"I have sat," said he, "for------," as I quote from memory I sha"n"t say how many, "years upon the bench, and I never yet met an honest man with long hair. The worst feature in your case is your ringlets. There is something so disgusting to me in the odious and abominable vice you have indulged in, that I feel myself warranted in applying to you the heaviest penalty of the law."
The miserable man, we are told, fell upon his knees, confessed his delinquency, and, being shorn of his locks in the presence of a crowded court, his fine was remitted, and he was liberated.
Now, perhaps, you will suppose that all this is a mere matter of invention. On the faith of an honest man I a.s.sure you it is not. I have retrenched considerably the pathetic eloquence of the magistrate, and I have left altogether untouched the poor tailor"s struggle between pride and poverty--whether, on the one hand, to suffer the loss of his half-crown, or, on the other, to submit to the desecration of his _entire_ head. We hear a great deal about a law for the rich, and another for the poor; and certainly in this case I am disposed to think the complaint might not seem without foundation. Suppose for a moment that the prisoner in this case had been the Honourable Augustus Somebody, who appeared before his worship fashionably attired, and with hair, beard, and moustache far surpa.s.sing in extravagance the poor tailor"s; should we then have heard this beautiful apostrophe to "the croppies," this thundering denunciation of ringlets? I half fear not.
And yet, under what pretext does a magistrate address to one man, the insulting language he would not dare apply to another? Or let us suppose the rule of justice to be inflexible, and look at the result. What havoc would Sir Peter make among the Guards? ay, even in the household of her Majesty how many delinquents would he find? what a scene would not the clubs present, on the police authorities dropping suddenly down amongst them with rule and line to determine the statute length of their whiskers, or the legal cut of their eye-brows? Happy King of Hanover, were you still amongst us, not even the Alliance would insure your mustachoes. As for Lord Ellenborough, it is now clear enough why he accepted the government of India, and made such haste to get out of the country.
Now we will suppose that as Sir Peter Laurie"s antipathy is long hair, Sir Frederick Roe may also have his dislikes. It is but fair, you will allow, that the privileges of the bench should be equal. Well, for argument"s sake, I will imagine that Sir Frederick Roe has not the same horror of long hair as his learned brother, but has the most unconquerable aversion to long noses.
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What are we to do here? Heaven help half our acquaintance if this should strike him! What is to be done with Lord Allen if he beat a watchman! In what a position will he stand if he fracture a lamp? One"s hair may be cut to even shaved clean off; but your nose.--And then a few weeks,--a few months at farthest, and your hair has grown again: but your nose, like your reputation, can only stand one a.s.sault. This is really a serious view of the subject; and it is a somewhat hard thing that the face you have shown to your acquaintances for years past, with pleasure to yourself and satisfaction to them, should be p.r.o.nounced illegal, or curtailed in its proportions. They have a practice in banks if a forged note be presented for payment, to mark it in a peculiar manner before restoring it to the owner. This is technically called "raddling."
Something similar, I suppose, will be adopted at the police-office, and in case of refusal to conform your features to the rule of Roe, you will be raddled by an officer appointed for the purpose, and sent forth upon the world the mere counterfeit of humanity.
What a glorious thing it would be for this great country, if, having equalized throughout the kingdom the weights, the measures, the miles, and the currency, we should at length attain to an equalization in appearance. The "facial angle" will then have its application in reality, and, instead of the tiresome detail of an Old Bailey trial, we shall hear a judge sum up on the externals of a prisoner, merely directing the attention of the jury to the atrocious irregularity of his teeth, or the a.s.sa.s.sin-like sharpness of his under-jaw. Honour to you, Sir Peter, should this great improvement grow out of your innovation; and proud may the country well be, that acknowledges you among its lawgivers!
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Let men no longer indulge in that absurd fiction which represents justice as blind. On the contrary, with an eye like Canova"s, and a glance quick, sharp, and penetrating as Flaxman"s, she traces every lineament and every feature; and Landseer will confess himself vanquished by Laurie. "The pictorial school of judicial investigation"
will now become fashionable, and if Sir Peter"s practice be but transmitted, surgeons will not be the only professional men who will commence their education with the barbers.
A NUT FOR THE BUDGET.
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I remember once coming into Matlock, on the top of the "Peveril of the Peak," when the coachman who drove our four spanking thoroughbreds contrived, in something less than five minutes, to excite his whole team to the very top of their temper, lifting the wheelers almost off the ground with his heavy lash, and, thrashing his leaders till they smoked with pa.s.sion, he brought them up to the inn door trembling with rage, and snorting with anger. What the devil is all this for, thought I. He guessed at once what was pa.s.sing in my mind, and, with a knowing touch of his elbow, whispered:--
"There"s a new coachman a-going to try "em, and I "ll leave him a precious legacy."
This is precisely what the Whigs did in their surrender of power to the Tories. They, indeed, left them a precious legacy:--without an ally abroad, with discontent and starvation at home, distant and expensive wars, depressed trade, and bankrupt speculation, form some portion of the valuable heritage they bequeathed to their heirs in power. The most sanguine saw matter of difficulty, and the greater number of men were tempted to despair at the prospects of the Conservative party; for, however happily all other questions may have terminated, they still see, in the corn-law, a point whose subtle difficulty would seem inaccessible to legislation. Ah! could the two great parties, that divide the state, only lay their heads together for a short time, and carry out that beautiful principle that Scribe announces in one of his vaudevilles:--
"Que le ble te vend cher, et le pain bon marche."
And why, after all, should not the collective wisdom of England be able to equal in ingenuity the conceptions of a farce-writer? Meanwhile, it is plain that political dissensions, and the rivalries of party, will prevent that mutual good understanding which might prove so beneficial to all. Reconciliations are but flimsy things at best; and whether the attempt be made to conciliate two rival churches, two opposite factions, or two separate interests of any kind whatever, it is usually a failure. It, therefore, becomes the duty of every good subject, and, _a fortiori_, of every good Conservative, to bestir himself at the present moment, and see what can be done to retrieve the sinking fortune of the state. Taxation, like flogging in the army, never comes on the right part of the back. Sometimes too high, sometimes too low. There is no knowing where to lay it on. Besides that, we have by this time got such a general raw all over us, there isn"t a square inch of sound flesh that presents itself for a new infliction. Since the first French Revolution, the ingenuity of man has been tortured on the subject of finance; and had Dionysius lived in our days, instead of offering a bounty for the discovery of a new pleasure, he would have proposed a reward to the man who devised a new tax.
Without entering at any length into this subject, the consideration of which would lead me into all the details of our every-day habits, I pa.s.s on at once to the question which has induced this inquiry, while I proclaim to the world loudly, fearlessly, and resolutely, "Eureka!"--I "ve found it. Yes, my fellow-countrymen, I have found a remedy to supply the deficient income of the nation, not only without imposing a new tax, or inflicting a new burden upon the suffering community, but also without injuring vested rights, or thwarting the activity of commercial enterprise. I neither mulct cotton or corn; I meddle not with parson or publican, nor do I make any portion of the state, by its own privations, support the well-being of the rest. On the contrary, the only individual concerned in my plan, will not be alone benefited in a pecuniary point of view, but the best feelings of the heart will be cultivated and strengthened, and the love of home, so characteristically English, fostered in their bosoms. I could almost grow eloquent upon the benefits of my discovery; but I fear, that were I to give way to this impulse, I should become so fascinated with myself, I could scarcely turn to the less seductive path of simple explanation. Therefore, ere it be too late, let me open my mind and unfold my system:
"What great effects from little causes spring."
Any one who ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton and his apple will acknowledge this, and something of the same kind led me to the very remarkable fact I am about to speak of.
One of the Bonaparte family--as well as I remember, Jerome--was one night playing whist at the same table with Talleyrand, and having dropped a crown piece upon the floor, he interrupted the game, and deranged the whole party to search for his money. Not a little provoked by a meanness which he saw excited the ridicule of many persons about, Talleyrand deliberately folded up a bank-note which lay before him, and, lighting it at the candle, begged, with much courtesy, that he might be permitted to a.s.sist in the search. This story, which is authentic, would seem an admirable parody on a portion of our criminal law. A poor man robs the community, or some member of it (for that comes to the same thing) to the amount of one penny. He is arrested by a policeman, whose salary is perhaps half-a-crown a-day, and conveyed to a police-office, that cost at least five hundred pounds to build it. Here are found three or four more officials; all salaried--all fed, and clothed by the State.
In due course of time he is brought up before a magistrate, also well paid, by whom the affair is investigated, and by him he is afterwards transmitted to the sessions, where a new army of stipendiaries all await him. But his journey is not ended. Convicted of his offence, he is sentenced to seven years" transportation to one of the most remote quarters of the globe. To convey him thither the government have provided a ship and a crew, a supercargo and a surgeon; and, to sum up in one word, before he has commenced the expiation of his crime, that penny has cost the country something about three hundred pounds. Is not this, I ask you, very like Talleyrand and the Prince?--the only difference being, that we perform in sober earnest, what he merely exhibited in sarcasm.
Now, my plan is, and I prefer to develop it in a single word, instead of weakening its force by circ.u.mlocution.
In lieu of letting a poor man be reduced to his theft of one penny--give him two pence. _He_ will be a gainer by double the amount--not to speak of the inappreciable value of his honesty--and _you_ the richer by 71,998 pence, under your present system expended upon policemen, magistrates, judges, gaolers, turnkeys, and transports. Examine for a moment the benefits of this system. Look at the incalculable advantages it presents--the enormous revenue, the pecuniary profit, and the patriotism, all preserved to the State, not to mention the additional pleasure of disseminating happiness while you transport men"s hearts, not their bodies.
Here is a plan based upon the soundest philanthropy, the most rigid economy, and the strictest common sense. Instead of training up a race of men in some distant quarter of the globe, who may yet turn your bitterest enemies, you will preserve to the country so many true-born Britons, bound to you by a debt of grat.i.tude. Upon what ground--on what pretext--can you oppose the system? Do you openly confess that you prefer vice to poverty, and punishment to prevention? Or is it your pleasure to manufacture roguery for exportation, as the French do politeness, and the Irish linen?
I offer the suggestion generously, freely, and spontaneously.
If the heads of the government choose to profit by the hint, I only ask in return, that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces in his place the immense reduction of expenditure, that he will also give notice of a motion for a bill to reward me by a government appointment.
I am not particular as to where, or what: I only bargain against being Secretary for Ireland, or Chief Justice at Cape Coast Castle.
A NUT FOR REPEAL.
When the cholera first broke out in France, a worthy prefect in a district of the south published an edict to the people, recommending them by all means to eat well-cooked and nutritious food, and drink nothing but _vin de Bourdeaux_, Anglice, claret. The advice was excellent, and I take it upon me to say, would have found very few opponents in fact, as it certainly did in principle. When the world, however, began to consider that _filets de bouf a la Marengo_, and _dindes truffees?_ washed down with _Chateau Lafitte_ or _Larase_, were not exactly within the reach of every cla.s.s of the community, they deemed the prefect"s counsel more humane than practicable, and as they do at every thing in France when the tide of public opinion changes, they laughed at him heartily, and wrote pasquinades upon his folly. At the same time the ridicule was unjust, the advice was good, sound, and based on true principles, the only mistake was, the difficulty of its practice. Had he recommended as an antiseptic to disease, that the people should play short whist, wear red nightcaps, or pelt stones at each other, there might have been good ground for the disfavour he fell into; such acts, however practicable and easy of execution, having manifestly no tendency to avert the cholera. Now this is precisely the state of matters in Ireland at this moment: distress prevails more or less in every province and in every county. The people want employment, and they want food. Had you recommended them to eat strawberries and cream in the morning, to drink lemonade during the day, take a little chicken salad for dinner, with a light bread pudding and a gla.s.s of negus afterwards, avoiding all stimulant and exciting food--for your Irishman is a feverish subject--you might be laughed at perhaps for your dietary, but certes it would bear, and bear strongly too, upon the case in question. But what do you do in reality? The local papers teem with cases of distress: families are starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed, are seen upon the road sides exposed to every vicissitude of the season, surrounded by children who cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the measure of relief you propose? not a public subscription; no general outburst of national charity--no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. None of these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you purpose to subst.i.tute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who call themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of jobbers infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to the country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue to the capital. Let us examine them a little.
Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and parade its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all the pride, pomp, and circ.u.mstances of fashion, will flow back upon the long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so; would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you promise yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the "refrain"
of your song is, that Dublin shall "have its own again." Well, for argument"s sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares shall wake to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates shall again inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of hotel-keepers, or still worse, those little democracies of social life, called boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your shops frequented, and every advantage of wealth diffused through all the channels of society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is concerned, I say--for, mark me, I keep you to this original point, in the land of your promise you have strictly limited the diffusion of your blessings by the boundary of the Circular road; even the people at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge are not to be included, unless a special bill be brought in for their benefit. Still the picture is a brilliant one: it would be a fine thing to see all the pomp and ceremony of proud popery walk the land at noon-day, with its saints in gold, and its relics in silver; for of course this is included in the plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic Ireland, and even Spain and Belgium will hide their diminished heads when compared with the gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The "gentlemen of Liffey-street chapel," far better-looking fellows than any foreign priest you "ll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk about _in pontificalibus_; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism so artfully diffuses through every feature of life, will introduce itself among a people who have all the warm temper and hot blood of the south, with the stern determination and headlong impulse of the north of Europe. By all of which I mean to say, that in points of strong popery, Dublin will beat the world, and that before a year of such prosperity be past, she will have the finest altars, the fattest priests, and the longest catalogue of miractes in Europe. Lord Shrewsbury need not then go to the Tyrol for an "estatica," he"ll find one nearer home worth twice the money. The shin-bone of St. Januarius, that jumped out of a wooden box in a hackney coach, because a gentleman swore, will be nothing to the scenes we"ll witness; and if St. Patrick should sport his tibia at an evening party of Daniel O"Connell"s, it would not in the least surprise me. These are great blessings, and I am fully sensible of them. Now let me pa.s.s on to another, which perhaps I have kept last as it is the chief of all, or as the late Lord Castlereagh would have said, the "fundamental feature upon which my argument hinges."
A very common topic of Irish eloquence is, to lament over the enormous exportation of cattle, fowl, and fish, that continually goes forward from Ireland into England. I acknowledge the justness of the complaint--I see its force, and appreciate its value. It is exactly as though a grocer should exclaim against his misery, in being compelled to part with his high-flavoured bohea, his sparkling lump sugar, and his Smyrna figs, or our publisher his books, for the base lucre of gain.
It is humiliating, I confess; and I can well see how a warm-hearted and intelligent creature, who feels the hardship of an export trade in matters of food, must suffer when the principle is extended to a matter of genius; for, not content with our mutton from Meath, our salmon from Limerick, and our chickens from Carlow; but the Saxon must even be gratified with the soul-stirring eloquence of the Great Liberator himself, with only the trouble of going near St. Stephen"s to hear him.
I say near--for among the other tyrannies of the land, he is compelled to shout loud enough to be heard in all the adjacent streets. Now this is too bad. Take our prog--take even our poteen, if you will; but leave us our Penates; this theft, which embodies the ant.i.thesis of Shakspeare, is not only "trash," but "naught enriches them, and makes us poor indeed."
Repeal the union, and you remedy this. You "ll have him at home with you--not masquerading about in the disguise of a gentleman--not restricted by the habits of cultivated and civilised life--not tamed down into the semblance and mockery of good conduct--no longer the chained-up animal of the menagerie, but the roaring, rampant lion, roaming at large in his native forest--not performing antics before some political Van Amburgh--not opening his huge jaws, as though he would devour the Whigs, and shutting them again at the command of his keeper--but howling in all the freedom of his pa.s.sion, and lashing his brawny sides with his vigorous "tail." Haydn, the composer, had an enormous appet.i.te; to gratify which, when dining at a tavern, he ordered a dinner for three. The waiter delayed in serving, as he said the company hadn"t yet arrived, but Haydn told him to bring it up at once, remarking, as he patted complacently his paunch, "I am de compagnie myself." Such will you have the case in your domestic parliament--Dan will be the company himself. No longer fighting in the ranks of opposition, or among the supporters of a government--no more the mere character of a piece, he will then be the Jack Johnson of the political world, taking the money at the door--in which he has had some practice already--he will speak the prologue, lead the orchestra, prompt the performers, and announce a repet.i.tion of the farce every night of the week for his own benefit. Only think what he is in England with his "forty thieves" at his back, and imagine what he will be in Ireland without one honest man to oppose him. He will indeed then be well worth seeing, and if Ireland had no other attraction, foreigners might visit us for a look at the Liberator. He is a droll fellow, is Dan, and there is a strong dash of native humour in his notion of repeal. What strange scenes, to be sure, it would conjure up. Only think for a moment of the absentee lord, an exiled peer, coming back to Dublin after an absence of half his lifetime, vainly endeavouring to seem pleased with his condition, and appear happy with his home. Like an insolvent debtor affecting to joke with the jailer, watch him simulating so much as he can of habits he has long forgotten, while his ignorance of his country is such, that he cannot direct his coachman to a street in the capital.
What a ludicrous view of life would this open to our view! While all these men, who have been satisfied hitherto to send their sympathies from Switzerland, and their best wishes for Ireland by an amba.s.sador"s bag, should now come back to writhe beneath the scourge of a demagogue, and the tyranny of a man who wields irresponsible power.
All Ireland would present the features of a general election--every one would be fascinating, courteous, affable, and dishonest. The unpopular debater in England might have his windows smashed. With us, it would be his neck would be broken. The excitement of the people will be felt within the Parliament; and then, fostered by all the rancour of party hate, will be returned to them with interest. The measure discussed out of doors by the Liberator, will find no one hardy enough to oppose it within the House, and the opinions of the Corn Exchange will be the programme for a committee. A notice of a motion will issue from Merrion-square, and not from a seat in Parliament; and wherever he moves through the country, great Daniel, like a snail, will carry "his house" on his back. "Rob me the Exchequer, Hal!" will be the cry of the priesthood, and no men are better deserving of their hire; and thus, wielding every implement of power, if Ireland be not happy, he can only have himself to blame for it.
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A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE.
National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is a strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself, another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And as he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his breeches pocket, seems to say, "I am not one of your frog-eating fellows, half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton." The Frenchman, as he proclaims his nation, saying, "_Je suis F-r-r-r-rancais_" would indicate that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt untutored neighbour, "_outre mer_;" and so on to the end of the chapter. Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think there is some magic in the name of their fatherland--some inherent n.o.bility in the soil: and it was only lately I read in a French paper an eloquent appeal from a general to his soldiers, which concluded by his telling them, to remember, that they were "Mexicans." I devoutly trust that they understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able, without difficulty, to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to; for upon my conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to say what const.i.tutes a Mexican.
But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured destiny. "He behaved like a Turk," is an every-day phrase to indicate a full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman"s abuse can go no farther than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, "_tu es un Pekin_," a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that the Turks and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat us no better than we behave to them.
Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more estimated than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of national character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now, however, the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad sheet of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium of the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud. The result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the unhappy law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What signifies the dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or Agincourt compared to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh thirty years of peace?
Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between two manly natures: now, the acc.u.mulated hate of ages is sharpened and embittered by a thousand petty jealousies that have their origin in politics, military glory, society, or literature; and we detest each other like quarterly reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig commissioner would a Tory inst.i.tution--only anxious to discover abuses and defects--with an obliquity of vision that sees everything distorted, or a fecundity of imagination that can conjure up the ills he seeks for. He finds us rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our habits are vulgar, our tastes depraved; our House of Commons is a riotous mob of under-bred debaters; our army an aristocratic _lounge_, where merit has no chance against money; and our literature--G.o.d wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The Englishman is nearly as complimentary. The coa.r.s.eness of French habits is to him a theme of eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the indelicacy of the women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame and disgust: the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible parody on a representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most absurd subst.i.tute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the army he discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if we had no other compet.i.tors in the race of civilisation than the French, our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our sovereignty over the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a slip of sea not much broader than an American river, who have gone on for ages repeating these and similar puerilities, without the most remote prospect of mutual explanation and mutual good-will.
"I hate prejudice, I hate the French," said poor Charles Matthews, in one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was no bad summary of an Englishman"s faith. On the other hand, to hate and detest the English is the _sine qua non_ of French nationality, and to concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military greatness, is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the question is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They are not.
Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people pre-eminently gifted with intelligence and information, should not have come to a better understanding, and that many a long year ago? Simply from this plain fact, that the opinions of the press have weighed against those of individuals, and that the published satires on both sides have had a greater currency and a greater credit than the calm judgment of the few. The leading journals in Paris and in London have pelted each other mercilessly for many a year. One might forgive this, were the attacks suggested by such topics as stimulate and strengthen national feeling; but no, the controversy extends to every thing, and, worse than all, is carried on with more bitterness of spirit, than depth of information.
The reviewer "par excellence" of our own country makes a yearly incursion into French literature, as an Indian would do into his hunting-ground. Resolved to carry death and carnage on every side, he arms himself for the chase, and whets his appet.i.te for slaughter by the last "_bonne bouche_" of the day. We then have some half introductory pages of eloquent exordium on the evil tendency of French literature, and the contamination of those unsettled opinions in politics, religion, and morals, so copiously spread through the pages of every French writer. The revolution of 1797 is adduced for the hundredth time as the origin of these evils; and all the crime and bloodshed of that frightful period is denounced as but the first step of the iniquity which has reached its pinnacle, in the novels of Paul de k.o.c.k. To believe the reviewer, French literature consists in the productions of this writer, the works of George Sand, Balzac, Frederic Soulie, and a few others of equal note and mark. According to him, intrigue, seduction, and adultery, are the staple of French romance: the whole interest of every novel turning on the undiscovered turpitude of domestic life; and the great rivalry between witters, being, to try which can invent a new feature of depravity and a new fashion of sin. Were this true, it were indeed a sad picture of national degradation; was it the fact that such books, and such there are in abundance, composed the light literature of the day--were to be found in every drawing-room--to be seen in every hand--to be read with interest and discussed with eagerness--to have that wide-spread circulation which must ever carry with it a strong influence upon the habits of those who read. Were all this so, I say it would be, indeed, a deplorable evidence of the low standard of civilisation among the French. What is the fact, however? Simply that these books have but a limited circulation, and that, only among an inferior cla.s.s of readers. The _modiste_ and the _grisette_ are, doubtless, well read in the mysteries of. Paul de k.o.c.k and Madame du Deffant; but in the cultivated cla.s.ses of the capital, such books have no more currency than the scandalous memoirs of our own country have in the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor-square or St. James"s. Balzac has, it is true, a wide-spread reputation; but many of his books are no less marked by a powerful interest than a touching appeal to the fine feelings of our nature. Alfred de Vigny, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Leon Gozlan, Paul de Muset, Alexandre Dumas, and a host of others, are all popular, and, with the exception of a few works, unexceptionable on every ground of morality; but these, after all, are but the skirmishers before the army. What shall we say of Guizot, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Toqueville, Mignet, and many more, whose contributions to history have formed an era in the literature of the age? The strictures of the reviewers are not very unlike the opinions of the French prisoner, who maintained that in England every one eat with his knife, and the ladies drank gin, which important and veracious facts he himself ascertained, while residing in that fashionable quarter of the town called St. Martin"s lane. This sweeping mode of argument, _a particular_, is fatal when applied to nations. Even the Americans have suffered in the hands of Mrs. Trollope and others; and gin twist, bowie knives, tobacco chewing, and many similarly amiable habits, are not universal. Once for all, then, be it known, there is no more fallacious way of forming an opinion regarding France and Frenchmen, than through the pages of our periodical press, except by a _short_ residence in Paris--I say short, for if a little learning be a dangerous thing, a little travelling is more so; and it requires long experience of the world, and daily habit of observation, to enable any man to detect in the ordinary routine of life the finer and more distinctive traits that have escaped his neighbour; besides, however palpable and self-evident the proposition, it demands both tact and time to see that no general standard of taste can be erected for all nations, and, that to judge of others by your own prejudices and habits, is both unfair and absurd. To give an instance. No English traveller has commented on the French Chamber of Deputies, without expending much eloquence and a great deal of honest indignation on the practice of speaking from a tribune, written orations being in their opinion a ludicrous travestie on the freedom of debate. Now what is the fact; in the whole French Chamber there are not ten, there are not five men who could address the house extempore; not from any deficiency of ability--not from any want of information, logical force, and fluency---the names of Thiers, Guizot, Lamartine, Dupin, Arago, &c. &c.
are quite sufficient to demonstrate this--but simply from the intricacy and difficulty of the French language. A worthy alderman gets up, as the phrase is, and addresses a speech of some three quarters of an hour to the collective wisdom of the livery; and although he may be frequently interrupted by thunders of applause, he is never checked for any solecisms in his grammar: he may drive a coach and six through Lindley Murray; he may inflict heaven knows how many fractures on poor Priscian"s head, yet to criticise him on so mean a score as that of mere diction, would not be thought of for a moment. Not so in France: the language is one of equivoque and subtlety; the misplacement of a particle, the change of a gender, the employment of any phrase but the exact one, might be at any moment fatal to the sense of the speaker, and would inevitably be so to his success. It was not very long since, that a worthy deputy interrupted M. Thiers by alleging the non-sequitur of some a.s.sertion, "_Vous n"est pas consequent_," cried the indignant member, using a phrase not only a vulgarism in itself, but inapplicable at the time. A roar of laughter followed his interruption. In all the journals of the next day, he was styled the deputy _consequent_; and when he returned to his const.i.tuency the ridicule attached to his blunder still traced his steps, and finally lost him his election.
"Thank G.o.d I am a Briton," said Nelson; a phrase, doubtless, many more of us will re-echo with equal energy; but while we are expressing our grat.i.tude let our thankfulness extend to this gratifying fact, that the liberty of our laws is even surpa.s.sed by the licence of our language.
No obscure recess of our tongue is so deep that we cannot by _habeas corpus_ right bring up a long-forgotten phrase, and provided the speaker have a meaning and be able to convey it to the minds of his hearers, we are seldom disposed to be critical on the manner, if the matter be there. Besides this, there are styles of eloquence so imbued with the spirit of certain eras in French history, that the discussion of any subject of ancient or modern days, will always have its own peculiar character of diction. Thus, there is the rounded period and flowing sententiousness of Louis XIV., the more polished but less forcible phraseology of the regency itself, succeeded by the epigrammatic taste and pointed brevity introduced by Voltaire. The empire left its impress on the language, and all the literature of the period wore the _esprit soldatesque_; and so on down to the very days of the barricades, each changing phase of political life had its appropriate expression. To a.s.sume these with effect, was not of course the gift of every man, and yet to have erred in their adoption, would have been palpable to all; here then is one important difference between us, and on this subject alone I might cite at least twenty more. The excitable Frenchman scarcely uses any action while speaking, and that, of the most simple and subdued kind. The phlegmatic Englishman stamps and gesticulates with all the energy of a madman. We esteem humour; they prefer wit: we like the long consecutive chain of proof that leads us step by step to inevitable conviction; they like better some brief but happy ill.u.s.tration that, dispensing with the tedium of argument, presents a question at one glance before them. They have that general knowledge of their country and its changes, that an ill.u.s.tration from the past is ever an effective weapon of the orator; while with us the force would be entirely lost from the necessity of recounting the incident to which reference was made.