Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

from being an express image of the general feeling. It is influenced by the opinion of the people, and influenced powerfully, but slowly and circuitously. Instead of outrunning the public mind, as before the Revolution it frequently did, it now follows with slow steps and at a wide distance. It is therefore necessarily unpopular; and the more so because the good which it produces is much less evident to common perception than the evil which it inflicts. It bears the blame of all the mischief which is done, or supposed to be done, by its authority or by its connivance. It does not get the credit, on the other hand, of having prevented those innumerable abuses which do not exist solely because the House of Commons exists.

A large part of the nation is certainly desirous of a reform in the representative system. How large that part may be, and how strong its desires on the subject may be, it is difficult to say. It is only at intervals that the clamour on the subject is loud and vehement. But it seems to us that, during the remissions, the feeling gathers strength, and that every successive burst is more violent than that which preceded it. The public attention may be for a time diverted to the Catholic claims or the Mercantile code; but it is probable that at no very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of the present generation, all other questions will merge in that which is, in a certain degrec, connected with them all.

Already we seem to ourselves to perceive the signs of unquiet times, the vague presentiment of something great and strange which pervades the community, the restless and turbid hopes of those who have every thing to gain, the dimly hinted forebodings of those who have every thing to lose. Many indications might be mentioned, in themselves indeed as insignificant as straws; but even the direction of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, will show from what quarter the storm is setting in.

A great statesman might, by judicious and timely reformations, by reconciling the two great branches of

the natural aristocracy, the capitalists and the landowners, and by so widening the base of the government as to interest in its defence the whole of the middle class, that brave, honest, and sound-hearted class, which is as anxious for the maintenance of order and the security of property, as it is hostile to corruption and oppression, succeed in averting a struggle to which no rational friend of liberty or of law can look forward without great apprehensions. There are those who will be contented with nothing but demolition; and there are those who shrink from all repair. There are innovators who long for a President and a National Convention; and there are bigots who, while cities larger and richer than the capitals of many great kingdoms are calling out for representatives to watch over their interests, select some hackneyed jobber in boroughs, some peer of the narrowest and smallest mind, as the fittest depositary of a forfeited franchise. Between these extremes there lies a more excellent way. Time is bringing round another crisis analogous to that which occurred in the seventeenth century. We stand in a situation similar to that in which our ancestors stood under the reign of James the First. It will soon again be necessary to reform that we may preserve, to save the fundamental principles of the Constitution by alterations in the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, as it was possible two hundred years ago, to protect vested rights, to secure every useful institution, every institution endeared by antiquity and noble associations, and, at the same time, to introduce into the system improvements harmonizing with the original plan. It remains to be seen whether two hundred years have made us wiser.

We know of no great revolution which might not have been prevented by compromise early and graciously made. Firmness is a great virtue in public affairs; but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in which small minorities are engaged, the outbreakings of popular violence unconnected with any extensive project or any durable principle, are best

H

repressed by vigour and decision. To still the very alphabet to learn. He has shrink from them is to make them for- now, we think, done his worst. The midable. But no wise ruler will con- subject which he has at last underfound the pervading taint with the taken to treat is one which demands slight local irritation. No wise ruler all the highest intellectual and moral will treat the deeply seated discon- qualities of a philosophical statesman, tents of a great party, as he treats an understanding at once comprehenthe fury of a mob which destroys mills sive and acute, a heart at once upright and power-looms. The neglect of this and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to distinction has been fatal even to go- the task two faculties which were never, vernments strong in the power of we believe, vouchsafed in measure so the sword. The present time is indeed copious to any human being, the faculty a time of peace and order. But it is of believing without a reason, and the at such a time that fools are most faculty of hating without a provocation. thoughtless and wise men most thought- It is, indeed, most extraordinary, ful. That the discontents which have that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a mind agitated the country during the late richly endowed in many respects by and the present reign, and which, nature, and highly cultivated by study, though not always noisy, are never a mind which has exercised considerwholly dormant, will again break forth able influence on the most enlightened with aggravated symptoms, is almost generation of the most enlightened as certain as that the tides and seasons people that ever existed, should be will follow their appointed course. utterly destitute of the power of disBut in all movements of the human cerning truth from falsehood. Yet mind which tend to great revolutions such is the fact. Government is to there is a crisis at which moderate con- Mr. Southey one of the fine arts. He cession may amend, conciliate, and judges of a theory, of a public meapreserve. Happy will it be for Eng- sure, of a religion or a political party. land if, at that crisis, her interests be of a peace or a war, as men judge of a confided to men for whom history has picture or a statue, by the effect pronot recorded the long series of human duced on his imagination. A chain of crimes and follies in vain. associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men; and what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes.

SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES.
(JAN. 1830.)

Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the
Progress and Prospects of Society. By
ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. LL.D., Poet Lau-
reate. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1829.

Ir would be scarcely possible for a
man of Mr. Southey's talents and ac-
quirements to write two volumes so
large as those before us, which should
be wholly destitute of information and
amusement. Yet we do not remember
to have read with so little satisfaction
any equal quantity of matter, written
by any man of real abilities. We have,
for some time past, observed with great
regret the strange infatuation which
leads the Poet Laureate to abandon
hose departments of literature in
which he might excel, and to lecture
the public on sciences of which he has

Part of this description might perhaps apply to a much greater man, Mr. Burke. But Mr. Burke assuredly possessed an understanding admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, an understanding stronger than that of any statesman, active or speculative, of the eighteenth century, stronger than every thing, except his own fierce and ungovernable sensibility. Hence he generally chose his side like a fanatic, and defended it like a philosopher. His conduct on the most important occasions of his life, at the time of the impeachment of Hastings for example, and at the time of the French Revolution, seems to have been prompted by those feelings and motives which Mr. Coleridge has so happily described, "Stormy pity, and the cherish'd lure Of pomp, and proud precipitance of soul,'

Hindostan, with its vast cities, its | arguments himself. He never troubles gorgeous pagodas, its infinite swarms himself to answer the arguments of his of dusky population, its long-descended opponents. It has never occurred to dynasties, its stately etiquette, excited him, that a man ought to be able to in a mind so capacious, so imagina- give some better account of the way in tive, and so susceptible, the most in- which he has arrived at his opinions tense interest. The peculiarities of the than merely that it is his will and pleacostume, of the manners, and of the sure to hold them. It has never oclaws, the very mystery which hung curred to him that there is a difference over the language and origin of the between assertion and demonstration, people, seized his imagination. To that a rumour does not always prove a plead under the ancient arches of fact, that a single fact, when proved, is Westminster Hall, in the name of the hardly foundation enough for a theory, English people, at the bar of the that two contradictory propositions English nobles, for great nations and cannot be undeniable truths, that to kings separated from him by half the | beg the question is not the way to settle world, seemed to him the height of it, or that when an objection is raised, human glory. Again, it is not diffi- it ought to be met with something cult to perceive that his hostility to more convincing than "scoundrel" and the French Revolution principally" blockhead." arose from the vexation which he felt It would be absurd to read the at having all his old political asso- works of such a writer for political inciations disturbed, at seeing the well struction. The utmost that can be known landmarks of states obliterated, expected from any system promulgated and the names and distinctions with by him is that it may be splendid and which the history of Europe had been affecting, that it may suggest sublime filled for ages at once swept away. He and pleasing images. His scheme of felt like an antiquary whose shield had philosophy is a mere day-dream, a been scoured, or a connoisseur who poetical creation, like the Domdaniel found his Titian retouched. But, how-cavern, the Swerga, or Padalon; and ever he came by an opinion, he had indeed it bears no inconsiderable reno sooner got it than he did his best semblance to those gorgeous visions. to make out a legitimate title to it. Like them, it has something of invenHis reason, like a spirit in the service tion, grandeur, and brilliancy. But, of an enchanter, though spell-bound, like them, it is grotesque and extrawas still mighty. It did whatever vagant, and perpetually violates evon work his passions and his imagination that conventional probability which might impose. But it did that work, is essential to the effect of works of however arduous, with marvellous dex-art. terity and vigour. His course was not The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey determined by argument; but he could will scarcely, we think, deny that his defend the wildest course by argu- success has almost always borne an ments more plausible than those by inverse proportion to the degree in which common men support opinions which his undertakings have required which they have adopted after the a logical head. His poems, taken in fullest deliberation. Reason has scarcely the mass, stand far higher than his ever displayed, even in those well con-prose works. His official Odes indeed, stituted minds of which she occupies the throne, so much power and energy as in the lowest offices of that imperial servitude.

Now in the mind of Mr. Southey reason has no place at all, as either leader or follower, as either sovereign or slave. He does not seem to know what an argument is. He never uses

among which the Vision of Judgement must be classed, are, for the most part, worse than Pye's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think him generally happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, though full of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions. We doubt greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence; but that, if they

H 2

are read, they will be admired, we have of his species. The History of the no doubt whatever.

Peninsular War is already dead; indeed, the second volume was deadborn. The glory of producing an imperishable record of that great conflict seems to be reserved for Colonel Napier.

But, though in general we prefer Mr. Southey's poetry to his prose, we must make one exception. The Life of Nelson is, beyond all doubt, the most perfect and the most delightful The Book of the Church contains of his works. The fact is, as his poems some stories very prettily told. The most abundantly prove, that he is by rest is mere rubbish. The adventure no means so skilful in designing as in was manifestly one which could be filling up. It was therefore an advan- achieved only by a profound thinker, tage to him to be furnished with an and one in which even a profound outline of characters and events, and thinker might have failed, unless his to have no other task to perform than passions had been kept under strict that of touching the cold sketch into control. But in all those works in life. No writer, perhaps, ever lived, which Mr. Southey has completely whose talents so precisely qualified abandoned narration, and has underhim to write the history of the great taken to argue moral and political naval warrior. There were no fine questions, his failure has been comriddles of the human heart to read, no plete and ignominious. On such octheories to propound, no hidden causes casions his writings are rescued from to develope, no remote consequences utter contempt and derision solely by to predict. The character of the hero the beauty and purity of the English lay on the surface. The exploits were We find, we confess, so great a charm brilliant and picturesque. The neces-in Mr. Southey's style that, even when sity of adhering to the real course of he writes nonsense, we generally read events saved Mr. Southey from those it with pleasure, except indeed when faults which deform the original plan he tries to be droll. A more insufferof almost every one of his poems, and able jester never existed. He very which even his innumerable beauties often attempts to be humorous, and of detail scarcely redeem. The subject yet we do not remember a single occadid not require the exercise of those sion on which he has succeeded farreasoning powers the want of which is ther than to be quaintly and flippantly the blemish of his prose. It would not dull. In one of his works he tells us be easy to find, in all literary history, that Bishop Spratt was very properly an instance of a more exact hit between so called, inasmuch as he was a very wind and water. John Wesley and the small poct. And in the book now Peninsular War were subjects of a very before us he cannot quote Francis different kind, subjects which required Bugg, the renegade Quaker, without all the qualities of a philosophic histo- a remark on his unsavoury name. A rian. In Mr. Southey's works on these wise man might talk folly like this by subjects, he has, on the whole, failed. his own fireside; but that any human Yet there are charming specimens of being, after having made such a joke, the art of narration in both of them. should write it down, and copy it out, The Life of Wesley will probably live. and transmit it to the printer, and corDefective as it is, it contains the only rect the proof-sheets, and send it forth popular account of a most remarkable into the world, is enough to make us moral revolution, and of a man whose ashamed of our species. eloquence and logical acuteness might have made him eminent in literature, whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu, and who, whatever his errors may have been, devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely considered as the highest good

The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr. Southey manifests towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed to the manner in which he forms his opinions. Differences of taste, it has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences on points of science.

But this is not all. A peculiar aus- then holds them up to the admiration terity marks almost all Mr. Southey's of mankind. This is the spirit of judgments of men and actions. We Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Adosinda, of are far from blaming him for fixing Roderick after his conversion. It is on a high standard of morals, and for the spirit which, in all his writings, applying that standard to every case. Mr. Southey appears to affect. "I do But rigour ought to be accompanied well to be angry," seems to be the by discernment; and of discernment predominant feeling of his mind. AlMr. Southey seems to be utterly desti- most the only mark of charity which tute. His mode of judging is monkish. he vouchsafes to his opponents is to It is exactly what we should expect pray for their reformation; and this from a stern old Benedictine, who had he does in terms not unlike those in been preserved from many ordinary which we can imagine a Portuguese frailties by the restraints of his situa- priest interceding with Heaven for a tion. No man out of a cloister ever Jew, delivered over to the secular arm wrote about love, for example, so after a relapse. coldly and at the same time so grossly. His descriptions of it are just what we should hear from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the confessional. Almost all his heroes make love either like Seraphim or like cattle. He seems to have no notion of any thing between the Platonic passion of the Glendoveer who gazes with rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. He is first all clay, and then all spirit. He goes forth a Tarquin, and comes back too ethereal to be married. The only love scene, as far as we can recollect, in Madoc, consists of the delicate attentions which a savage, who has drunk too much of the Prince's excellent metheglin, offers to Goervyl. It would be the labour of a week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. Southey's poetry, a single passage indicating any sympathy with those feelings which have consecrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks of Meillerie.

We have always heard, and fully believe, that Mr. Southey is a very amiable and humane man; nor do we intend to apply to him personally any of the remarks which we have made on the spirit of his writings. Such are the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very little about the French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of Namur. And Mr. Southey, when he takes up his pen, changes his nature as much as Captain Shandy, when he girt on his sword. The only opponents to whom the Laureate gives quarter are those in whom he finds something of his own character reflected. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy for calm, moderate men, for men who shun extremes, and who render reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect than he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lingard; and this for no reason that we can discover, except that Mr. Owen is more unreasonably and hopelessly in the wrong than any speculator of our time.

Indeed, if we except some very pleasing images of paternal tenderness Mr. Southey's political system is and filial duty, there is scarcely any just what we might expect from a man thing soft or humane in Mr. Southey's who regards politics, not as matter of poetry. What theologians call the science, but as matter of taste and spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues, feeling. All his schemes of governhatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst ment have been inconsistent with themof vengeance. These passions he dis-selves. In his youth he was a repubguises under the name of duties; he lican; yet, as he tells us in his preface purifies them from the alloy of vulgar to these Colloquies, he was even then interests; he ennobles them by uniting opposed to the Catholic Claims. He is them with energy, fortitude, and a now a violent Ultra-Tory. Yet, while severe sanctity of manners; and he he maintains, with vehemence ap

« AnteriorContinuar »