human
Can you continue this poem for me?
  --If there be in glory aught of good,
It may by means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence.--MILTON.
Jan. 30, 1835.                 LEIGH HUNT.
Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày--
And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl--
Captain Sword got up one day,
Over the hills to march away,
Over the hills and through the towns,
They heard him coming across the downs,
Stepping in music and thunder sweet,
Which his drums sent before him into the street.
And lo! 'twas a beautiful sight in the sun;
For first came his foot, all marching like one,
With tranquil faces, and bristling steel,
And the flag full of honour as though it could feel,
And the officers gentle, the sword that hold
'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling gold,
And the massy tread, that in passing is heard,
Though the drums and the music say never a word.
And then came his horse, a clustering sound
Of shapely potency, forward bound,
Glossy black steeds, and riders tall,
Rank after rank, each looking like all,
Midst moving repose and a threatening charm,
With mortal sharpness at each right arm,
And hues that painters and ladies love,
And ever the small flag blush'd above.
And ever and anon the kettle-drums beat
Hasty power midst order meet;
And ever and anon the drums and fifes
Came like motion's voice, and life's;
Or into the golden grandeurs fell
Of deeper instruments, mingling well,
Burdens of beauty for winds to bear;
And the cymbals kiss'd in the shining air,
And the trumpets their visible voices rear'd,
Each looking forth with its tapestried beard,
Bidding the heavens and earth make way
For Captain Sword and his battle-array.
He, nevertheless, rode indifferent-eyed,
As if pomp were a toy to his manly pride,
Whilst the ladies lov'd him the more for his scorn,
And thought him the noblest man ever was born,
And tears came into the bravest eyes,
And hearts swell'd after him double their size,
And all that was weak, and all that was strong,
Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not be wrong;
Such love, though with bosom about to be gored,
Did sympathy get for brave Captain Sword.
So, half that night, as he stopp'd in the town,
'Twas all one dance, going merrily down,
With lights in windows and love in eyes,
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;
But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs;
For the sound of his drums grew less and less,
Walking like carelessness off from distress;
And Captain Sword went whistling gay,
"Over the hills and far away."
Through fair and through foul went Captain Sword,
Pacer of highway and piercer of ford,
Steady of face in rain or sun,
He and his merry men, all as one;
Till they came to a place, where in battle-array
Stood thousands of faces, firm as they,
Waiting to see which could best maintain
Bloody argument, lords of pain;
And down the throats of their fellow-men
Thrust the draught never drunk again.
It was a spot of rural peace,
Ripening with the year's increase
And singing in the sun with birds,
Like a maiden with happy words--
With happy words which she scarcely hears
In her own contented ears,
Such abundance feeleth she
Of all comfort carelessly,
Throwing round her, as she goes,
Sweet half-thoughts on lily and rose,
Nor guesseth what will soon arouse
All ears--that murder's in the house;
And that, in some strange wrong of brain,
Her father hath her mother slain.
Steady! steady! The masses of men
Wheel, and fall in, and wheel again,
Softly as circles drawn with pen.
Then a gaze there was, and valour, and fear,
And the jest that died in the jester's ear,
And preparation, noble to see,
Of all-accepting mortality;
Tranquil Necessity gracing Force;
And the trumpets danc'd with the stirring horse;
And lordly voices, here and there,
Call'd to war through the gentle air;
When suddenly, with its voice of doom,
Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom,
Making wider the dreadful room:
On the faces of nations round
Fell the shadow of that sound.
Death for death! The storm begins;
Rush the drums in a torrent of dins;
Crash the muskets, gash the swords;
Shoes grow red in a thousand fords;
Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite;
Darkly gathers the breath of the fight,
Salt to the palate and stinging to sight;
Muskets are pointed they scarce know where,
No matter: Murder is cluttering there.
Reel the hollows: close up! close up!
Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup.
Down go bodies, snap burst eyes;
Trod on the ground are tender cries;
Brains are dash'd against plashing ears;
Hah! no time has battle for tears;
Cursing helps better--cursing, that goes
Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'.
What have soldiers with tears to do?--
We, who this mad-house must now go through,
This twenty-fold Bedlam, let loose with knives--
To murder, and stab, and grow liquid with lives--
Gasping, staring, treading red mud,
Till the drunkenness' self makes us steady of blood?
Has not thy praise made the thing they go through
Shocking to read of, but noble to do?]
No time to be "breather of thoughtful breath"
Has the giver and taker of dreadful death.
See where comes the horse-tempest again,
Visible earthquake, bloody of mane!
Part are upon us, with edges of pain;
Part burst, riderless, over the plain,
Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain.
See, by the living God! see those foot
Charging down hill--hot, hurried, and mute!
They loll their tongues out!  Ah-hah! pell-mell!
Horses roll in a human hell;
Horse and man they climb one another--
Which is the beast, and which is the brother?
Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks
With the tread of torn-out cheeks,
Drinking each other's bloody breath--
Here's the fleshliest feast of Death.
An odour, as of a slaughter-house,
The distant raven's dark eye bows.
Victory! victory!  Man flies man;
Cannibal patience hath done what it can--
Carv'd, and been carv'd, drunk the drinkers down,
And now there is one that hath won the crown:
One pale visage stands lord of the board--
Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword!
His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets neigh,
They and his horse, and waft him away;
They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow,
Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe.
Open, ye cities!  Hats off! hold breath!
To see the man who has been with Death;
To see the man who determineth right
By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might.
Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums,
And lo! in the air of empire he comes!
All things present, in earth and sky,
Seem to look at his looking eye.
But Captain Sword was a man among men,
And he hath become their playmate again:
Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he,
But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye,
And floweth the dance a palace within,
Half the night, to a golden din,
Midst lights in windows and love in eyes,
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;
And ever the look of Captain Sword
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.
There was the country-dance, small of taste;
And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist;
And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp,
Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp;
And the high-stepping minuet, face to face,
Mutual worship of conscious grace;
And all the shapes in which beauty goes
Weaving motion with blithe repose.
And then a table a feast displayed,
Like a garden of light without a shade,
All of gold, and flowers, and sweets,
With wines of old church-lands, and sylvan meats,
Food that maketh the blood feel choice;
Yet all the face of the feast, and the voice,
And heart, still turn'd to the head of the board;
For ever the look of Captain Sword
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.
Well content was Captain Sword;
At his feet all wealth was pour'd;
On his head all glory set;
For his ease all comfort met;
And around him seem'd entwin'd
All the arms of womankind.
And when he had taken his fill
Thus, of all that pampereth will,
In his down he sunk to rest,
Clasp'd in dreams of all its best.
'Tis a wild night out of doors;
The wind is mad upon the moors,
And comes into the rocking town,
Stabbing all things, up and down,
And then there is a weeping rain
Huddling 'gainst the window-pane,
And good men bless themselves in bed;
The mother brings her infant's head
Closer, with a joy like tears,
And thinks of angels in her prayers;
Then sleeps, with his small hand in hers.
Two loving women, lingering yet
Ere the fire is out, are met,
Talking sweetly, time-beguil'd,
One of her bridegroom, one her child,
The bridegroom he. They have receiv'd
Happy letters, more believ'd
For public news, and feel the bliss
The heavenlier on a night like this.
They think him hous'd, they think him blest,
Curtain'd in the core of rest,
Danger distant, all good near;
Why hath their "Good night" a tear?
Behold him! By a ditch he lies
Clutching the wet earth, his eyes
Beginning to be mad. In vain
His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain,
That mock'd but now his homeward tears;
And ever and anon he rears
His legs and knees with all their strength,
And then as strongly thrusts at length.
Rais'd, or stretch'd, he cannot bear
The wound that girds him, weltering there:
And "Water!" he cries, with moonward stare.
Burning cries some honest heart;
"I will not read it! Why endure
Pangs which horror cannot cure?
Why--Oh why? and rob the brave
And the bereav'd of all they crave,
A little hope to gild the grave?"
Ask'st thou why, thou honest heart?
'Tis _because_ thou dost ask, and because thou dost start.
'Tis because thine own praise and fond outward thought
Have aided the shews which this sorrow have wrought.]
A wound unutterable--Oh God!
Mingles his being with the sod.
In thine own pang doth wisdom trust.]
His nails are in earth, his eyes in air,
And "Water!" he crieth--he may not forbear.
Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams
The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes.
Were the whole tale told, it would not be done
From wonderful setting to rising sun.
But God's good time is at hand--be calm,
Thou reader! and steep thee in all thy balm
Of tears or patience, of thought or good will,
For the field--the field awaiteth us still.]
"Water! water!" all over the field:
To nothing but Death will that wound-voice yield.
One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent;
What holds he so close?--his body is rent.
Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek;
Unto the raven he may not speak.
One would fain kill him; and one half round
The place where he writhes, hath up beaten the ground.
Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground,
And the feathers and music that litter it round,
The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound.
Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take breath!
See what a floor hath the dance of death!
The floor is alive, though the lights are out;
What are those dark shapes, flitting about?
Flitting about, yet no ravens they,
Not foes, yet not friends--mute creatures of prey;
Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife,
Some say they take the beseeching life.
Horrible pity is theirs for despair,
And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare.
Love will come to-morrow, and sadness,
Patient for the fear of madness,
And shut its eyes for cruelty,
So many pale beds to see.
Turn away, thou Love, and weep
No more in covering his last sleep;
Thou hast him--blessed is thine eye!
Friendless Famine has yet to die.
A shriek!--Great God! what superhuman
Peal was that? Not man, nor woman,
Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak
Their soul in such a ponderous shriek.
The field; and creep men's dying hairs.
O friend of man! O noble creature!
Patient and brave, and mild by nature,
Mild by nature, and mute as mild,
Why brings he to these passes wild
Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty?
Could he not do his dreadful duty,
(If duty it be, which seems mad folly)
Nor link thee to his melancholy?
Two noble steeds lay side by side,
One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died;
Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn,
And out of its bowels that shriek was born.
Now see what crawleth, well as it may,
Out of the ditch, and looketh that way.
What horror all black, in the sick moonlight,
Kneeling, half human, a burdensome sight;
Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish;
Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh.
"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by;
Writhing till eve did a remnant lie;
Then feebly this coal abateth his cry;
But he hopeth! he hopeth! joy lighteth his eye,
For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!"
O goodness in horror! O ill not all ill!
In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope still.
To-morrow with dawn will come many a wain,
And bear away loads of human pain,
Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals; but some
Again will awake in home-mornings, and some,
Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum.
From others, faint blood shall in families flow,
With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe,
Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow.
Now, even now, I hear them at hand,
Though again Captain Sword is up in the land,
Marching anew for more fields like these
In the health of his flag in the morning breeze.
Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum,
And again Captain Sword in his pride doth come;
He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn,
Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn,
Where under the sunshine cold they lie,
And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye.
Small thinking is his but of work to be done,
And onward he marcheth, using the sun:
He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires
On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires;
He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and through yell,
And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell.
Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all sore,
And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the floor,
And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh--
Oh God! let me breathe, and look up at thy sky!
Good is as hundreds, evil as one;
Round about goeth the golden sun.
But to win at the game, whose moves are death,
It maketh a man draw too proud a breath:
And to see his force taken for reason and right,
It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite.
Never did chief of the line of Sword
Keep his wits whole at that drunken board.
He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate,
Of the field of his action, for soul as great:
He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind,
And saith "Lo! I rule both body and mind."
Captain Sword forgot his own soul,
Which of aught save itself, resented controul;
Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still,
Bodiless monarch, enthron'd in his will:
He forgot the close thought, and the burning heart,
And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging apart,
Which lifteth the seas with her gentle looks,
And growth, and death, and immortal books,
And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls,
Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles;
Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word;
Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard;
Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day,
Mighty, and genial, and just alway,
Owning no difference, doing no wrong,
Loving the orbs and the least bird's song,
The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod,
Bright with the smile of the distance of God.
Captain Sword, like a witless thing,
Of all under heaven must needs be king,
King of kings, and lord of lords,
Swayer of souls as well as of swords,
Ruler of speech, and through speech, of thought;
And hence to his brain was a madness brought.
He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West,
Fiercer for sights of men's unrest,
Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men,
Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen,
A conqueror strange, who sat in his home
Like the wizard that plagued the ships of Rome,
Noiseless, show-less, dealing no death,
But victories, winged, went forth from his breath.
Three thousand miles across the waves[A]
Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves:
Three thousand miles did the echo return
With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks burn.
Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore[B]
Their name in the map should never be more:
Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before.
Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head
And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.
Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see;
For with that very people, their leader, stood he,
Incarnate afresh, like a Cæsar of old;[C]
But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold,
Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold.
Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost!
Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!
He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place
The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face,[D]
Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right,
Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might,
And squaring its claims with his old small sight;
Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd,
And said, "I will walk through a subject world:
Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure,
The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor;
And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow
Thus far; but presume no farther to flow:
For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"
Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,[E]
"The king thou set'st over us, by a free air
Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then
First knew the might of great Captain Pen.
So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain,
That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign;
Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now
'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.
Then suddenly came he, with gowned men,
And said, "Now observe me--_I'm_ Captain Pen:
_I'll_ lead all your changes--I'll write all your books--
I'm every thing--all things--I'm clergymen, cooks,
Clerks, carpenters, hosiers--I'm Pitt--I'm Lord Grey."
'Twas painful to see his extravagant way;
But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong,
What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?
Now tidings of Captain Sword and his state
Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great,
Who rose and said, "His time is come."
And he sent him, but not by sound of drum,
Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath,
Hot with questions of life and death,
But only a letter calm and mild;
And Captain Sword he read it, and smil'd,
And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear,
(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger near,
For brave was he ever) "Let Captain Pen
Bring at his back a million men,
And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then."
Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen,
"I'll bring at my back a _world_ of men."
Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword,
But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word,
For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears
Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs,
And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound
Now heard in the distance, now gathering round,
Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be;
But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.
Indestructible souls among men
Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen;
Sages, patriots, martyrs mild,
Going to the stake, as child
Goeth with his prayer to bed;
Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head;
Poets, making earth aware
Of its wealth in good and fair;
And the benders to their intent,
Of metal and of element;
Of flame the enlightener, beauteous,
And steam, that bursteth his iron house;
And adamantine giants blind,
That, without master, have no mind.
Heir to these, and all their store,
Was Pen, the power unknown of yore;
And as their might still created might,
And each work'd for him by day and by night,
In wealth and wondrous means he grew,
Fit to move the earth anew;
Till his fame began to speak
Pause, as when the thunders wake,
Muttering, in the beds of heaven:
Then, to set the globe more even,
Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste,
Which hath left old Time displac'd--
And Iron, mightiest now for Pen,
Each of his steps like an army of men--
(Sword little knew what was leaving him then)
And out of the witchcraft of their skill,
A creature he call'd, to wait on his will--
Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold--
Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd,
And uttered his words a million fold.
Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew,
And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.
Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,
But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;
And that same night of the letter, some strange
Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change;
And at midnight the sound grew into a roll
As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole,
From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime,
Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;--
A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords
Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words,
And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming,
A tread as if all the world were coming.
And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet
Call'd into music those terrible feet,
Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round
To the burn of their speed with a golden sound;
With a golden sound, and a swift repose,
Such as the blood in the young heart knows;
Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease;
When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.
And when Captain Sword got up next morn,
Lo! a new-fac'd world was born;
For not an anger nor pride would it shew,
Nor aught of the loftiness now found low,
Nor would his own men strike a single blow:
Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord
Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword;
But weaponless all, and wise they stood,
In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good;
Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands,
For such were their new lord's commands,
Lessons rather, and brotherly plea;
Reverence the past, quoth he;
Reverence the struggle and mystery,
And faces human in their pain;
Nor his the least, that could sustain
Cares of mighty wars, and guide
Calmly where the red deaths ride.
"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword;
"Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word?
What! traitors? deserters?"
"Ah no!" cried they;
"But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."
"And where's your old spirit?"
"The same, though another;
Man may be strong without maiming his brother."
"But enemies?"
"Enemies! Whence should they come,
When all interchange what was known but to some?"
"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."
"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war!
Look round--what has earth, now it equably speeds,
To do with these foul and calamitous needs?
Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows,
And its heart is open, never to close?
"Still I can govern," said Captain Sword;
"Fate I respect; and I stick to my word."
And in truth so he did; but the word was one
He had sworn to all vanities under the sun,
To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done.
Besides, what had _he_ with his worn-out story,
To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory?
No: Captain Sword a sword was still,
He could not unteach his lordly will;
He could not attemper his single thought;
It might not be bent, nor newly wrought:
And so, like the tool of a disus'd art,
He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.
'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen
To make a world of swordless men.
misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the
probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no
I have not thought proper to put notes to the poem, detailing the
Mr Southey, in his subsequent lives of conquerors, and his other
"But thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is man, array'd for mutual slaughter:
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."
neighbours, that Conflagration is God's daughter, or Murder God's
I firmly believe, that war, or the sending thousands of our
respectable character when so much is done to keep it out of
immediate sake.
Now, there is nothing that irritates a just cause so much as a
"schoolmaster,"--and lastly, of this strange and most involuntary
international as well as national questions can manifestly settle
fellow-creatures?
I dislike Toryism, because I think it an unjust, exacting, and
The first quotation is from the venerable Mr Bentham, a man who
"Nothing can be worse," says Mr Bentham, "than the
general feeling on the subject of war. The Church,
the State, the ruling few, the subject many, all
seem to have combined, in order to patronise vice
and crime in their very widest sphere of evil.
Dress a man in particular garments, call him by a
particular name, and he shall have authority, on
divers occasions, to commit every species of
offence, to pillage, to murder, to destroy human
felicity, and, for so doing, he shall be rewarded.
"Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the
admiration of heroes is the most pernicious; and
how delusion should have made us admire what
virtue should teach us to hate and loathe, is
among the saddest evidences of human weakness and
folly. The crimes of heroes seem lost in the
vastness of the field they occupy. A lively idea
of the mischief they do, of the misery they
create, seldom penetrates the mind through the
delusions with which thoughtlessness and falsehood
have surrounded their names and deeds. Is it that
the magnitude of the evil is too gigantic for
entrance? We read of twenty thousand men killed in
a battle, with no other feeling than that 'it was
a glorious victory.' Twenty thousand, or ten
thousand, what reck we of their sufferings? The
hosts who perished are evidence of the
completeness of the triumph; and the completeness
of the triumph is the measure of merit, and the
glory of the conqueror. Our schoolmasters, and the
immoral books they so often put into our hands,
have inspired us with an affection for heroes; and
the hero is more heroic in proportion to the
numbers of the slain--add a cypher, not one iota
is added to our disapprobation. Four or two
figures give us no more sentiment of pain than one
figure, while they add marvellously to the
grandeur and splendour of the victor. Let us draw
forth one individual from those thousands, or tens
of thousands,--his leg has been shivered by one
ball, his jaw broken by another--he is bathed in
his own blood, and that of his fellows--yet he
lives, tortured by thirst, fainting, famishing. He
is but one of the twenty thousand--one of the
actors and sufferers in the scene of the hero's
glory--and of the twenty thousand there is
scarcely one whose suffering or death will not be
the centre of a circle of misery. Look again,
admirers of that hero! Is not this wretchedness?
Because it is repeated ten, ten hundred, ten
thousand times, is not this wretchedness?
"The period will assuredly arrive, when better
instructed generations will require all the
evidence of history to credit, that, in times
deeming themselves enlightened, human beings
should have been honoured with public approval, in
the very proportion of the misery they caused, and
the mischiefs they perpetrated. They will call
upon all the testimony which incredulity can
require, to persuade them that, in passed ages,
men there were--men, too, deemed worthy of popular
recompense--who, for some small pecuniary
retribution, hired themselves out to do any deeds
of pillage, devastation, and murder, which might
be demanded of them. And, still more will it shock
their sensibilities to learn, that such men, such
men-destroyers, were marked out as the eminent and
the illustrious--as the worthy of laurels and
monuments--of eloquence and poetry. In that better
and happier epoch, the wise and the good will be
busied in hurling into oblivion, or dragging forth
for exposure to universal ignominy and obloquy,
many of the heads we deem _heroic_; while the true
fame and the perdurable glories will be gathered
around the creators and diffusers of
"The better minds of all countries," observes Mr
Carlyle, "begin to understand each other, and,
which follows naturally, to love each other and
help each other, by whom ultimately all countries
in all their proceedings are governed.
"Late in man's history, yet clearly, at length, it
becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind is
stronger than matter--that mind is the creator and
shaper of matter--that not brute force, but only
persuasion and faith, is the King of this world.
The true poet, who is but an inspired thinker, is
still an Orpheus whose lyre tames the savage
beasts, and evokes the dead rocks to fashion
themselves into palaces and stately inhabited
cities. It has been said, and may be repeated,
that literature is fast becoming all in all to
us--our Church, our Senate, our whole social
constitution. The true Pope of Christendom is not
that feeble old man in Rome, nor is its autocrat
the Napoleon, the Nicholas, with its half million
even of obedient bayonets; such autocrat is
himself but a more cunningly-devised bayonet and
military engine in the hands of a mightier than
he. The true autocrat, or Pope, is that man, the
real or seeming wisest of the last age; crowned
after death; who finds his hierarchy of gifted
authors, his clergy of assiduous journalists:
whose decretals, written, not on parchment, but on
the living souls of men, it were an inversion of
the laws of nature to disobey. In these times of
ours, all intellect has fused itself into
literature; literature--printed thought, is the
molten sea and wonder-bearing chaos, in which mind
after mind casts forth its opinion, its feeling,
to be molten into the general mass, and to be
worked there; interest after interest is engulfed
in it, or embarked in it; higher, higher it rises
round all the edifices of existence; they must all
be molten into it, and anew bodied forth from it,
or stand unconsumed among its fiery surges. Woe to
him whose edifice is not built of true asbest, and
on the everlasting rock, but on the false sand and
the drift-wood of accident, and the paper and
parchment of antiquated habit! For the power or
powers exist not on our earth that can say to that
sea--roll back, or bid its proud waves be still.
"What form so omnipotent an element will
assume--how long it will welter to and fro as a
wild democracy, a wilder anarchy--what
constitution and organization it will fashion for
itself, and for what depends on it in the depths
of time, is a subject for prophetic conjecture,
wherein brightest hope is not unmingled with
fearful apprehensions and awe at the boundless
unknown. The more cheering is this one thing,
which we do see and know--that its tendency is to
a universal European commonweal; that the wisest
in all nations will communicate and co-operate;
whereby Europe will again have its true Sacred
College and council of Amphictyons; wars will
become rarer, less inhuman; and in the course of
centuries, such delirious ferocity in nations, as
in individuals it already is, may be proscribed
and become obsolete for ever."
"For more than half an hour I had been indolently
watching this amphibious scene, when the landlord
entering my room said, that the Russian Prince,
G----n, wished to speak to me on some business;
and the information was scarcely communicated,
when I perceived his Highness standing at the
threshold of my door. With the attention due to
his rank, I instantly begged he would do me the
honour to walk in; and, after we had sufficiently
bowed to each other, and that I had prevailed on
assistant
Sure, a continuation for this poem could be:
  my guest to sit down, I gravely requested him, as
I stood before him, to be so good as to state in
what way I could have the good fortune to render
him any service. The Prince very briefly replied,
that he had called upon me, considering that I was
the person in the hotel best capable (he politely
inclined his head) of informing him by what route
it would be most adviseable for him to proceed to
London, it being his wish to visit my country.
"In order at once to solve this very simple
problem, I silently unfolded and spread out upon
the table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we
leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near
Wiesbaden (our eyes being fixed upon Dover), we
remained in this reflecting attitude for some
seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly
began to trace its route. In doing this, I
observed that his Highness's hand kept swerving
far into the Netherlands, so, gently pulling it by
the thumb towards Paris, I used as much force as I
thought decorous, to induce it to advance in a
straight line; however, finding my efforts
ineffectual, I ventured with respectful
astonishment, to ask, 'Why travel by so
uninteresting a route'?
"The Prince at once acknowledged that the route I
had recommended would, by visiting Paris, afford
him the greatest pleasure; but he frankly told me
that no Russian, not even a personage of his rank,
could enter that capital, without first obtaining
a written permission from the Emperor.
"These words were no sooner uttered, than I felt
my fluent civility suddenly begin to coagulate;
the attention I paid my guest became forced and
unnatural. I was no longer at my ease; and though
I bowed, strained, and endeavoured to be, if
possible, more respectful than ever, yet I really
could hardly prevent my lips from muttering aloud,
that I had sooner die a homely English peasant
than live to be a Russian prince!--in short, his
Highness's words acted upon my mind like thunder
upon beer. And, moreover, I could almost have
sworn that I was an old lean wolf, contemptuously
observing a bald ring rubbed by the collar, from
the neck of a sleek, well-fed mastiff dog;
however, recovering myself, I managed to give as
much information as it was in my humble power to
afford; and my noble guest then taking his
departure, I returned to my open window, to give
vent in solitude (as I gazed upon the horse bath)
to my own reflection upon the subject.
"Although the petty rule of my life has been never
to trouble myself about what the world calls
'politics'--(a fine word, by the by, much easier
expressed than understood)--yet, I must own, I am
always happy when I see a nation enjoying itself,
and melancholy when I observe any large body of
people suffering pain or imprisonment. But of all
sorts of imprisonment, that of the mind is, to my
taste, the most cruel; and, therefore, when I
consider over what immense dominions the Emperor
of Russia presides, and how he governs, I cannot
help sympathizing most sincerely with those
innocent sufferers, who have the misfortune to be
born his subjects; for if a Russian Prince be not
freely permitted to go to Paris, in what a
melancholy state of slavery and debasement must
exist the minds of what we call the lower classes?
"As a sovereign remedy for this lamentable
political disorder, many very sensible people in
England prescribe, I know, that we ought to have
resource to arms. I must confess, however, it
seems to me that one of the greatest political
errors England could commit would be to declare,
or to join in declaring, war with Russia; in
short, that an appeal to brute force would, at
this moment, be at once most unscientifically to
stop an immense moral engine, which, if left to
its work, is quite powerful enough, without
bloodshed, to gain for humanity, at no expense at
all, its object. The individual who is, I
conceive, to overthrow the Emperor of Russia--who
is to direct his own legions against himself--who
is to do what Napoleon had at the head of his
great army failed to effect, is the little child,
who, lighted by the single wick of a small lamp,
sits at this moment perched above the great steam
press of the 'Penny Magazine,' feeding it, from
morning till night, with blank papers, which, at
almost every pulsation of the engine, comes out
stamped on both sides with engravings, and with
pages of plain, useful, harmless knowledge, which,
by making the lower orders acquainted with foreign
lands, foreign productions, various states of
society, &c., tend practically to inculcate 'Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace--good
will towards men.' It has already been stated,
that what proceeds from this press is now
greedily devoured by the people of Europe; indeed,
even at Berlin, we know it can hardly be reprinted
fast enough.
"This child, then,--'this sweet little cherub that
sits up aloft,'--is the only army that an
enlightened country like ours should, I humbly
think, deign to oppose to one who reigns in
darkness--who trembles at day-light, and whose
throne rests upon ignorance and despotism. Compare
this mild, peaceful intellectual policy, with the
dreadful, savage alternative of going to war, and
the difference must surely be evident to everyone.
In the former case, we calmly enjoy, first of all,
the pleasing reflection, that our country is
generously imparting to the nations of Europe the
blessing she is tranquilly deriving from the
purification of civilization to her own mind;--far
from wishing to exterminate, we are gradually
illuminating the Russian peasant, we are mildly
throwing a gleam of light upon the fetters of the
Russian Prince; and surely every well-disposed
person must see, that if we will only have
patience, the result of this noble, temperate
conduct, must produce all that reasonable beings
can desire."--_Bubbles from the Brunnens of
Printed by C. and W. REYNELL,