when, in the course of conversation, Colonel Bunch described a ball at the Tuileries, where he and Mrs. B. had been received with the most flattering politeness by the royal family, it was remarked that Mrs. Baynes’ mind underwent a change. When Bunch went on to aver that the balls at Government House at Calcutta were nothing compared to those at the Tuileries or the Prefecture of the Seine; that the English were invited and respected everywhere; that the ambassador was most hospitable; that the clergymen were admirable; and that at their boarding-house, kept by Madame la Générale Baronne de Smolensk, at the Petit Château d’Espagne, Avenue de Valmy, Champs Elysées, they had balls twice a month, the most comfortable apartments, the most choice society, and every comfort and luxury at so many francs per month, with an allowance for children—I say Mrs. Baynes was very greatly moved. “It is not,” she said, “in consequence of the balls at the ambassador’s or the Tuileries, for I am an old woman; and in spite of what you say, colonel, I can’t fancy, after Government House, anything more magnificent in any French palace. It is not for _me_, goodness knows, I speak: but the children should have education, and my Charlotte an entrée into the world; and what you say of the invaluable clergyman, Mr. X——, I have been thinking of it all night; but above all, above all, of the chances of education for my darlings. Nothing should give way to that—nothing!” On this a long and delightful conversation and calculation took place. Bunch produced his bills at the Baroness de Smolensk’s. The two gentlemen jotted up accounts, and made calculations all through the evening. It was hard even for Mrs. Baynes to force the figures into such a shape as to make them accord with the general’s income; but, driven away by one calculation after another, she returned again and again to the charge, until she overcame the stubborn arithmetical difficulties, and the pounds, shillings, and pence lay prostrate before her. They could save upon this point; they could screw upon that; they _must_ make a sacrifice to educate the children. “Sarah Bunch and her girls go to Court, indeed! Why shouldn’t mine go?” she asked. On which her general said, “By George, Eliza, that’s the point you are thinking of.” On which Eliza said, “No,” and repeated “No” a score of times, growing more angry as she uttered each denial. And she declared before Heaven she did _not_ want to go to any Court. Had she not refused to be presented at home, though Mrs. Colonel Flack went, because she did not choose to go to the wicked expense of a train? And it was base of the general, _base_ and _mean_ of him to say so. And there was a fine scene, as I am given to understand; not that I was present at this family fight: but my informant was Mr. Firmin; and Mr. Firmin had his information from a little person who, about this time, had got to prattle out all the secrets of her young heart to him; who would have jumped off the pier-head with her hand in his if he had said “Come,” without his hand if he had said “Go:” a little person whose whole life had been changed—changed for a month past—changed in one minute, that minute when she saw Philip’s fiery whiskers and heard his great big voice saluting her father amongst the commissioners on the _quai_ before the custom-house.

Tours was, at any rate, a hundred and fifty miles farther off than Paris from—from a city where a young gentleman lived in whom Miss Charlotte Baynes felt an interest; hence, I suppose, arose her delight that her parents had determined upon taking up their residence in the larger and nearer city. Besides, she owned, in the course of her artless confidences to my wife, that, when together, mamma and aunt MacWhirter quarrelled unceasingly; and had once caused the old boys, the major and the general, to call each other out. She preferred, then, to live away from aunt Mac. She had never had such a friend as Laura, never. She had never been so happy as at Boulogne, never. She should always love everybody in our house, that she should, for ever and ever—and so forth, and so forth. The ladies meet; cling together; osculations are carried round the whole family circle, from our wondering eldest boy, who cries, “I say, hullo! what are you kissing me so about?” to darling baby, crowing and sputtering unconscious in the rapturous young girl’s embraces. I tell you, these two women were making fools of themselves, and they were burning with enthusiasm for the “preserver” of the Baynes family, as they called that big fellow yonder, whose biographer I have aspired to be. The lazy rogue lay basking in the glorious warmth and sunshine of early love. He would stretch his big limbs out in our garden; pour out his feelings with endless volubility; call upon _hominum divumque voluptas, alma Venus_; vow that he had never lived or been happy until now; declare that he laughed poverty to scorn and all her ills; and fume against his masters of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, because they declined to insert certain love verses which Mr. Philip now composed almost every day. Poor little Charlotte! And didst thou receive those treasures of song; and wonder over them, not perhaps comprehending them altogether; and lock them up in thy heart’s inmost casket as well as in thy little desk; and take them out in quiet hours, and kiss them, and bless Heaven for giving thee such jewels? I daresay. I can fancy all this, without seeing it. I can read the little letters in the little desk, without picking lock or breaking seal. Poor little letters! Sometimes they are not spelt right, quite; but I don’t know that the style is worse for that. Poor little letters! You are flung to the winds sometimes and forgotten with all your sweet secrets and loving artless confessions; but not always—no, not always. As for Philip, who was the most careless creature alive, and left all his clothes and haberdashery sprawling on his bed-room floor, he had at this time a breast-pocket stuffed out with papers which crackled in the most ridiculous way. He was always looking down at this precious pocket, and putting one of his great hands over it as though he would guard it. The pocket did not contain bank-notes, you may be sure of that. It contained documents stating that mamma’s cold is better; the Joneses came to tea, and Julia sang, &c. Ah, friend, however old you are now, however cold you are now, however tough, I hope you, too, remember how Julia sang, and the Joneses came to tea.

Mr. Philip stayed on week after week, declaring to my wife that she was a perfect angel for keeping him so long. Bunch wrote from his boarding-house more and more enthusiastic reports about the comforts of the establishment. For his sake, Madame la Baronne de Smolensk would make unheard-of sacrifices, in order to accommodate the general and his distinguished party. The balls were going to be perfectly splendid that winter. There were several old Indians living near; in fact, they could form a regular little club. It was agreed that Baynes should go and reconnoitre the ground. He did go. Madame de Smolensk, a most elegant woman, had a magnificent dinner for him—quite splendid, I give you my word, but only what they have every day. Soup, of course, my love; fish, capital wine, and, I should say, some five or six and thirty made dishes. The general was quite enraptured. Bunch had put his boys to a famous school, where they might “whop” the French boys, and learn all the modern languages. The little ones would dine early; the baroness would take the whole family at an astonishingly cheap rate. In a word, the Baynes’ column got the route for Paris shortly before our family-party was crossing the seas to return to London fogs and duty.

You have, no doubt, remarked how, under certain tender circumstances, women will help one another. They help where they ought not to help. When Mr. Darby ought to be separated from Miss Joan, and the best thing that could happen for both would be a _lettre de cachet_ to whip off Mons. Darby to the Bastille for five years, and an order from her parents to lock up Mademoiselle Jeanne in a convent, some aunt, some relative, some pitying female friend is sure to be found, who will give the pair a chance of meeting, and turn her head away whilst those unhappy lovers are warbling endless good-byes close up to each other’s ears. My wife, I have said, chose to feel this absurd sympathy for the young people about whom we have been just talking. As the days for Charlotte’s departure drew near, this wretched, misguiding matron would take the girl out walking into I know not what unfrequented bye-lanes, quiet streets, rampart-nooks, and the like; and la! by the most singular coincidence, Mr. Philip’s hulking boots would assuredly come tramping after the women’s little feet. What will you say, when I tell you, that I myself, the father of the family, the renter of the old-fashioned house, Rue Roucoule, Haute Ville, Boulogne-sur-Mer—as I am going into my own study—am met at the threshold by Helen, my eldest daughter, who puts her little arms before the glass-door at which I was about to enter, and says, “You must not go in there, papa! Mamma says we none of us are to go in there.”

“And why, pray?” I ask.

“Because uncle Philip and Charlotte are talking secrets there; and nobody is to disturb them—_nobody_!”

Upon my word, wasn’t this too monstrous? Am I Sir Pandarus of Troy become? Am I going to allow a penniless young man to steal away the heart of a young girl who has not twopence halfpenny to her fortune? Shall I, I say, lend myself to this most unjustifiable intrigue?

“Sir,” says my wife (we happened to have been bred up from childhood together, and I own to have had one or two foolish initiatory flirtations before I settled down to matrimonial fidelity)—“Sir,” says she, “when you were so wild—so spoony, I think is your elegant word—about Blanche, and used to put letters into a hollow tree for her at home, I used to see the letters, and I never disturbed them. These two people have much warmer hearts, and are a great deal fonder of each other, than you and Blanche used to be. I should not like to separate Charlotte from Philip now. It is too late, sir. She can never like anybody else as she likes him. If she lives to be a hundred, she will never forget him. Why should not the poor thing be happy a little, while she may?”

An old house, with a green old courtyard and an ancient mossy wall, through breaks of which I can see the roofs and gables of the quaint old town, the city below, the shining sea, and the white English cliffs beyond; a green old courtyard, and a tall old stone house rising up in it, grown over with many a creeper on which the sun casts flickering shadows; and under the shadows, and through the glass of a tall gray window, I can just peep into a brown twilight parlour, and there I see two hazy figures by a table. One slim figure has brown hair, and one has flame-coloured whiskers. Look! a ray of sunshine has just peered into the room, and is lighting the whiskers up!

“Poor little thing,” whispers my wife, very gently. “They are going away to-morrow. Let them have their talk out. She is crying her little eyes out, I am sure. Poor little Charlotte!”

Whilst my wife was pitying Miss Charlotte in this pathetic way, and was going, I daresay, to have recourse to her own pocket-handkerchief, as I live, there came a burst of laughter from the darkling chamber where the two lovers were billing and cooing. First came Mr. Philip’s great boom (such a roar—such a haw-haw, or hee-haw, I never heard any other _two_-legged animal perform). Then follows Miss Charlotte’s tinkling peal; and presently that young person comes out into the garden, with her round face not bedewed with tears at all, but perfectly rosy, fresh, dimpled, and good-humoured. Charlotte gives me a little curtsey, and my wife a hand and a kind glance. They retreat through the open casement, twining round each other, as the vine does round the window; though which is the vine and which is the window in this simile, I pretend not to say—I can’t see through either of them, that is the truth. They pass through the parlour, and into the street beyond, doubtless: and as for Mr. Philip, I presently see _his_ head popped out of his window in the upper floor with his great pipe in his mouth. He can’t “work” without his pipe, he says; and my wife believes him. Work indeed!

Miss Charlotte paid us another little visit that evening, when we happened to be alone. The children were gone to bed. The darlings! Charlotte must go up and kiss them. Mr. Philip Firmin was out. She did not seem to miss him in the least, nor did she make a single inquiry for him. We had been so good to her—so kind. How should she ever forget our great kindness? She had been so happy—oh! so happy! She had never been so happy before. She would write often and often, and Laura would write constantly—wouldn’t she? “Yes, dear child!” says my wife. And now a little more kissing, and it is time to go home to the Tintelleries. What a lovely night! Indeed the moon was blazing in full round in the purple heavens, and the stars were twinkling by myriads.

“Good-bye, dear Charlotte; happiness go with you!” I seize her hand. I feel a paternal desire to kiss her fair, round face. Her sweetness, her happiness, her artless good-humour, and gentleness has endeared her to us all. As for me, I love her with a fatherly affection. “Stay, my dear!” I cry, with a happy gallantry. “I’ll go home with you to the Tintelleries.”

You should have seen the fair round face _then_! Such a piteous expression came over it! She looked at my wife; and as for that Mrs. Laura she pulled the tail of my coat.

“What do you mean, my dear?” I ask.

“Don’t go out on such a dreadful night. You’ll catch cold!” says Laura.

“Cold, my love!” I say. “Why, it’s as fine a night as ever——”

“Oh! you—you _stoopid_!” says Laura, and begins to laugh. And there goes Miss Charlotte tripping away from us without a word more!

Philip came in about half an hour afterwards. And do you know I very strongly suspect that he had been waiting round the corner. Few things escape _me_, you see, when I have a mind to be observant. And, certainly, if I had thought of that possibility and that I might be spoiling sport, I should not have proposed to Miss Charlotte to walk home with her.

At a very early hour on the next morning my wife arose, and spent, in my opinion, a great deal of unprofitable time, bread, butter, cold beef, mustard and salt, in compiling a heap of sandwiches, which were tied up in a copy of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. That persistence in making sandwiches, in providing cakes and other refreshments for a journey, is a strange infatuation in women; as if there was not always enough to eat to be had at road inns and railway stations! What a good dinner we used to have at Montreuil in the old days, before railways were, and when the diligence spent four or six and twenty cheerful hours on its way to Paris! I think the finest dishes are not to be compared to that well-remembered fricandeau of youth, nor do wines of the most dainty vintage surpass the rough, honest, blue ordinaire which was served at the plenteous inn-table. I took our bale of sandwiches down to the office of the Messageries, whence our friends were to start. We saw six of the Baynes family packed into the interior of the diligence; and the boys climb cheerily into the rotonde. Charlotte’s pretty lips and hands wafted kisses to us from her corner. Mrs. General Baynes commanded the column, pushed the little ones into their places in the ark, ordered the general and young ones hither and thither with her parasol, declined to give the grumbling porters any but the smallest gratuity, and talked a shrieking jargon of French and Hindustanee to the people assembled round the carriage. My wife has that command over me that she actually made me demean myself so far as to deliver the sandwich parcel to one of the Baynes boys. I said, “Take this,” and the poor wretch held out his hand eagerly, evidently expecting that I was about to tip him with a five-franc piece or some such coin. _Fouette, cocher!_ The horses squeal. The huge machine jingles over the road, and rattles down the street. Farewell, pretty Charlotte, with your sweet face and sweet voice and kind eyes! But why, pray, is Mr. Philip Firmin not here to say farewell too?

Before the diligence got under way, the Baynes boys had fought, and quarrelled, and wanted to mount on the imperial or cabriolet of the carriage, where there was only one passenger as yet. But the conductor called the lads off, saying that the remaining place was engaged by a gentleman, whom they were to take up on the road. And who should this turn out to be? Just outside the town a man springs up to the imperial; his light luggage, it appears, was on the coach already, and that luggage belonged to Philip Firmin. Ah, monsieur! and that was the reason, was it, why they were so merry yesterday—the parting day? Because they were not going to part just then. Because, when the time of execution drew near, they had managed to smuggle a little reprieve! Upon my conscience, I never heard of such imprudence in the whole course of my life! Why, it is starvation—certain misery to one and the other. “I don’t like to meddle in other people’s affairs,” I say to my wife; “but I have no patience with such folly, or with myself for not speaking to General Baynes on the subject. I shall write to the general.”

“My dear, the general knows all about it,” says Charlotte’s, Philip’s (in my opinion) most injudicious friend. “We have talked about it, and, like a man of sense, the general makes light of it. ‘Young folks will be young folks,’ he says; ‘and, by George! ma’am, when I married—I should say, when Mrs. B. ordered me to marry her—she had nothing, and I but my captain’s pay. People get on, somehow. Better for a young man to marry, and keep out of idleness and mischief; and, I promise you, the chap who marries my girl gets a treasure. I like the boy for the sake of my old friend Phil Ringwood. I don’t see that the fellows with the rich wives are much the happier, or that men should wait to marry until they are gouty old rakes.’ And, it appears, the general instanced several officers of his own acquaintance; some of whom had married when they were young and poor; some who had married when they were old and sulky; some who had never married at all. And he mentioned his comrade, my own uncle, the late Major Pendennis, whom he called a selfish old creature, and hinted that the major had jilted some lady in early life, whom he would have done much better to marry.”

And so Philip is actually gone after his charmer, and is pursuing her _summâ diligentiâ_? The Baynes family has allowed this penniless young law student to make love to their daughter, to accompany them to Paris, to appear as the almost recognized son of the house. “Other people, when they were young, wanted to make imprudent marriages,” says my wife (as if that wretched _tu quoque_ were any answer to my remark!) “This penniless law student might have a good sum of money if he chose to press the Baynes family to pay him what, after all, they owe him.” And so poor little Charlotte was to be her father’s ransom! To be sure, little Charlotte did not object to offer herself up in payment of her papa’s debt! And though I objected as a moral man and a prudent man, and a father of a family, I could not be very seriously angry. I am secretly of the disposition of the time-honoured _père de famille_ in the comedies, the irascible old gentleman in the crop wig and George-the-Second coat, who is always menacing “Tom the young dog” with his cane. When the deed is done, and Miranda (the little sly-boots!) falls before my squaretoes and shoe-buckles, and Tom the young dog kneels before me in his white ducks, and they cry out in a pretty chorus, “Forgive us, grandpapa!” I say, “Well, you rogue, boys will be boys. Take her, sirrah! Be happy with her; and, hark ye! in this pocket-book you will find ten thousand,” &c. &c. You all know the story: I cannot help liking it, however old it may be. In love, somehow, one is pleased that young people should dare a little. Was not Bessy Eldon famous as an economist, and Lord Eldon celebrated for wisdom and caution? and did not John Scott marry Elizabeth Surtees when they had scarcely twopence a year between them? “Of course, my dear,” I say to the partner of my existence, “now this madcap fellow is utterly ruined, now is the very time he ought to marry. The accepted doctrine is that a man should spend his own fortune, then his wife’s fortune, and then he may begin to get on at the bar. Philip has a hundred pounds, let us say; Charlotte has nothing; so that in about six weeks we may look to hear of Philip being in successful practice——”

“Successful nonsense!” cries the lady. “Don’t go on like a cold-blooded calculating machine! You don’t believe a word of what you say, and a more imprudent person never lived than you yourself were as a young man.” This was departing from the question, which women will do. “Nonsense!” again says my romantic being of a partner-of-existence. “Don’t tell ME, sir. They WILL be provided for! Are we to be for ever taking care of the morrow, and not trusting that we shall be cared for? _You_ may call your way of thinking prudence. I call it _sinful worldliness_, sir.” When my life-partner speaks in a certain strain, I know that remonstrance is useless, and argument unavailing, and I generally resort to cowardly subterfuges, and sneak out of the conversation by a pun, a side joke, or some other flippancy. Besides, in this case, though I argue against my wife, my sympathy is on her side. I know Mr. Philip is imprudent and headstrong, but I should like him to succeed, and be happy. I own he is a scapegrace, but I wish him well.

So, just as the diligence of Laffitte and Caillard is clearing out of Boulogne town, the conductor causes the carriage to stop, and a young fellow has mounted up on the roof in a twinkling; and the postilion says, “Hi!” to his horses, and away those squealing greys go clattering. And a young lady, happening to look out of one of the windows of the intérieur, has perfectly recognized the young gentleman who leaped up to the roof so nimbly; and the two boys who were in the rotonde would have recognized the gentleman, but that they were already eating the sandwiches which my wife had provided. And so the diligence goes on, until it reaches that hill, where the girls used to come and offer to sell you apples; and some of the passengers descend and walk, and the tall young man on the roof jumps down, and approaches the party in the interior, and a young lady cries out, “La!” and her mamma looks impenetrably grave, and not in the least surprised; and her father gives a wink of one eye, and says, “It’s him, is it, by George!” and the two boys coming out of the rotonde, their mouths full of sandwich, cry out, “Hullo! It’s Mr. Firmin.”

“How do you do, ladies?” he says, blushing as red as an apple, and his heart thumping—but that may be from walking up hill. And he puts a hand towards the carriage-window, and a little hand comes out and lights on his. And Mrs. General Baynes, who is reading a religious work, looks up and says, “Oh! how do you do, Mr. Firmin?” And this is the remarkable dialogue that takes place. It is not very witty; but Philip’s tones send a rapture into one young heart: and when he is absent, and has climbed up to his place in the cabriolet, the kick of his boots on the roof gives the said young heart inexpressible comfort and consolation. Shine stars and moon. Shriek grey horses through the calm night. Snore sweetly, papa and mamma, in your corners, with your pocket-handkerchiefs tied round your old fronts! I suppose, under all the stars of heaven, there is nobody more happy than that child in that carriage—that wakeful girl, in sweet maiden meditation—who has given her heart to the keeping of the champion who is so near her. Has he not been always their champion and preserver? Don’t they owe to his generosity everything in life? One of the little sisters wakes wildly, and cries in the night, and Charlotte takes the child into her arms and soothes her. “Hush, dear! He’s there—he’s there,” she whispers, as she bends over the child. Nothing wrong can happen with _him_ there, she feels. If the robbers were to spring out from yonder dark pines, why, he would jump down, and they would all fly before him! The carriage rolls on through sleeping villages, and as the old team retires all in a halo of smoke, and the fresh horses come clattering up to their pole, Charlotte sees a well-known white face in the gleam of the carriage lanterns. Through the long avenues, the great vehicle rolls on its course. The dawn peers over the poplars: the stars quiver out of sight: the sun is up in the sky, and the heaven is all in a flame. The night is over—the night of nights. In all the round world, whether lighted by stars or sunshine, there were not two people more happy than these had been.

A very short time afterwards, at the end of October, our own little sea-side sojourn came to an end. That astounding bill for broken glass, chairs, crockery, was paid. The London steamer takes us all on board on a beautiful, sunny autumn evening, and lands us at the Custom-house Quay in the midst of a deep, dun fog, through which our cabs have to work their way over greasy pavements, and bearing two loads of silent and terrified children. Ah, that return, if but after a fortnight’s absence and holiday! Oh, that heap of letters lying in a ghastly pile, and yet so clearly visible in the dim twilight of master’s study! We cheerfully breakfast by candlelight for the first two days after my arrival at home, and I have the pleasure of cutting a part of my chin off because it is too dark to shave at nine o’clock in the morning.

My wife can’t be so unfeeling as to laugh and be merry because I have met with an accident which temporarily disfigures me? If the dun fog makes her jocular, she has a very queer sense of humour. She has a letter before her, over which she is perfectly radiant. When she is especially pleased I can see by her face and a particular animation and affectionateness towards the rest of the family. On this present morning her face beams out of the fog-clouds. The room is illuminated by it, and perhaps by the two candles which are placed one on either side of the urn. The fire crackles, and flames, and spits most cheerfully; and the sky without, which is of the hue of brown paper, seems to set off the brightness of the little interior scene.

“A letter from Charlotte, papa,” cries one little girl, with an air of consequence. “And a letter from uncle Philip, papa!” cries another; “and they like Paris so much,” continues the little reporter.

“And there, sir, didn’t I tell you?” cries the lady, handing me over a letter.

“Mamma always told you so,” echoes the child, with an important nod of the head; “and I shouldn’t be surprised if he were to be _very rich_, should you, mamma?” continues this arithmetician.

I would not put Miss Charlotte’s letter into print if I could, for do you know that little person’s grammar was frequently incorrect; there were three or four words spelt wrongly; and the letter was so _scored_ and _marked_ with _dashes_ under _every_ other _word_, that it is clear to me her education had been neglected; and as I am very fond of her, I do not wish to make fun of her. And I can’t print Mr. Philip’s letter, for I haven’t kept it. Of what use keeping letters? I say, Burn, burn, burn. No heart-pangs. No reproaches. No yesterday. Was it happy, or miserable? To think of it is always melancholy. Go to! I daresay it is the thought of that fog, which is making this sentence so dismal. Meanwhile there is Madam Laura’s face smiling out of the darkness, as pleased as may be; and no wonder, she is always happy when her friends are so.

Charlotte’s letter contained a full account of the settlement of the Baynes family at Madame Smolensk’s boarding-house, where they appear to have been really very comfortable, and to have lived at a very cheap rate. As for Mr. Philip, he made his way to a crib, to which his artist friends had recommended him, on the Faubourg St. Germain side of the water—the Hotel Poussin, in the street of that name, which lies, you know, between the Mazarin Library and the Musée des Beaux Arts. In former days, my gentleman had lived in state and bounty in the English hotels and quarter. Now he found himself very handsomely lodged for thirty francs per month, and with five or six pounds, he has repeatedly said since, he could carry through the month very comfortably. I don’t say, my young traveller, that _you_ can be so lucky now-a-days. Are we not telling a story of twenty years ago? Aye marry. Ere steam-coaches had begun to scream on French rails; and when Louis Philippe was king.

As soon as Mr. Philip Firmin is ruined he must needs fall in love. In order to be near the beloved object, he must needs follow her to Paris, and give up his promised studies for the bar at home; where, to do him justice, I believe the fellow would never have done any good. And he has not been in Paris a fortnight when that fantastic jade Fortune, who had seemed to fly away from him, gives him a smiling look of recognition, as if to say, “Young gentleman, I have not quite done with you.”

The good fortune was not much. Do not suppose that Philip suddenly drew a twenty-thousand pound prize in a lottery. But, being in much want of money, he suddenly found himself enabled to earn some in a way pretty easy to himself.

In the first place, Philip found his friends Mr. and Mrs. Mugford in a bewildered state in the midst of Paris, in which city Mugford would never consent to have a _laquais de place_, being firmly convinced to the day of his death that he knew the French language quite sufficiently for all purposes of conversation. Philip, who had often visited Paris before, came to the aid of his friends in a two-franc dining-house, which he frequented for economy’s sake; and they, because they thought the banquet there provided not only cheap, but most magnificent and satisfactory. He interpreted for them, and rescued them from their perplexity, whatever it was. He treated them handsomely to caffy on the bullyvard, as Mugford said on returning home and in recounting the adventure to me. “He can’t forget that he has been a swell: and he does do things like a gentleman, that Firmin does. He came back with us to our hotel—Meurice’s,” said Mr. Mugford, “and who should drive into the yard and step out of his carriage but Lord Ringwood—you know Lord Ringwood; everybody knows him. As he gets out of his carriage—‘What! is that you, Philip?’ says his lordship, giving the young fellow his hand. ‘Come and breakfast with me to-morrow morning.’ And away he goes most friendly.”

How came it to pass that Lord Ringwood, whose instinct of self-preservation was strong—who, I fear, was rather a selfish nobleman—and who, of late, as we have heard, had given orders to refuse Mr. Philip entrance at his door—should all of a sudden turn round and greet the young man with cordiality? In the first place, Philip had never troubled his lordship’s knocker at all; and second, as luck would have it, on this very day of their meeting his lordship had been to dine with that well-known Parisian resident and _bon vivant_, my Lord Viscount Trim, who had been governor of the Sago Islands when Colonel Baynes was there with his regiment, the gallant 100th. And the general and his old West India governor meeting at church, my Lord Trim straightway asked General Baynes to dinner, where Lord Ringwood was present, along with other distinguished company, whom at present we need not particularize. Now it has been said that Philip Ringwood, my lord’s brother, and Captain Baynes in early youth had been close friends, and that the colonel had died in the captain’s arms. Lord Ringwood, who had an excellent memory when he chose to use it, was pleased on this occasion to remember General Baynes and his intimacy with his brother in old days. And of those old times they talked; the general waxing more eloquent, I suppose, than his wont over Lord Trim’s excellent wine. And in the course of conversation Philip was named, and the general, warm with drink, poured out a most enthusiastic eulogium on his young friend, and mentioned how noble and self-denying Philip’s conduct had been in his own case. And perhaps Lord Ringwood was pleased at hearing these praises of his brother’s grandson; and perhaps he thought of old times, when he had a heart, and he and his brother loved each other. And though he might think Philip Firmin an absurd young blockhead for giving up any claims which he might have on General Baynes, at any rate I have no doubt his lordship thought, ‘This boy is not likely to come begging money from me!’ Hence, when he drove back to his hotel on the very night after this dinner, and in the court-yard saw that Philip Firmin, his brother’s grandson, the heart of the old nobleman was smitten with a kindly sentiment, and he bade Philip to come and see him.

I have described some of Philip’s oddities, and amongst these was a very remarkable change in his appearance, which ensued very speedily after his ruin. I know that the greater number of story readers are young, and those who are ever so old remember that their own young days occurred but a very, very short while ago. Don’t you remember, most potent, grave, and reverend senior, when you were a junior, and actually rather pleased with new clothes? Does a new coat or a waistcoat cause you any pleasure now? To a well-constituted middle-aged gentleman, I rather trust a smart new suit causes a sensation of uneasiness—not from the tightness of the fit, which may be a reason—but from the gloss and splendour. When my late kind friend, Mrs. ——, gave me the emerald tabinet waistcoat, with the gold shamrocks, I wore it once to go to Richmond to dine with her; but I buttoned myself so closely in an upper coat, that I am sure nobody in the omnibus saw what a painted vest I had on. Gold sprigs and emerald tabinet, what a gorgeous raiment! It has formed for ten years the chief ornament of my wardrobe; and though I have never dared to wear it since, I always think with a secret pleasure of possessing that treasure. Do women, when they are sixty, like handsome and fashionable attire, and a youthful appearance? Look at Lady Jezebel’s blushing cheek, her raven hair, her splendid garments! But this disquisition may be carried to too great a length. I want to note a fact which has occurred not seldom in my experience—that men who have been great dandies will often and suddenly give up their long-accustomed splendour of dress, and walk about, most happy and contented, with the shabbiest of coats and hats. No. The majority of men are not vain about their dress. For instance, within a very few years, men used to have pretty feet. See in what a resolute way they have kicked their pretty boots off almost to a man, and wear great, thick, formless, comfortable walking boots, of shape scarcely more graceful than a tub!

When Philip Firmin first came on the town there were dandies still; there were dazzling waistcoats of velvet and brocade, and tall stocks with cataracts of satin; there were pins, studs, neck-chains, I know not what fantastic splendours of youth. His varnished boots grew upon forests of trees. He had a most resplendent silver-gilt dressing-case, presented to him by his father (for which, it is true, the doctor neglected to pay, leaving that duty to his son). “It is a mere ceremony,” said the worthy doctor, “a cumbrous thing you may fancy at first; but take it about with you. It looks well on a man’s dressing-table at a country house. It _poses_ a man, you understand. I have known women come in and peep at it. A trifle you may say, my boy; but what is the use of flinging any chance in life away?” Now, when misfortune came, young Philip flung away all these magnificent follies. He wrapped himself _virtute suâ_; and I am bound to say a more queer-looking fellow than friend Philip seldom walked the pavement of London or Paris. He could not wear the nap off all his coats, or rub his elbows into rags in six months; but, as he would say of himself with much simplicity, “I do think I run to seed more quickly than any fellow I ever knew. All my socks in holes, Mrs. Pendennis; all my shirt-buttons gone, I give you my word. I don’t know how the things hold together, and why they don’t tumble to pieces. I suspect I must have a bad laundress.” Suspect! My children used to laugh and crow as they sewed buttons on to him. As for the Little Sister, she broke into his apartments in his absence, and said that it turned her hair grey to see the state of his poor wardrobe. I believe that Mrs. Brandon put in surreptitious linen into his drawers. He did not know. He wore the shirts in a contented spirit. The glossy boots began to crack and then to burst, and Philip wore them with perfect equanimity. Where were the beautiful lavender and lemon gloves of last year? His great naked hands (with which he gesticulates so grandly) were as brown as an Indian’s now. We had liked him heartily in his days of splendour; we loved him now in his threadbare suit.

I can fancy the young man striding into the room where his lordship’s guests were assembled. In the presence of great or small, Philip has always been entirely unconcerned, and he is one of the half-dozen men I have seen in my life upon whom rank made no impression. It appears that, on occasion of this breakfast, there were one or two dandies present who were aghast at Philip’s freedom of behaviour. He engaged in conversation with a famous French statesman; contradicted him with much energy in his own language; and when the statesman asked whether monsieur was membre du Parlement? Philip burst into one of his roars of laughter, which almost breaks the glasses on a table, and said, “Je suis journaliste, monsieur, à vos ordres!” Young Timbury of the embassy was aghast at Philip’s insolence; and Dr. Botts, his lordship’s travelling physician, looked at him with a terrified face. A bottle of claret was brought, which almost all the gentlemen present began to swallow, until Philip, tasting his glass, called out, “Faugh. It’s corked!” “So it is, and very badly corked,” growls my lord, with one of his usual oaths. “Why didn’t some of you fellows speak? Do you like corked wine?” There were gallant fellows round that table who would have drunk corked black dose, had his lordship professed to like senna. The old host was tickled and amused. “Your mother was a quiet soul, and your father used to bow like a dancing-master. You ain’t much like him. I dine at home most days. Leave word in the morning with my people, and come when you like, Philip,” he growled. A part of this news Philip narrated to us in his letter, and other part was given verbally by Mr. and Mrs. Mugford on their return to London. “I tell you, sir,” says Mugford, “he has been taken by the hand by some of the tiptop people, and I have booked him at three guineas a week for a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_.”

And this was the cause of my wife’s exultation and triumphant “Didn’t I tell you?” Philip’s foot was on the ladder; and who so capable of mounting to the top? When happiness and a fond and lovely girl were waiting for him there, would he lose heart, spare exertion, or be afraid to climb? He had no truer well-wisher than myself, and no friend who liked him better, though, I daresay, many admired him much more than I did. But these were women for the most part; and women become so absurdly unjust and partial to persons whom they love, when these latter are in misfortune, that I am surprised Mr. Philip did not quite lose his head in his poverty, with such fond flatterers and sycophants round about him. Would you grudge him the consolation to be had from these sweet uses of adversity? Many a heart would be hardened but for the memory of past griefs; when eyes, now averted, perhaps, were full of sympathy, and hands, now cold, were eager to soothe and succour.

The Dissolution of the Union.

Hardly any event, even in these days of great events, is more melancholy or memorable than the disruption of the United States. The history of England is entitled (with a doubtful exception in favour of that of Rome) to be considered as the most important chapter in the annals of the human race; for it describes the growth of institutions and the development of principles by which the largest and far the most flourishing part of mankind regulate their affairs. In another century, our language and literature, and, to a great extent, our laws and institutions, will express the thoughts and control the conduct of the population of more than half the world; and we have, therefore, an interest closely resembling that which connects blood relations in the prosperity of the great nations sprung from the same stock as ourselves.

To every one who takes this view of the feelings which ought to exist between England and the United States, it must be matter of sincere regret that anything should diminish the friendliness of our relations. There is, however, reason to fear that the Americans have been deeply mortified by the feeling with which the secession of the Southern States has been regarded in this country; and if newspaper articles are taken as sufficient evidence of public feeling on the subject, it must be admitted that the feeling, if not wise, is at least intelligible. Our principal journals have, no doubt, uniformly treated the disruption of the Union and the prospect of civil war as great evils; but they have frequently taken a ground which is not in itself reasonable, and which to all Americans, and especially to all Northerners, must be excessively offensive, respecting the whole dispute. They almost invariably discuss the subject as if the case were the simple one of a dependency wishing to free itself from the yoke of a superior, and they constantly dwell upon that most inconclusive and irritating of all topics, the charge of inconsistency. With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can you Americans object to the secession of the Southern States, when your own nation was founded in secession from the British empire? It would be as reasonable to ask how a man, who has successfully defended one action, can ever have the face to be plaintiff in another. The fact, that resistance to a constituted government may sometimes be right, no more proves that it can never be wrong, than the fact that it is right to shoot an invader proves that there is no such crime as murder. The analogy between George III. and Washington, and President Lincoln and President Davis, is just near enough to be at once delusive and annoying. If the object is to vex the Americans, and chuckle with more or less ingenuity over their troubles, the course which our most influential papers have taken is a wise one. If we wish to understand the merits of the question, and the way in which it presents itself to those whom it principally concerns, we must take a very different view of it.

To Englishmen in general, American politics present a sort of maze without a plan. The strange names of Indian places and rulers were described by Sydney Smith as non-conductors of sympathy, and in American politics a somewhat similar effect is produced by the opposite cause. There is nothing impressive in the names of the politicians, and nothing distinctive in their measures. Men are elected to high office, who, beyond their own State, were utterly unknown; and the announcement of their respective “platforms” and “tickets” leaves most English readers of American news as hopelessly in the dark as if it were made in some unknown tongue.

Much of this confusion is undoubtedly due to the general ignorance which prevails in this country as to the nature and gist of American politics. Hardly any one knows what is the real nature of the Union—how it is related to the individual States—what are the sort of questions which arise out of that relation, and what would be implied in its disruption. In the absence of a clear general view of these matters, it is idle to attempt to form an opinion on the present condition of the seceding States, or to criticize the policy of those who wish either to destroy or to maintain the Union by force of arms. It is the object of this paper to give a general sketch of these matters in relation to the present state of affairs. The United States of America formed, up to the time of the late secession, a body politic of an unexampled kind. Both in ancient and modern times confederacies have frequently been established. The old German empire, the existing Germanic Confederation, Switzerland, and the Dutch United Provinces, are instances. The United States of America are distinguished from other confederacies by the circumstance that they exercise a direct jurisdiction not only over the States, but also over the individuals who compose those States. This distinction is one of practical and substantial importance; and without a distinct notion of the way in which it works the character of the Union and its politics can hardly be understood. Its leading features are shortly as follows.

The colonial history of the United States supplies several instances in which they associated themselves together for common defence. The New England colonies did so in the seventeenth century, and their association lasted without the notice of the mother country for forty years. Another union of a somewhat similar kind was attempted in the course of the eighteenth century, not out of any feeling of hostility to Great Britain, but simply for purposes of mutual assistance. During the War of Independence a third confederacy was formed, by the help of which the struggle with England was brought to a successful conclusion. Subsequently to the year 1783 the league between the thirteen States continued under another form; but their connection, as in former cases, was nothing more than a confederacy the units of which were States, and not individuals. The constitution which is at present undergoing the process of dissolution was framed by the principal statesmen of the nation in 1787, and by June, 1790, was finally ratified and accepted by all the States. No one who reads it with attention, and follows out its practical application in the subsequent history and present condition of the States, can fail to see that the language common amongst Englishmen in relation to the dissolution of the Union proceeds upon an inadequate notion of the importance of the benefits which the constitution confers, the magnitude of the interests which it protects, and the practical importance of the questions which would be at once raised by its dissolution. There cannot be a greater mistake than that of viewing the States as a mere league, some of the members of which are struggling to retain the rest as allies against their will; or as a sort of transatlantic Austria, insisting on the subjugation of a transatlantic Venice.

The following sketch of the principal provisions of the constitution may serve to give a definite notion of what it is for which the Northerners are preparing to fight. Every one knows that the United States are governed by a President and a Congress, consisting of two Houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives; but viewing them, as we naturally do, principally from without, the way in which the powers of government are divided between Congress and the State legislatures, and the consequences which that division involves, are less familiar to us.

The powers conferred by the constitution on Congress are as follows. It may impose taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, which, however, must be uniform on all the inhabitants of the States. It may borrow money on the credit of the United States of America. It may regulate commerce, lay down a general rule of naturalization, regulate the coinage, and punish offences relating to it. It has also the care of post-offices and post roads, and the superintendence of copyright, both in books and in inventions. It has jurisdiction over offences committed at sea. It has the power of war and peace, the control of the United States’ army and navy, and military law. It regulates the calling out and the organization of the State militia for common purposes. It is the sole government of the district of Columbia, in which Washington is situated; and it has power to make laws binding on the individual citizens of every State in the Union, for the purpose of executing any of these powers. All sovereign powers not included under these heads are reserved to the individual States, but they are expressly prohibited from exercising their sovereignty in certain ways. No State may enter into alliances, or make peace or war, or emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, or pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_ law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

It has not been uncommon in Europe for States to give themselves constitutions which have been ridiculed in this country (often not reasonably) on the ground that the provisions which had the largest sound were in fact mere empty words. This cannot be said of the American constitution. Its practical efficiency is secured by the only means which can secure it—the institution of independent courts of justice bound to put a judicial construction upon its provisions, and armed with the powers necessary to make that construction prevail in fact. These courts treat the constitution as they would treat any other law, and freely exercise the power of deciding whether the acts of the individual States, or even those of Congress itself, are unconstitutional and therefore illegal. The courts in question are divisible into three classes. In the first class stands the Supreme Court of the United States; in the second are the circuit courts; and in the third, the district courts. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in diplomatic cases, in admiralty and maritime cases, in cases arising between individual States, and in cases in which the United States are a party. It also entertains appeals from the circuit and district courts. The circuit courts and district courts are local, and closely resemble each other in the general character of their jurisdiction, though the circuit courts are the more important of the two. They entertain all civil causes above 500 dollars in which the United States is a party, or in which an alien is a party, or in which the citizen of one State sues the citizen of another. They have also criminal jurisdiction in all cases in which the offence is committed against the laws of the United States, and they decide questions relating to revenue laws and the laws of patents and copyrights. In the territories which are not yet formed into States the law is administered by district courts.

The consequence of this system is, that in relation to all the mass of powers conferred upon Congress by the constitution, the citizens of the United States are governed by, and are in their individual capacity responsible to, the authorities of the United States to the exclusion of those of their own States, and in many points they can appeal not only from the law courts, but from the State legislatures, to the general law of the United States. For example: Dartmouth College obtained from the Supreme Court a decision that a law of the State of New Hampshire, by which its charter was altered without its consent, was void, as being opposed to that article of the constitution which prohibits the States from “passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts.” In the same manner another State assigned lands for the use of the Indians, and declared that those lands should not be taxed. The land was afterwards sold to other persons, and after the sale the State repealed the law freeing the land from taxation. This law was held to be void on the same ground.

The constitutional right of Congress to tax carriages in a particular manner, to tax unrepresented districts, to pass a law giving debts to the United States priority over others, and to incorporate a national bank, are instances of the sort of questions on which the Supreme Court has given judicial decisions. These decisions, whether they are between State and State, between the United States and some particular State, or between States and individuals, are enforced by regular executive officers like any other judicial decisions.

The practical consequences of the system, of which these are a few of the most prominent features, are far more important than the language which we generally use about it would imply. We are so much accustomed to the extraordinary rapidity with which the United States advance in wealth and power, that we are a little apt to look upon their prosperity as an ultimate fact requiring no explanation. In fact, like everything else, it has its causes, and, no doubt, one of the most important of them is the influence of the Union. There can be no doubt that it contributes immensely to the prosperity of every State which belongs to it, and that its maintenance forms almost the only means by which the settlement and government of the continent can be provided for. In the first place, so long as it exists, war between any of the States which compose it is impossible. If we recollect what has been the general character of the history of modern Europe, this in itself must be considered as an advantage which can hardly be bought too dear. In the next place, it provides every American citizen with a sphere of activity unequalled for extent and variety in the history of mankind. He may make his choice between more than thirty great nations, of any one of which he can, by mere residence, constitute himself a citizen. In each of them he is as much at home as an Englishman in Ireland, if not more. In each he is, to a great extent, under the same laws; he enjoys the same political rights; and the most important of these are guaranteed by all the other members of the Union. Under any circumstances, these would be valuable results; but, under the special circumstances of North America, their value is greatly enhanced. The population is by far the most migratory in the world. It is inordinately bent upon every kind of enterprise by which money is to be made, and the consequence is that anything which could shackle the free movement of the people to any part of the country, or diminish the ease with which they can at present establish themselves wherever they please, would be intolerable to them. The existence of the Union favours these tendencies in the highest degree. Its dissolution would place a serious check upon them. The existing constitution not only protects the whole of the United States from intestine war, but gives to each of them, and to all the citizens of each, rights which are unexampled elsewhere. We are so much accustomed to think and speak of the United States as a single nation, that we forget the means by which they gained, and by which (if at all) they must retain, that character. There is no other part of the world in which communities larger and more powerful than most nations can settle their differences with each other and with individuals by the ordinary course of law, in the proper sense of the word, and not by diplomatic negotiations. It is, for many purposes, as easy to sue or to be sued by the semi-sovereign States of the American Union as to sue or be sued by an English corporation; and this circumstance enables a set of relations to be formed amongst them which do not exist elsewhere, and invests them, when they are formed, with guarantees which but for the existence of the Union could not be given. When we remember the vital importance which, under the special circumstances of the country, attaches to roads, railways, the navigation of the great rivers and lakes, and other matters, in each of which numerous half-independent States have different and often jarring interests, the practical importance of a system of judicature by which their relations may be regulated becomes apparent. Probably there is no considerable commercial company in the Union which would not find the security of its property depreciated, and its power of enforcing its rights and guaranteeing the discharge of its obligations sensibly diminished, by the dissolution of the Union, and the closing of the Federal courts.

With regard to foreign politics, the matter is too plain for doubt. The dissolution of the Union would go far to destroy altogether the diplomatic influence and external political power of the United States; and, indeed, some influential writers have gone so far as to maintain that such a result ought to be regarded in this country not merely with equanimity but with satisfaction. It would, we are told, diminish the insolence and the swagger which so often offend foreigners. Whatever truth there may be in this, it must be gall and wormwood to Americans.

Such being the general nature and advantages of the Union, it is not to be expected that the Americans in general should view its dissolution with equanimity; nor can there be a doubt that if they mean to resist it by force, now is the time at which that force must be used. If the Southern States were allowed to secede without resistance, the Union would be at an end, and it is impossible to predict where the process of dissolution would stop. The history of the Union shows that slavery is by no means the only question which may threaten its integrity. At the time of the Hartford Convention the New England States seriously threatened secession. If the Southerners succeed in their present undertaking, it is highly probable that the Western States, of which the Mississippi is the natural outlet, may follow their example, and if they did so the process might easily go farther.

These considerations explain the importance which the Americans attach to the Union, and the necessity under which they are placed of defending it by force at this point if they mean to defend it at all. It is urged in opposition to this, that it is inconsistent in republicans to attempt to force men to continue members of a community which they wish to leave, and that it is particularly inconsistent in the Americans to do so, because they owe their own national existence to a revolt against Great Britain. There are several independent answers to this argument, each of which ought to prevent either _bonâ-fide_ inquirers or accurate reasoners from using it. In the first place, it proves nothing, for the question is not whether the Americans are consistent, but whether they are right—that is, whether they are taking the course which is, on the whole, best and wisest. To charge them with inconsistency, even if the charge were true, could produce nothing but irritation; for if such a charge were made out, it would come to this: “You are quite right in trying to reduce the South to obedience, but you must admit that the principles which your grandfathers fought for in 1776 were false.” If they are right, what is the use of vexing them about their grandfathers? If they are wrong, why increase the difficulty of convincing them by undertaking to show that the error is condemned by the example of their grandfathers? The whole argument is invidious, and serves no other purpose than that of creating prejudice and rancour.

In the second place the charge is altogether untrue. The tone of jovial, half-chuckling banter which is the curse of newspaper writing, so much obscures the arguments which are put forward on this subject, that it is generally difficult to do exact justice to them. Sometimes it appears as if the writer meant to say that under a republican form of government no one ought to be made to do anything he disliked. This, of course, would be fatal not only to the rights of such governments to suppress insurrection, but to their right to administer civil or criminal justice. At other times the ground taken appears to be substantially this—that republican institutions generally, and the government of the United States in particular, are founded on the principle that every body of men competent in point of number and local situation to form an independent political body, has a right, as against any other body of which it forms a part, to announce its intention of doing so, and immediately to carry that intention into execution, and that the body of which it forms a part has no right forcibly to prevent it. This, it is asserted, is the only principle on which the American Declaration of Independence can be justified, and it equally justifies the Confederate States in seceding from the Union.

This argument proceeds on an entire misconception of the principles by which nations ought to regulate their relations to each other. The conduct of independent communities towards each other must, on all occasions of importance, be regulated not by rule, but by direct reference to the principles upon which rules are founded; that is to say, by the direct consideration of the consequences of the particular act; and it is by this principle, and not in virtue of some imaginary right, that successful resistance to constituted authorities is to be justified. The establishment of American independence was, on the whole, a good thing both for Great Britain and for the United States; and this, and this only, was the justification of those who contributed to it. How does it follow from this that the secession of the Southern States would also be justifiable? The only intelligible meaning of which the principle under consideration is capable is, that the original State ought always to consider itself practically bound by the opinion of the revolting State, that the success of their revolt is for the common good; which is manifestly absurd. There are, in truth (as might be shown by independent arguments), no such thing as rights between communities, and it is therefore absurd to charge the United States with their violation. The conduct of both, or of either party, may be wise, beneficial, honourable, deceitful, foolish, or injurious; but, apart from the express rights conferred by the constitution, which, as far as they go, are beyond all doubt in favour of the Northern States, there is, and can be, no question of right between them.

This mode of viewing the subject is that which might properly be applied to the case of a European power in which the relations between the governors and the governed have never been explicitly determined, but depend upon general principles of reasoning. For example, if Ireland were to proclaim its independence, they would supply the means of forming an opinion about it. In America the case is altogether different. There is no question of oppression; there is no assertion that the South has been in any way threatened or injured; and, on the other hand, there is a constitution solemnly instituted only seventy-five years ago, under which the Southerners have acted ever since, of which they have reaped every advantage to the very utmost, and which they now claim a right to throw to the winds, without assigning any other cause than their own will to do so. Their case is not that of resistance to authority, legitimate or illegitimate; it is the wrongful repudiation of a relationship which they have no right to dissolve. It is as if a wife, after hen-pecking her husband for twenty years, claimed a right to divorce him.

The whole history of the question of slavery and of the party questions connected with it for the last forty years are proofs of this.[1] It is far less familiar to Englishmen than from its importance it deserves to be. The names, indeed, of the Missouri Compromise, Mason and Dixie’s Line, the Border Ruffians, and the War in Kansas, are familiar enough to us all, but hardly any one attaches any definite meaning to them. The subject, however, forms a connected whole, and when its bearings are understood, it throws great light on the present proceedings, both of the North and of the South. In order to understand the matter, it is necessary to say a few words as to the constitution of Congress. Each State has in the House of Representatives one member for every 30,000 inhabitants. Three-fifths of the slaves count as inhabitants, and by this means the Southerners, though their white population is far smaller than the population of the Northern States, have about as many representatives. Moreover, each State, large or small, sends two representatives to the Senate.

When the constitution was established, slave-holding was nearly universal; but it was acknowledged by all the leading statesmen of the day, that it was an evil, though they described it as an inherited, and for the time an inevitable one. In the Northern States, where the slaves were few, and where white labour could obviously compete with that of negroes, slavery was rapidly abolished, and by degrees the distinction between slave and free States came to coincide with the distinction between North and South. As this gradually became the leading feature in American politics, the Southern States exerted themselves to the utmost to obtain a majority, or, at any rate, to secure an equality of votes, in the Senate. The only way in which this could be done was by adding to the Union as many slave States as possible. As Miss Martineau truly says, “the key to the entire policy of the United States for the last quarter of a century is the effort of the South to maintain a majority in the Senate at Washington.” The original United States, as is well known, were thirteen in number, namely, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland. The western boundaries of several of these, and especially those of Virginia, were almost entirely undefined. Soon after the recognition of independence, the boundaries of Virginia were fixed, the lands excluded thrown into a common stock, and an arrangement was made that slavery should never be established on them. Whether or no this arrangement was constitutional, is a question which has been much discussed, but it was made and has been acted on. Several States, including Ohio, Kentucky, and others, were formed out of them.

In 1803, the immense territory of Louisiana, which included not only the State so named, but districts subsequently formed into several others, was purchased by the United States from France; and in 1819, the State of Missouri, which had formed part of this territory, applied for admission to the Union, and a great debate arose as to the terms on which it was to be admitted. If it was admitted as a slave State, slavery would be in a majority in the Senate; if not, in a minority. Ultimately, it was admitted as a slave State; but, at the same time, it was provided that slavery should be prohibited in every other part of the Union north of 36° 30′ north latitude (which is known as Mason and Dixie’s line). This arrangement was made in 1819, and is the well-known Missouri compromise. Its effect was to make slavery distinctly a Southern institution, and from that time the great effort of Southern politicians has been to get into the Union as many States as possible south of 36° 30′. This was the object of almost all Southern policy for many years, and in particular was the secret of the annexation of Texas, which it was intended to form into five States, sending ten members to the Senate. At last the North, which in political warfare has always been far inferior in skill and energy to the South, tried to counteract this by adding free States on the other hand. This gave rise to what was known as the compromise of 1850. California was added on the terms of choosing its own constitution, and it chose against slavery; but this was counterbalanced by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1854, the Missouri compromise was repealed, and new States, whether north or south of 36° 30′, were allowed to choose whether they would permit slavery or not. This was at the time when Kansas and Nebraska, both of which lay to the north of that line, were on the point of becoming States. Great efforts were made, both by the North and by the South, to determine the inhabitants of Kansas to vote for slavery. On the one side, the Northerners supplied settlers; on the other, the Southerners instigated the “mean whites,” who form the most degraded class in the Southern States, to enter the territory and force the choice of the electors—an object which they effected after outrages of various kinds, which broke out at one time into a sort of small civil war.

Such have been the leading events of the controversy between the North and the South during the last forty years. Throughout the greater part, and especially throughout the latter part of it, the South have had, beyond all comparison, the larger share of the influence and power of the Union. Every successive President, for many years past, has more or less represented Southern views. The whole course of Federal legislation has been in the interests of the South. The foreign policy of the Union, especially its American policy, has been usually dictated principally by their wish to add new slave States to the Union; and even the decrees of the Supreme Court have not been free from traces of Southern influence. Many circumstances have contributed to put the South in this position; the most remarkable being the comparatively small number and superior adroitness of the Southern planters, who have much greater political aptitude and more independence than the Northern statesmen—the simplicity and directness of their political objects—and, above all, their comparative indifference to the maintenance of the Union. Though they have enjoyed to the utmost all the advantages which the Union had to give—though they have directed its policy, forced the Northern States, in the case of the Fugitive Slave Law, to discharge humiliating functions for them, and gone far towards effecting the object, to borrow a well-known expression, of “making slavery national and freedom sectional,” they care far less about the Union than the Northerners. They enjoy over them all the advantages which a simple society has over one which is at once wealthy, ambitious, and complex. The planter’s pursuits are so simple that the considerations which influence other Americans affect him but slightly. Whatever becomes of the rest of the Union, he can grow and sell his cotton, so long as he has slaves and customers. He cares, and has reason to care, comparatively little for the enterprises which excite a passionate enthusiasm amongst the Northerners, and which tend to the conversion of the whole continent, in the shortest possible space of time, into one enormous hive of moderate comfort. To the North, the dissolution of the Union means the establishment of internal frontiers, the destruction of the Federal jurisdiction, and with it a severe shock to all sorts of commercial enterprises, the opening of fruitful sources of jealousy, and the diminution of the external prestige of the nation. To the South it means nothing very formidable. As secession would be their act, and not that of their rivals, it would not hurt, but rather flatter, their national pride. They would have it in their power to reopen the slave trade; and as their internal enterprises are few, in comparison with those of the North, they would care comparatively little for the destruction of the Federal jurisdiction. These circumstances have enabled the Southerners for years to hold the threat of dissolving the Union over the North as a means of coercion, and there can be no doubt at all that the threat has been most effective. For a long period Northern politicians have made every sort of concession to the South, in order to avoid the question which is now forced upon them, for no assignable reason except that for the first time for the last quarter of a century a Northern president has been chosen.

It is scarcely possible to imagine any state of things more insufferable to men of spirit, than such a course of conduct as this. Indeed in many of the steps of the long struggle between the North and the South it is impossible to deny that the Northerners showed great want of resolution, and down to the attack on Fort Sumter they continued to display a degree of forbearance which was hardly dignified. It is of course difficult, if not impossible, for any one who was not in America, or who had not an intimate personal knowledge of the state of feeling there, to express any positive opinion as to the course of the extraordinary change which that transaction produced. It seems, however, to be like the case of a man who, after putting up with all sorts of hard words and rough conduct, is interrupted in the midst of expostulations and offers of compromise by a box on the ear. Some ridicule was cast by the English papers on what was described as the unstatesmanlike and technically legal view of the question between the North and South, and of the way in which it was to be treated, which the President put forward in his proclamation on taking office. Some of our most influential newspaper writers thought that it fell below the occasion, and that a manifesto announcing a course of policy based on general considerations would have been more appropriate. Such criticisms betray ignorance of the fundamental principles of the American constitution. The consequence of the institution of the Supreme and Federal courts, and of the reduction of the constitution to the form of a written document technically interpreted by professional lawyers, has been to remove numerous questions which we treat as questions of policy to the domain of strict law, and to invest legal doctrines with a prominence and importance unknown to any other nation. So long as no actual physical force was applied to the property or forces of the Union, the Federal law was not broken. The crime of treason is defined to consist in “levying war against the United States, or adhering to their enemies only.” The President has well-defined legal powers and responsibilities, and is bound by oath to act upon them. It is, therefore, natural enough that both he and the Northern States generally should have submitted patiently to acts on the part of the Southern States which no Continental government would have permitted on the part of any member of the nation, and which even in the British Islands would have been illegal.

The eagerness with which the Northerners deprecated “coercion” in the early stages of the business, probably showed little more than reluctance to strike the first blow. A parallel might have arisen in England in the days of the Irish volunteers before the Union. It would have been quite consistent, then, for the newspapers and men of business to entreat the Government to take every possible means of avoiding collision, to allow the volunteers to assemble and the Irish Parliament to pass any resolutions it pleased, and yet to burst out into any degree of indignation and excitement if the English troops had been actually attacked and the Lord Lieutenant shipped back to England. It is very probable that Englishmen would have been less forbearing before the blow was struck, and less noisy afterwards; but this is a mere question of temperament.

These remarks show that the Northerners are entitled to more sympathy than they have received from the most influential part of the English press. They are fighting for an object of real importance. If they were to fight at all, now is their time, and they have received for many years past a series of provocations of the most exasperating kind. It does not, however, follow from this that they are wise in fighting, nor does it follow that they have any just ground to complain of the conduct which our Government has pursued towards them. The wisdom of fighting depends principally on the prospect of success; and on that point, there can be no doubt of the great weight of the arguments pressed on the Northern States by several English papers, and especially with admirable vigour and great knowledge by the _Economist_. These difficulties may be summed up in one. The constitution of the United States proceeds on the assumption that each member of the Union wishes to maintain it. To enforce it _in invitos_ is very like a contradiction in terms. Suppose that the South is utterly defeated and crushed in the field, and that Mr. Davis and some others are hanged for treason; and, further, suppose that in the year 1864 the South succeeds, as it has so often succeeded, in electing a Southern President and out-manœuvring the North: the result would be grotesque if it were not so melancholy. It would be precisely as if a man sued successfully for the restitution of conjugal rights against a woman who, after making his life a burden to him, had left him without cause. No doubt he would get the advantage of her company at bed and board, but who would wish for it? To enforce conjugal rights against a woman bent on making her husband wretched, is in a most emphatic way cutting off one’s nose to be revenged on one’s face, and, to a cool observer, the process now going on in the States is of much the same character. This assumes success, but another familiar proverb shows how doubtful even such success as this must be. One man may take a horse to the water, but twenty cannot make him drink. If they are so minded, the North have a fair prospect of being able to crush the Southern armies, to take their forts, and to reduce any cities which may hold out; but how will they make them send members to Congress, recognize the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and admit the Federal officers who administer the offices vested by the constitution in the Congress? A permanent military occupation of every town and village in all the Southern States would be necessary to carry out these objects; and this seems to English observers to be altogether out of the question. If this difficulty were overcome, the State legislatures would still be protected by the very constitution which the army of occupation would come to enforce; nor would it be possible, without fatal inconsistency, to prohibit free discussion in newspapers, public meetings, and the like. All this would be fatal to continuous compulsion.

These observations are so obvious and weighty, that any considerate Englishman would, as far as his private opinion went, be decided by them; but those who insist upon them with so much force ought to remember that there is another side to the subject. To advise brave and high-spirited men to permit, or not to resist, the forcible, wrongful destruction of institutions to which they rightly attach the highest value, on the ground that it is extremely difficult to maintain them, is what men who recognize the claims of courage and spirit ought to be loth to do. That the North has right on its side, there can be no doubt. That it has sustained grievous wrongs and insults, is equally plain. Surely it is a question rather for them than for us, whether there is a reasonable prospect of redressing those wrongs by force of arms. A nation, like an individual, may easily overrate difficulties. It is by no means clear that the tone of the South will be so haughty as it is at present, or that their determination to resist will be unanimous after they have felt the weight of the Northern army. There is no doubt on each side a superabundance of the very fiercest kind of talk, and of protestations of unflinching constancy; but it by no means follows that it would survive the horrors of battles and sieges, and the awful prospect of servile insurrection. At any rate, no one can know whether it will or not till they try. Ireland would have been independent long ago if we had taken the advice of disinterested foreigners about it. In 1857 many writers on the Continent and in the United States supposed that they had proved in the most convincing manner that we never could reconquer India. Nothing that is worth keeping in this world can be kept without an effort; and it is premature to say that fighting is of no use till it has been fairly tried. We have a fair right to dwell on all the difficulties and horrors of the task; but in common justice it must be admitted that the North are fighting in a good cause and for a high stake.

Though it would be hard to deny that some injustice has been done to the Northerners by the tone of the most influential of our newspapers, nothing can be more false in substance or rude in manner than the imputations thrown by the Americans on the policy of the English government. There is something so puerile in the notion that the recognition of the belligerent rights of the Southerners involves an approval of their proceedings, that it is difficult to argue seriously against it. Unless the Northerners mean to execute their prisoners as murderers and traitors, they must treat them as belligerents. That is, they must recognize the very rights which they blame us for recognizing. No doubt their real grievance is that their vanity has been wounded by the manner in which their performances have been criticized by English writers. The preceding observations are intended to show how far they have a just cause of complaint, but it is highly probable that the fact that we have not taken their demonstrations in quite the same heroic vein as that in which they are made has had as much to do with their ill-temper and bad manners, as the misconception as to the true state of the case, which certainly has pervaded much of our current literature. For this cause of offence no apology and no regret is due. One of the principal services which one nation can render to another, especially where their language and literature are identical, is that of letting them know when they are exposing themselves. In America, both politics and periodical literature have fallen, to a great extent, into the hands of an ill-educated class. The excessive vulgarity of a great part of what they say and write gives far too low a notion of the strong points of the American character, and has a fatal tendency to make their policy as unworthy a representative of the real powers of their minds as their literature unquestionably is. It is very desirable that every reasonable opportunity should be taken of showing the noisy and ill-bred people who have constituted themselves the representatives of the opinions and feelings of the United States, that we rate them exactly at what they are worth, and that their brag and fustian have just as much and just as little effect upon us as the raw-head-and-bloody-bones swagger which were the precursors of the famous battle of the cabbage-garden in 1848. The proposal that the North and South should forget their differences in a joint piratical attack upon Canada and Cuba, is worthy only of the infamous source from which it proceeds. Those who make it ought to recollect that something more than newspaper articles will be wanted to conquer a British colony. Hard words seem at present to be more in their line than broken bones, and they are much less to the purpose.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _See_ Miss Martineau’s pamphlet, _A History of the American Compromises_. Reprinted, with additions, from the _Daily News_. Chapman, 1856.

Burlesques.

It is a long stride from Aristophanes to the young men who write the satirical dramatic pieces of the present day—and yet but one step. It might be a safe thing to say that that one step is from the sublime to the ridiculous; but it would scarcely be just. In one important respect Aristophanes and the burlesque writers of the present day are, like Cæsar and Pompey in the estimation of the learned negro, very much alike, especially Aristophanes. Aristophanes, who was certainly the father of the burlesque, claimed to have a moral purpose in his buffoonery; but any one who reads over his _Frogs_ or _Clouds_ must inevitably arrive at the conclusion of the candid German critic, Mueller—that in every word he wrote, and every piece of “business” he set down, the Greek author had it chiefly in view to make his audience laugh. George the Third may have been excused for regarding Wilkes as a Wilkesite; but no one knew, or ought to have known, better than Aristophanes, that Socrates was not a sophist. The burlesque writers of our day crack jokes upon Alderman Carden and Mr. Tupper, not with any hope, or design, of making the one a juster magistrate, or the other a better poet, but simply to get a laugh for the actors and for themselves. That Aristophanes had often no other aim is abundantly proved in every scene of the _Frogs_ and the _Clouds_. In the former, he claimed to have a very high purpose—nothing less than the reform of the Greek drama, which, though then only in its infancy, was said to be in a state of decline. We, in these days, deplore the decline of the drama when the stage is more than two thousand years old. Aristophanes lamented its decline when it was yet associated with wine lees and a cart. We talk fondly and regretfully of the good old days of Kemble and Kean. Aristophanes and his fellows talked of the good old times of Æschylus and Euripides. No doubt the critics in Euripides’ day sighed for the past glories of the age of Thespis. But let us see how Aristophanes set about reforming the Greek drama by means of his burlesques. In the _Frogs_, which is especially devoted to that object, we find Bacchus lamenting the decline of the tragic art. He has a great longing for Euripides, and determines to visit the infernal world and bring that much-regretted poet back to earth. He sets out in company with his servant, Xanthias, crosses the Acherusian lake in Charon’s boat, serenaded on his way by a chorus of frogs, and arrives in the Shades. Here he finds Æschylus and Euripides, and proposes that they should give him a taste of their quality. Pluto takes the chair, and the two poets stand opposite to each other and deliver the most pompous specimens of their poetical powers. They sing, they declaim, and each tries to outdo the other in fine words and ponderous sentences. They are both so very grand and so very heavy, that Bacchus is quite unable to decide between them. In this difficulty he calls for a pair of scales, and proceeds to weigh separate verses of each poet against each other; when, notwithstanding all the efforts of Euripides to produce ponderous lines, those of Æschylus always make those of his rival kick the beam. Bacchus, in the meantime, has become a convert to the merits of Æschylus, though he had sworn to Euripides to take him back with him to the upper world. So, dismissing Euripides with a parody of one of his own verses in the _Hippolytus_, Bacchus returns to the living world with Æschylus. The whole idea of this burlesque is undoubtedly well conceived, and Greek scholars can tell with what admirable felicity Aristophanes imitates the peculiarities of style of Æschylus and Euripides in the speeches he puts into their mouths; but they must, at the same time, confess that there is more of fun and banter about the whole proceeding than earnest purpose. You are made to laugh _at_ the two poets; and we can well imagine how some actor of the time, by a pompous air and manner in representing Æschylus, may have produced shouts of laughter at that poet’s expense. A parallel scene to that in the infernal regions is often witnessed in actual life in the Slave States of America. Two niggers will sit opposite to each other and talk, one against the other, for hours at a stretch, each trying to outdo his opponent in long words and fine-sounding sentences. Aristophanes just puts the two great Greek tragic poets in this ridiculous position. The ignorant who witnessed this burlesque of the _Frogs_ must have come away with the notion, not that Æschylus and Euripides were very fine and impressive poets, but that they were two pompous and ridiculous old fogies. After that affair of the scales, one is sadly inclined to question Aristophanes’ respect for these two poets.

There is a double purpose in the _Frogs_—to reform dramatic composition, and also to reform the practices of the stage. In this latter task Aristophanes shows, even more unmistakeably than in the former, that his chief aim is to raise a laugh. The Greek dramatic authors of the time had been in the habit of resorting to certain expedients of a gross and filthy character, in order to sustain the flagging interest of their plays. When Bacchus and Xanthias come on in the _Frogs_, a colloquy ensues as to the value of these expedients, and the propriety of using them. Xanthias is desirous to indulge in the usual “gags” to make the audience laugh; but Bacchus, who is anxious to reform the stage, protests against them. “Let us have no more of this sort of thing,” he says, “it is filthy and gross, and altogether unworthy of the dramatic art.” Aristophanes, however, takes good care that his two characters shall talk sufficiently about these gross practices, and he raises as much laughter by talking about them, as though he had embodied them in the dialogue and action of his play, and adopted them as his own. In the scene where Hercules pops his head out at the door and frightens Bacchus, the author forgets his high moral purpose altogether, and makes Bacchus do the very things which the _Frogs_ was written to reprobate and put down. So in the _Babylonians_ and _Acharnians_, where he attacks the demagogue Cleon, and in the _Clouds_, where he attacks Socrates, he is obviously bent upon nothing so much as the amusement of his audience at the expense of two well-known public characters. The Greek scholar, however, will judge Aristophanes by another standard. His mastery over the Attic dialect was complete, and it was all the more striking when placed in contrast with the rude Greek pronunciation and the broken Greek of foreigners. Perhaps no writer of any age combined so much exuberant wit, broad humour, playful fancy, and originality of invention, as Aristophanes. He also stands alone in his power of twisting language into new and grotesque forms. His droll imitations of animal sounds, and his eccentric verses formed of the grunts of pigs and the croaking of frogs, are quite in the spirit of our modern punning. Still it is not easy to regard him as a reformer and a regenerator of public morals, even though St. Chrysostom was wont to keep his plays under his pillow. Plutarch admired neither his puns nor his purpose. That high authority was evidently of Dr. Johnson’s opinion with respect to a punster. He regards Aristophanes’ antitheses and plays upon words as an outrage upon the language, and adds, that the “audiences which admired such a poet must have been morally and intellectually depraved.” Critics say the same thing of the audiences which admire the burlesques of the present day, but possibly with less justification.

The stage method adopted by the burlesque writers of our time is strikingly similar to that followed by Aristophanes. Scenes of dialogue and scenic display are alternated in both. In the modern burlesque, the front scenes are enlivened by broad comic duets and nigger dances. Then the “flats” are drawn off, and we have an elaborate “set”—a castle, a mountain pass, or a picturesque sea-shore, where the ballet takes the place of the Greek chorus. Thus, in the _Frogs_, we have a front scene of broad comic business between Bacchus and Xanthias, and then a grand full stage “set” of the Acherusian lake, with Charon coming alongside in his boat. Lastly, we have what the modern playbill calls a “grand transformation scene,” in the infernal regions, where blue-fire would have come in very appropriately, had it been then invented. Although the Greeks, probably, did not use scenes, but dropped the curtain between the divisions of their plays, yet some of the burlesques of Aristophanes will be found to be well adapted to the modern method. Substituting an æsthetical critic for Bacchus, and Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, or Samuel Johnson and John Dryden, for Æschylus and Euripides, very good fun might be got out of a version of the _Frogs_ at the Olympic or the Strand. It might be a question, however, if the gods would understand it. Still, if the æsthetical critic had a comic servant, and said and did such things as Bacchus says and does, he could not fail to make them laugh.

We have said that it is but one step from Aristophanes to the burlesque writers of the present time. That is, as near as possible, the truth. The Romans had no burlesque drama, in the Aristophanic sense. Their most extravagant comedies never dealt with real personages; but aimed at representing life and manners, and teaching morals by means of a dramatic fable, which was exemplary, and not didactic. They were comedies of real life, in the truest sense of the word; the puns and witticisms in which, though sometimes rather coarse and broad, as in Plautus, never bordered upon the outrageous and the extravagant. In the search for specimens of burlesque dramatic literature of the kind we are now considering, we may hop almost from Aristophanes to Gay, from the _Æolosicon_ to the _Beggar’s Opera_. As Aristophanes claimed, in the _Frogs_, to have the purpose of ridiculing the bad tragedies of the time, so Gay professed, in his _Beggar’s Opera_, to declare war against the Italian opera, which, at that time, was asserting its sway over the public taste, to the serious damage of the legitimate drama. Witnessing the _Beggar’s Opera_, as it is performed in our day, we can readily understand its great popularity on its first production. Its songs are enough to account for that. But it is certainly not easy to understand how it came to be regarded as a telling and pungent burlesque upon Italian opera. It does not turn the laugh against opera, in the shape it now assumes. When Macheath sings song after song to Polly, with a few unmeaning words of prose “dialogue” between, we have no suspicion that he is ridiculing the absurd formula of the Italian opera. The actor does nothing to indicate anything of the kind. He is solely intent on singing his songs well, and we are solely intent on hearing them sung. Instead of being a burlesque upon opera, it is an opera itself, recommended only in that it possesses the one enjoyable element of an opera—good music. This is only another proof that the burlesque writer can never trust to his satire and his “purpose,” to make his piece “go” with the public. Aristophanes introduced the gross jokes, which he condemned, to rescue his satire from dulness; and Gay adopted sprightly airs, for the same purpose. Walker, who first played Macheath, was a better actor than he was a singer; and it is probable that, to this circumstance, the _Beggar’s Opera_ owes its great reputation as a burlesque. Walker imitated the manner of the Italian actors to perfection, and caused roars of laughter by gestures and by mimicry of operatic action, which are now altogether lost sight of. Had Quin, for whom the part was originally intended, played Macheath, the burlesque of the piece would, probably, never have been brought out; and the _Beggar’s Opera_ would have been originally what it is now—simply a pleasing burletta. The most opposite opinions were expressed with regard to the piece at the time. Swift said, “It placed all kinds of vice in the strongest and most odious light.” Another critic asserted that, “after an exhibition of the _Beggar’s Opera_, the gains of robbers were multiplied.” Dr. Johnson declares both these decisions to be exaggerated, and hits the real truth—a truth which applies to the burlesque drama universally. “The play,” he says, “was written only to divert, without any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived, without more speculation than life requires and admits, to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in elegant diversions; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob in safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.” The doctor’s first remark was literally true. The piece was written solely to divert. Gay aimed at a “purpose” in his original design, and when he had carried it out, Colley Cibber rejected the piece. Gay’s friends, Swift and Spence, did not think the piece would succeed, though the Duke of Argyle (with a preternatural perception of jokes for a Scotchman) swore that it would. It was not until Gay subdued his “purpose,” and put in some extra ballads, that Rich accepted the piece; and then, in this shape, it made “Gay rich and Rich gay,” as the jokers said at the time.

Having hopped from Aristophanes to Gay, we may now skip from Gay to Sheridan without overleaping any remarkable example of the burlesque drama. The _Critic_ is possibly the smartest burlesque ever written; and yet its purpose is a shallow pretence. Like the _Beggar’s Opera_, the _Critic_ was written to amuse, and it fulfils no other object. It cannot be said to be a satire upon the critics of the period, since the remarks of Dangle and Sneer, during the rehearsal of the tragedy, are pointedly framed with the view of calling forth a smart response from Puff, and are not in any way examples of the theatrical criticism of the time. Sheridan arranges everything to give occasion for an exhibition of his own smartness. He spreads the stage with crackers, as it were, and cares not who steps upon them and sets them banging for the amusement of the audience. Thus the tragedy opens with two sentinels asleep, to give occasion for a joke when they awake:—

_Dang._ Hey! why, I thought these fellows had been asleep?

_Puff._ Only a pretence; there’s the art of it: they were spies of Lord Burleigh’s.

_Sneer._ But isn’t it odd they were never taken notice of, not even by the commander-in-chief?

_Puff._ O Lud, sir! if people who want to listen, or overhear, were not always connived at in a tragedy, there would be no carrying on any plot in the world.

_Dang._ That’s certain.

Here a laugh is raised at the artificiality of the stage; but the satire suggests no remedy. Both speakers are satisfied that these things must be so in a tragedy. In every instance where the satire is directed against the practices of the stage, the remarks, though highly diverting, are simply truisms. Thus, when Leicester asks the knights if they are all resolved to conquer or be free, and they answer, “All,” Dangle chimes in, “_Nem. con._ egad.” To which Puff replies, “Oh, yes! where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.” This remark never fails to produce a hearty laugh; and yet it would be difficult to say what we laugh at. The dramatic art inexorably demands that where unanimity is to be expressed it should be expressed as briefly and _unanimously_ as possible. If we laugh at anything here, it is at the fixed and unalterable canons of the dramatic art, which the peculiar turn of Sneer’s remark places in a ridiculous light. It is hard to discover at what particular folly or vice the _Critic_ is aimed. All the characters are satirists by turns; Puff pokes his fun at the drama; and Sneer and Dangle poke their fun at Puff, only to encounter a sharper retort. All are so confoundedly witty, that you cannot tell which are the butts and which the sharp-shooters. Nothing is more apparent in the dialogue of the tragedy than the desire of the author to show off his own cleverness. Some passages which are intended as burlesques of fine writing are as near as possible the real thing. Thus, England’s fate at the approach of the Armada—

“Like a clipp’d guinea, trembles in the scale.”

The guinea is certainly a vulgar image, but the thought is a happy one. The whole of the passage in which this occurs contains no hint of the ridiculous until we come to the “trembling guinea,” and that but very slightly turns the scale to the side of absurdity. When Sheridan tried fine writing in earnest he was not so successful. His own _Pizarro_ was a greater burlesque than Mr. Puff’s _Spanish Armada_. _Pizarro_, in its highest flights, is “downright booth at a fair.”

Travelling downwards from Sheridan’s time, we meet with no notable example of a burlesque in dramatic form until we come to _Bombastes Furioso_, first produced about the year 1809. We have never been able to discover that the author of this production had any special moral, political, literary, or other “purpose” whatever. At any rate, he claims none for himself; and we do not know that any one has made the claim for him. Bombast in general would seem to be the mark at which the arrows are let fly; but the incidents of the piece are so extravagant and capricious, that we are tempted to believe the author sat down to write without having any fixed idea what he was going to make it. A king and a general making love to a cook-maid in a kitchen presents but a very vulgar and commonplace antithesis, and would be altogether offensive, but for the mock chivalry which is sustained in the demeanour and language of the king and the general. The conduct of these two characters accords with a kind of harmless lunacy which is natural in so far as it exists in nature. Two lunatics of this class might extemporize the challenge and duel scene in their ward at Bedlam, and the random performance would be very funny. We are, therefore, inclined to regard _Bombastes Furioso_ as a “lune.” Still, the piece is characterized by many merits. Its thorough-paced extravagance is not the least of them. The peculiar diction, too, is singularly well suited to burlesque. Wit, there is little or none; but its place is more than supplied by humorous expression and absurd similitudes.

The entrance of Bombastes, followed by his army, consisting of one drummer, one fifer, and two soldiers of unequal stature, is in the true spirit of burlesque. In the whole range of burlesque-dramatic literature, there is, perhaps, no single passage which produces so much effect as Bombastes’ address to his army. Yet it consists of only three lines—

_Bombas._ (_confidentially_).

Meet me this ev’ning at the Barley-Mow; I’ll bring your pay—you see I’m busy now. (_In a loud, commanding tone_) Begone, brave army, and don’t kick up a row!

Nor could anything be more ludicrous than the entrance of Bombastes in the wood, intent on suicide, preceded by a fifer playing “Michael Wiggins:”

_Bombas._

Gentle musician, let thy dulcet strain Proceed—play “Michael Wiggins” o’er again. Music’s the food of love—give o’er, give o’er, For I must batten on that food no more.

Who has not enjoyed the whimsical idea of challenging the whole human race by hanging a pair of jack boots on a tree, and writing on them—

Who dares this pair of boots displace, Must meet Bombastes face to face.

In _Bombastes Furioso_, we have burlesque clothed in its proper dress, not in the toga of a didactic philosopher, but in the spangled frippery of a mummer. For the first time it discards “purpose,” and speaks in its own proper language—doggrel rhyme.

Mr. Planché was the pioneer of the new school, and his sole purpose was to divert holiday audiences (chiefly composed of boys and girls home for the Christmas and Easter vacations) with appropriate dramatic versions of pretty fairy tales. His compositions were rather extravaganzas than burlesques, and depended for their success more upon the romantic interest of the story and the wit of the dialogue than upon their satire. Mr. Planché may claim the merit—if merit it be—of having first introduced the pun into these compositions: and it must be allowed that he punned with discretion; which is certainly more than we can say of his younger successors in the craft of joke-making. When Mr. Planché was at the height of his fame as a burlesque writer, these pieces were brought out only at holiday time; in some cases as a substitute for the pantomime, which, in certain quarters, was beginning to be voted low and vulgar. It sufficed then to tell the dramatic story in sprightly rhymes, slightly sprinkled with puns and allusions to the events of the day. Ballet, glittering fairy scenery, parodies set to popular airs and red and blue fire, did the rest. The satire contained in these pieces was of a very harmless kind, and rarely aimed at any game higher than the Thames Tunnel or the Lord Mayor’s show. Of late years, however, pieces of this class have asserted a much more extended sway. They are now played in season and out of season, and at one, if not two theatres they hold the stage all the year round, and constitute the chief attraction. The young school of burlesque writers follow a method peculiarly their own, though, of course, they are largely indebted to the traditions of their immediate predecessors. The chief elements which enter into the composition of these pieces are, pretty scenery, negro melodies, “break-down” dances, and outrageous puns. It is also a necessary condition to their success, that one or more saucy actresses with good legs should be employed in their performance. The music and the scenery go for much, the puns go for more, but the comic dance goes for most of all. The literature which enters into the composition of the more successful pieces of this description is not by any means to be despised as an intellectual effort. The young men who can so industriously torture the English language into such strange and startling meanings, through a thousand lines of rhyme, evidently possess an amount of talent and application which, if properly directed, might be of real service to letters; or, if not to letters, to some industrial pursuit. Tom Hood, who was considered the prince of punsters, in his day, could have had no conception of the height to which punning has attained (or, perhaps, we ought to say the depth to which it has fallen) in our time. A pun a day would, perhaps, have been the extent of the indulgence which Hood would have allowed himself; but these burlesque writers fire them off in volleys, and glory in startling the English language from its propriety. As regards punning, the whole tribe of jokers follow exactly the same method, as may be seen by reference to the burlesques of the present season. Hear how Mr. William Brough, in his burlesque of _Endymion_, clatters his _pans_:—

_Pan._

Oh! long-ear’d but short-sighted fauns, desist; To the great Pan, ye little pitchers, list; Pan knows a thing or two. In point of fact, He’s a deep Pan, and anything but cracked; A perfect _oracle_ Pan deems himself; he Is earthenwarish; so, of course, is delfy (Delphi). Trust then to Pan your troubles to remove— A warming-Pan he’ll to your courage prove; A prophet, he foresees the ills you fear; So for them all you have your Pan a seer (panacea).

Here every thought is designed as a peg whereon to hang a pun. The author would seem to have been fearful of having nothing but his punning for his pains in two instances, where he finds it necessary to add explanatory notes. Now see with what labour Mr. Byron, in his _Cinderella_, carries coals to the joke market:—

_Cind._

Cinders and coals I am accustomed to, They seem to me to tinge all things I view.

_Prince._

The fact I can’t say causes me surprise, For _Kohl_ is frequently in ladies’ eyes.

_Cind._

At morn, when reading, as the fire up burns, The printer’s stops to semi-_coal-uns_ turns; I might as well read _Coke_.

_Prince._

Quite right you are. He’s very useful reading at the _bar_. Who is your favourite poet? _Hobbs?_

_Cind._

Not quite; No; I think _Cole_ridge is my favourite; His melan-_coally_ suits my situation; My dinner always is a _coald coal_-lation. Smoke pictures all things seem, whate’er may be ’em, A cyclorama, through the _Coal I see ’em_.

_Prince._

Is there no way from out a path so black?

_Cind._

There’s no way out; my life’s a _cul_ de sac.

Of course, authors who have so little respect for the legitimate meaning of English words cannot be expected to pay regard to the rules of English grammar; nor is it to be imagined that their course of solid reading has been such as to enable them to know that Hobbes was not particularly distinguished for his poetry. But all this is included in the broad, general licence which these poets take out. In another piece, _Bluebeard from a New Point of Hue_,—the puns you see even extend to the playbill and the title-page of the production—the same author takes occasion, on the same principle, to pun until all is _blue_. Fatima calls Abomilique a “blue bore.”

_Abom._

Everything takes that colour in my eyes; This, ’stead of being fash’nablest of flies, And red, when I look at it, in two twos, Changes its form and colour—it’s a _blouse_. ’Stead of yellow covering, my foot Seems, in my eyes, clad in a _Blu_cher boot. Every hotel I may put up at, boasts The selfsame sign—of course, it’s the _Blue_-Posts. Whene’er a portrait-painter I employ, He makes me look like Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. My palanquin, the one I bought for you, Becomes an omnibus, the Royal _Blue_. Ladies seem blue-stockings and bloomers through it; Each song I hear appears composed by _Blewitt_; In my siesta, every afternoon, I dream I’m in the air in a big _b’loon_.

This is simply a long punning exercise, of a sustained effort to the jingling of words of similar sound, but wholly destitute of similarity of sense. There is not that startling conjunction of similar dissimilarities which constitutes the true pun. It cannot be said that there is any wit in making Bluebeard see everything blue, because his beard is blue. If he had been remarkable for his blue eyes, there might have been some point in it.

Sydney Smith, who was as little accustomed to found his jokes upon a just estimate of things as any of the burlesque writers, once said that it required a surgical operation to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman. Yet plain James Hogg has given us a better specimen of a pun than any of these professional English wits. Some one at table mentioned that it was reported Dr. Parr had married a woman beneath him in station. “Ay, ay,” said Hogg, “she is, nae doot, below Parr.” Here is a pun perfect in all its parts, preserving at once exactness of sound and sense, and giving at the same time a humorous colouring to a commonplace fact. The above specimens, however, are the best in the pieces before us. The majority of the puns are of the most audacious kind, many of them suggestive of a joker in the last stage of drivelling senility.

This excessive and bad punning upon words merely is a poor substitute for true wit and humour. Half of the puns are lost upon the audience owing to their obscurity and the rapidity with which they follow upon each other’s heels. And even when they are “taken,” the delight they give is simply of the kind which is afforded by a Chinese puzzle: they are ingenious, and that is all. Punning upon words merely is not a difficult thing, if you could only condescend to give your mind to it. The art might be taught in six easy lessons, as Mr. Smart teaches writing, and as other professors teach crochet and Berlin-wool work. We can quite imagine how any of these burlesque writers might have improved James the First in the art. James was a great punster; but his style would be considered primitive in these days. On one occasion, his Majesty made a punning speech to the professors of the University of Edinburgh.[2] They had been engaged in a philosophical disputation, and his Majesty complimented them one after the other by name. We may give this as a specimen of his Majesty’s style before receiving lessons:—

“Methinks these gentlemen by their very names have been destined for the acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was the father of all, and very fitly Adamson had the first part in this act. The defender is justly called Fairly: his thesis had some fair lies, and he defended them very fairly and with many fair lies given to his oppugners. And why should not Mr. Lands be the first to enter the lands? but now I clearly see that all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath shown a fertile wit. Mr. Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr. Reed need not be red (oh!) with blushing for his actions this day. Mr. King disputed very kingly and of a kingly purpose anent the royal supremacy of reason over anger and all passions.”

After six lessons his Majesty would have come out in the following flowing style:—

“Adam having been the _fust_ man, it is only natural that Adamson should talk _fust_ian. We are in hopes, however, that _Adam_son will _Eve_ntually _Cain_ (explanatory note: _gain_) experience, and be _Abel_ to do better; for it is fit and proper that Adamson should be the first man in learning, re_garden_ him in connection with _Eden_burgh. Mr. Young is _youngry_ after knowledge, and we fear is in some danger, through studying Aristotle too much, of coming to be _’ung_ before he is much _older_. We were afraid that Mr. Reed would have been _red_uced for an argument; but we perceive he is _red_ivivus, and has _red_eemed his character from being _red_iculous. Verily, Mr. Fairly”—but enough; this would have been quite sufficient for the punning preceptor to frame and glaze and put in his window as a testimony to his skill in teaching the whole art of pun-making. It is on record, that King James prepared himself for his jokes by a course of study and stimulants, and did not venture to fire them off until after the sixth bottle. If such simple exercises required so much stimulation, what must be the process which the punsters of our day find it necessary to resort to? The Turkish bath is said to bring out a vast amount of latent and unsuspected filth from the skin. Is there any similar process for acting upon the brain?

Satire is a weapon which has been used with good effect by skilful hands in books and in speeches, both in ancient and modern times; but we cannot discover that it has done any great or signal execution when wielded by the burlesque writer on the stage. Aristophanes certainly did not revive the palmy days of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is true it has been asserted that he did; but will any one please to mention the successors of these three great masters who are worthy to be named in the same category? It might be easier to specify the harm than to estimate the good which flowed from the comedies of Aristophanes. Not only the Greek drama, but Greece itself, dated its decline from those days. And, besides, it is not at all certain that when Aristophanes exhibited Socrates suspended in a basket, spouting incomprehensible doctrine—incomprehensible at that time—he did not sow the seeds of the hemlock to which the greatest of all the Greeks was condemned. It is true that Socrates was not sentenced until nearly twenty years afterwards; but Aristophanes was one of the first to throw mud at him, and it was only through the persistency with which his detractors followed the dramatist’s example that some of the mud eventually stuck. The Athenians knew and felt, when it was too late, that the most virtuous man of their age had been sacrificed to an idle and reckless clamour. Here then, to begin with, is a suspicion of murder attaching to burlesque. In the present day, the only murder of which it can be found guilty is the murder of the English language.

If Dr. Johnson were alive to pronounce sentence, we know what would become of the burlesque writers: they would swing every man Jack—or shall we say Joe?—of them. It is to be laid to their charge that they have familiarized the educated public with the use of slang. Slang words and phrases are now of frequent occurrence in our literature. We meet with them not alone in a low class of publications, but in the leading articles of newspapers, in the orations of senators, and even in books of a solid and standard character. If these burlesques have done us this amount of harm, and have done us no other good than to excite the “loud laugh” indiscriminately at the expense of things worthy and unworthy, what shall we say of them? May we not sigh for those palmy days of the drama which are past and gone?

Nevertheless, we can have no sympathy with those who complain that these burlesques have elbowed the legitimate drama off the stage. The true legitimacy of the drama may well be questioned, when it cannot maintain its claims against this bastard pretender. We have seen (on rare occasions) that good sterling plays will always draw the public; and if, in default of these, the public prefer comparatively harmless puns and parodies to the pollution of translations from the French, perhaps it may be allowed that, of the two evils, they choose the least.

FOOTNOTES

[2] _History of University of Edinburgh._

When thou Sleepest.

When thou sleepest, lulled in night, Art thou lost in vacancy? Does no silent inward light, Softly breaking, fall on thee? Does no dream on quiet wing Float a moment mid that ray, Touch some answering mental string, Wake a note, and pass away?

When thou watchest, as the hours Mute and blind are speeding on, O’er that rayless path, where lowers Muffled midnight, black and lone; Comes there nothing hovering near, Thought or half reality, Whispering marvels in thine ear, Every word a mystery,

Chanting low an ancient lay, Every plaintive note a spell, Clearing memory’s clouds away, Showing scenes thy heart loves well? Songs forgot, in childhood sung, Airs in youth beloved and known, Whispered by that airy tongue, Once again are made thine own.

Be it dream in haunted sleep, Be it thought in vigil lone, Drink’st thou not a rapture deep From the feeling, ’tis thine own? All thine own; thou need’st not tell What bright form thy slumber blest;— All thine own; remember well Night and shade were round thy rest.

Nothing looked upon thy bed, Save the lonely watch-light’s gleam; Not a whisper, not a tread Scared thy spirit’s glorious dream. Sometimes, when the midnight gale Breathed a moan and then was still, Seemed the spell of thought to fail, Checked by one ecstatic thrill;

Felt as all external things, Robed in moonlight, smote thine eye; Then thy spirit’s waiting wings Quivered, trembled, spread to fly; Then th’ aspirer wildly swelling Looked, where mid transcendency Star to star was mutely telling Heaven’s resolve and fate’s decree.

Oh! it longed for holier fire Than this spark in earthly shrine; Oh! it soared, and higher, higher, Sought to reach a home divine. Hopeless quest! soon weak and weary Flagged the pinion, drooped the plume, And again in sadness dreary Came the baffled wanderer home.

And again it turned for soothing To th’ unfinished, broken dream; While, the ruffled current smoothing, Thought rolled on her startled stream. I have felt this cherished feeling, Sweet and known to none but me; Still I felt it nightly healing Each dark day’s despondency.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson.

BY ONE OF THE FIRM.