<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i001.jpg" width-obs="305" height-obs="400" alt="[To face the Title." title="" /> <span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">[<i>To face the Title.</i></span></span></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</SPAN></span></p>
<h1>CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.</h1>
<h3><b>A Poem.</b></h3>
<h2>BY LEIGH HUNT.</h2>
<div class='center'><small>WITH SOME REMARKS ON</small><br/>
WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.<br/><br/><br/><br/></div>
<div class='poem'>
—If there be in glory aught of good,<br/>
It may by means far different be attained,<br/>
Without ambition, war, or violence.—<span class="smcap">Milton.</span><br/></div>
<div class='center'><br/><br/><br/>
LONDON:<br/>
<br/>
CHARLES KNIGHT, LUDGATE STREET.<br/>
<br/>
1835.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class='center'>
<small>TO</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE</small><br/>
<br/>
<big>LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,</big><br/>
<br/>
<small>WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;</small><br/>
<br/>
<small>AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)</small><br/>
<br/>
ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,<br/>
<br/>
<b>These Pages are Inscribed</b><br/>
<br/>
<small>BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,</small><br/>
<br/>
Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>ADVERTISEMENT.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span> Poem is the result of a sense of duty,
which has taken the Author from quieter studies
during a great public crisis. He obeyed the
impulse with joy, because it took the shape of
verse; but with more pain, on some accounts,
than he chooses to express. However, he has
done what he conceived himself bound to do;
and if every zealous lover of his species were
to express his feelings in like manner, to the
best of his ability, individual opinions, little in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</SPAN></span>
themselves, would soon amount to an overwhelming
authority, and hasten the day of reason
and beneficence.</div>
<p>The measure is regular with an irregular
aspect,—four accents in a verse,—like that of
Christabel, or some of the poems of Sir Walter
Scott:</p>
<div class='poem'>
Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày—<br/>
And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl—<br/></div>
<div class='unindent'>He mentions this, not, of course, for readers
in general, but for the sake of those daily
acceders to the list of the reading public, whose
knowledge of books is not yet equal to their
love of them.</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i002.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="440" alt="STEPPING IN MUSIC AND THUNDER SWEET, WHICH HIS DRUMS SENT BEFORE HIM INTO THE STREET. Canto I. p. 1." title="" /></div>
<div class='poem2'>
STEPPING IN MUSIC AND THUNDER SWEET,<br/>
WHICH HIS DRUMS SENT BEFORE HIM INTO THE STREET.<br/>
<div class='sig'>
<SPAN href="#Page_1"><i>Canto</i> I. <i>p.</i> 1.</SPAN><br/></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.</h2>
<h2>I.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword marched to War.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Captain</span> Sword got up one day,</span><br/>
Over the hills to march away,<br/>
Over the hills and through the towns,<br/>
They heard him coming across the downs,<br/>
Stepping in music and thunder sweet,<br/>
Which his drums sent before him into the street.<br/>
And lo! 'twas a beautiful sight in the sun;<br/>
For first came his foot, all marching like one,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</SPAN></span>With tranquil faces, and bristling steel,<br/>
And the flag full of honour as though it could feel,<br/>
And the officers gentle, the sword that hold<br/>
'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling gold,<br/>
And the massy tread, that in passing is heard,<br/>
Though the drums and the music say never a word.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then came his horse, a clustering sound</span><br/>
Of shapely potency, forward bound,<br/>
Glossy black steeds, and riders tall,<br/>
Rank after rank, each looking like all,<br/>
Midst moving repose and a threatening charm,<br/>
With mortal sharpness at each right arm,<br/>
And hues that painters and ladies love,<br/>
And ever the small flag blush'd above.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ever and anon the kettle-drums beat</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</SPAN></span>Hasty power midst order meet;<br/>
And ever and anon the drums and fifes<br/>
Came like motion's voice, and life's;<br/>
Or into the golden grandeurs fell<br/>
Of deeper instruments, mingling well,<br/>
Burdens of beauty for winds to bear;<br/>
And the cymbals kiss'd in the shining air,<br/>
And the trumpets their visible voices rear'd,<br/>
Each looking forth with its tapestried beard,<br/>
Bidding the heavens and earth make way<br/>
For Captain Sword and his battle-array.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He, nevertheless, rode indifferent-eyed,</span><br/>
As if pomp were a toy to his manly pride,<br/>
Whilst the ladies lov'd him the more for his scorn,<br/>
And thought him the noblest man ever was born,<br/>
And tears came into the bravest eyes,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span>And hearts swell'd after him double their size,<br/>
And all that was weak, and all that was strong,<br/>
Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not be wrong;<br/>
Such love, though with bosom about to be gored,<br/>
Did sympathy get for brave Captain Sword.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So, half that night, as he stopp'd in the town,</span><br/>
'Twas all one dance, going merrily down,<br/>
With lights in windows and love in eyes,<br/>
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;<br/>
But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs;<br/>
For the sound of his drums grew less and less,<br/>
Walking like carelessness off from distress;<br/>
And Captain Sword went whistling gay,<br/>
"Over the hills and far away."<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>II.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword won a Great Victory.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Through</span> fair and through foul went Captain Sword,</span><br/>
Pacer of highway and piercer of ford,<br/>
Steady of face in rain or sun,<br/>
He and his merry men, all as one;<br/>
Till they came to a place, where in battle-array<br/>
Stood thousands of faces, firm as they,<br/>
Waiting to see which could best maintain<br/>
Bloody argument, lords of pain;<br/>
And down the throats of their fellow-men<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</SPAN></span>Thrust the draught never drunk again.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was a spot of rural peace,</span><br/>
Ripening with the year's increase<br/>
And singing in the sun with birds,<br/>
Like a maiden with happy words—<br/>
With happy words which she scarcely hears<br/>
In her own contented ears,<br/>
Such abundance feeleth she<br/>
Of all comfort carelessly,<br/>
Throwing round her, as she goes,<br/>
Sweet half-thoughts on lily and rose,<br/>
Nor guesseth what will soon arouse<br/>
All ears—that murder's in the house;<br/>
And that, in some strange wrong of brain,<br/>
Her father hath her mother slain.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Steady! steady! The masses of men</span><br/>
Wheel, and fall in, and wheel again,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</SPAN></span>Softly as circles drawn with pen.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then a gaze there was, and valour, and fear,</span><br/>
And the jest that died in the jester's ear,<br/>
And preparation, noble to see,<br/>
Of all-accepting mortality;<br/>
Tranquil Necessity gracing Force;<br/>
And the trumpets danc'd with the stirring horse;<br/>
And lordly voices, here and there,<br/>
Call'd to war through the gentle air;<br/>
When suddenly, with its voice of doom,<br/>
Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom,<br/>
Making wider the dreadful room:<br/>
On the faces of nations round<br/>
Fell the shadow of that sound.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Death for death! The storm begins;</span><br/>
Rush the drums in a torrent of dins;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</SPAN></span>Crash the muskets, gash the swords;<br/>
Shoes grow red in a thousand fords;<br/>
Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite;<br/>
Darkly gathers the breath of the fight,<br/>
Salt to the palate and stinging to sight;<br/>
Muskets are pointed they scarce know where,<br/>
No matter: Murder is cluttering there.<br/>
Reel the hollows: close up! close up!<br/>
Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup.<br/>
Down go bodies, snap burst eyes;<br/>
Trod on the ground are tender cries;<br/>
Brains are dash'd against plashing ears;<br/>
Hah! no time has battle for tears;<br/>
Cursing helps better—cursing, that goes<br/>
Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'.<br/>
What have soldiers with tears to do?—<br/>
We, who this mad-house must now go through,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</SPAN></span>This twenty-fold Bedlam, let loose with knives—<br/>
To murder, and stab, and grow liquid with lives—<br/>
Gasping, staring, treading red mud,<br/>
Till the drunkenness' self makes us steady of blood?<br/></div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i003.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="467" alt="DOWN GO BODIES—SNAP BURST EYES— TROD ON THE GROUND ARE TENDER CRIES. Canto II. p. 8." title="" /></div>
<div class='poem'>
DOWN GO BODIES—SNAP BURST EYES—<br/>
TROD ON THE GROUND ARE TENDER CRIES.<br/>
<div class='sig'>
<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><SPAN href="#Page_8"><i>Canto</i> II. <i>p.</i> 8.</SPAN></span><br/></div>
</div>
<div class='poem'><br/><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">[Oh! shrink not thou, reader! Thy part's in it too;</span><br/>
Has not thy praise made the thing they go through<br/>
Shocking to read of, but noble to do?]<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No time to be "breather of thoughtful breath"</span><br/>
Has the giver and taker of dreadful death.<br/>
See where comes the horse-tempest again,<br/>
Visible earthquake, bloody of mane!<br/>
Part are upon us, with edges of pain;<br/>
Part burst, riderless, over the plain,<br/>
Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain.<br/>
See, by the living God! see those foot<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</SPAN></span>Charging down hill—hot, hurried, and mute!<br/>
They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell!<br/>
Horses roll in a human hell;<br/>
Horse and man they climb one another—<br/>
Which is the beast, and which is the brother?<br/>
Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks<br/>
With the tread of torn-out cheeks,<br/>
Drinking each other's bloody breath—<br/>
Here's the fleshliest feast of Death.<br/>
An odour, as of a slaughter-house,<br/>
The distant raven's dark eye bows.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Victory! victory! Man flies man;</span><br/>
Cannibal patience hath done what it can—<br/>
Carv'd, and been carv'd, drunk the drinkers down,<br/>
And now there is one that hath won the crown:<br/>
One pale visage stands lord of the board—<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</SPAN></span>Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword!<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets neigh,</span><br/>
They and his horse, and waft him away;<br/>
They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow,<br/>
Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe.<br/>
Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath!<br/>
To see the man who has been with Death;<br/>
To see the man who determineth right<br/>
By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might.<br/>
Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums,<br/>
And lo! in the air of empire he comes!<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All things present, in earth and sky,</span><br/>
Seem to look at his looking eye.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>III.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">Of the Ball that was given to Captain Sword.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>But</span> Captain Sword was a man among men,</span><br/>
And he hath become their playmate again:<br/>
Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he,<br/>
But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye,<br/>
And floweth the dance a palace within,<br/>
Half the night, to a golden din,<br/>
Midst lights in windows and love in eyes,<br/>
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;<br/>
And ever the look of Captain Sword<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</SPAN></span>Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There was the country-dance, small of taste;</span><br/>
And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist;<br/>
And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp,<br/>
Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp;<br/>
And the high-stepping minuet, face to face,<br/>
Mutual worship of conscious grace;<br/>
And all the shapes in which beauty goes<br/>
Weaving motion with blithe repose.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And then a table a feast displayed,</span><br/>
Like a garden of light without a shade,<br/>
All of gold, and flowers, and sweets,<br/>
With wines of old church-lands, and sylvan meats,<br/>
Food that maketh the blood feel choice;<br/>
Yet all the face of the feast, and the voice,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</SPAN></span>And heart, still turn'd to the head of the board;<br/>
For ever the look of Captain Sword<br/>
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.<br/></div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i004.jpg" width-obs="339" height-obs="450" alt="THERE WAS THE COUNTRY DANCE, SMALL OF TASTE; AND THE WALTZ, THAT LOVETH THE LADY'S WAIST. Canto III. p. 14." title="" /></div>
<div class='poem2'>
THERE WAS THE COUNTRY DANCE, SMALL OF TASTE;<br/>
AND THE WALTZ, THAT LOVETH THE LADY'S WAIST.<br/>
<div class='sig'><SPAN href="#Page_14"><i>Canto</i> III. <i>p.</i> 14.</SPAN></div>
<br/></div>
<div class='poem'><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well content was Captain Sword;</span><br/>
At his feet all wealth was pour'd;<br/>
On his head all glory set;<br/>
For his ease all comfort met;<br/>
And around him seem'd entwin'd<br/>
All the arms of womankind.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when he had taken his fill</span><br/>
Thus, of all that pampereth will,<br/>
In his down he sunk to rest,<br/>
Clasp'd in dreams of all its best.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>IV.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">On What took place on the Field of Battle the Night after the Victory.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>'Tis</span> a wild night out of doors;</span><br/>
The wind is mad upon the moors,<br/>
And comes into the rocking town,<br/>
Stabbing all things, up and down,<br/>
And then there is a weeping rain<br/>
Huddling 'gainst the window-pane,<br/>
And good men bless themselves in bed;<br/>
The mother brings her infant's head<br/>
Closer, with a joy like tears,<br/>
And thinks of angels in her prayers;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span>Then sleeps, with his small hand in hers.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two loving women, lingering yet</span><br/>
Ere the fire is out, are met,<br/>
Talking sweetly, time-beguil'd,<br/>
One of her bridegroom, one her child,<br/>
The bridegroom he. They have receiv'd<br/>
Happy letters, more believ'd<br/>
For public news, and feel the bliss<br/>
The heavenlier on a night like this.<br/>
They think him hous'd, they think him blest,<br/>
Curtain'd in the core of rest,<br/>
Danger distant, all good near;<br/>
Why hath their "Good night" a tear?<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Behold him! By a ditch he lies</span><br/>
Clutching the wet earth, his eyes<br/>
Beginning to be mad. In vain<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span>His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain,<br/>
That mock'd but now his homeward tears;<br/>
And ever and anon he rears<br/>
His legs and knees with all their strength,<br/>
And then as strongly thrusts at length.<br/>
Rais'd, or stretch'd, he cannot bear<br/>
The wound that girds him, weltering there:<br/>
And "Water!" he cries, with moonward stare.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["I will not read it!" with a start,</span><br/>
Burning cries some honest heart;<br/>
"I will not read it! Why endure<br/>
Pangs which horror cannot cure?<br/>
Why—Oh why? and rob the brave<br/>
And the bereav'd of all they crave,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span>A little hope to gild the grave?"<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ask'st thou why, thou honest heart?</span><br/>
'Tis <i>because</i> thou dost ask, and because thou dost start.<br/>
'Tis because thine own praise and fond outward thought<br/>
Have aided the shews which this sorrow have wrought.]<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A wound unutterable—Oh God!</span><br/>
Mingles his being with the sod.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["I'll read no more."—Thou must, thou must:</span><br/>
In thine own pang doth wisdom trust.]<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His nails are in earth, his eyes in air,</span><br/>
And "Water!" he crieth—he may not forbear.<br/>
Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</SPAN></span>The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">["No more! no more!" Nay, this is but one;</span><br/>
Were the whole tale told, it would not be done<br/>
From wonderful setting to rising sun.<br/>
But God's good time is at hand—be calm,<br/>
Thou reader! and steep thee in all thy balm<br/>
Of tears or patience, of thought or good will,<br/>
For the field—the field awaiteth us still.]<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Water! water!" all over the field:</span><br/>
To nothing but Death will that wound-voice yield.<br/>
One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent;<br/>
What holds he so close?—his body is rent.<br/>
Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek;<br/>
Unto the raven he may not speak.<br/>
One would fain kill him; and one half round<br/>
The place where he writhes, hath up beaten the ground.<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</SPAN></span>Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground,<br/>
And the feathers and music that litter it round,<br/>
The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound.<br/>
Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take breath!<br/>
See what a floor hath the dance of death!<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The floor is alive, though the lights are out;</span><br/>
What are those dark shapes, flitting about?<br/>
Flitting about, yet no ravens they,<br/>
Not foes, yet not friends—mute creatures of prey;<br/>
Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife,<br/>
Some say they take the beseeching life.<br/>
Horrible pity is theirs for despair,<br/>
And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare.<br/>
Love will come to-morrow, and sadness,<br/>
Patient for the fear of madness,<br/>
And shut its eyes for cruelty,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span>So many pale beds to see.<br/>
Turn away, thou Love, and weep<br/>
No more in covering his last sleep;<br/>
Thou hast him—blessed is thine eye!<br/>
Friendless Famine has yet to die.<br/></div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i005.jpg" width-obs="350" height-obs="395" alt="COME HITHER, YE CITIES! YE BALL-ROOMS TAKE BREATH!" title="" /></div>
<div class='poem2'>
COME HITHER, YE CITIES! YE BALL-ROOMS TAKE BREATH!<br/>
SEE WHAT A FLOOR HATH THE DANCE OF DEATH.<br/>
<div class='right'>
<SPAN href="#Page_22"><i>Canto</i> IV. <i>p.</i> 22.</SPAN><br/></div>
</div>
<div class='poem'><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A shriek!—Great God! what superhuman</span><br/>
Peal was that? Not man, nor woman,<br/>
Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak<br/>
Their soul in such a ponderous shriek.<br/>
Dumbly, for an instant, stares<br/>
The field; and creep men's dying hairs.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O friend of man! O noble creature!</span><br/>
Patient and brave, and mild by nature,<br/>
Mild by nature, and mute as mild,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span>Why brings he to these passes wild<br/>
Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty?<br/>
Could he not do his dreadful duty,<br/>
(If duty it be, which seems mad folly)<br/>
Nor link thee to his melancholy?<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two noble steeds lay side by side,</span><br/>
One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died;<br/>
Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn,<br/>
And out of its bowels that shriek was born.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now see what crawleth, well as it may,</span><br/>
Out of the ditch, and looketh that way.<br/>
What horror all black, in the sick moonlight,<br/>
Kneeling, half human, a burdensome sight;<br/>
Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span>Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by;</span><br/>
Writhing till eve did a remnant lie;<br/>
Then feebly this coal abateth his cry;<br/>
But he hopeth! he hopeth! joy lighteth his eye,<br/>
For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!"<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O goodness in horror! O ill not all ill!</span><br/>
In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope still.<br/>
To-morrow with dawn will come many a wain,<br/>
And bear away loads of human pain,<br/>
Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals; but some<br/>
Again will awake in home-mornings, and some,<br/>
Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum.<br/>
From others, faint blood shall in families flow,<br/>
With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe,<br/>
Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow.<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</SPAN></span>Now, even now, I hear them at hand,<br/>
Though again Captain Sword is up in the land,<br/>
Marching anew for more fields like these<br/>
In the health of his flag in the morning breeze.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum,</span><br/>
And again Captain Sword in his pride doth come;<br/>
He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn,<br/>
Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn,<br/>
Where under the sunshine cold they lie,<br/>
And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye.<br/>
Small thinking is his but of work to be done,<br/>
And onward he marcheth, using the sun:<br/>
He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires<br/>
On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires;<br/>
He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and through yell,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</SPAN></span>And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell.<br/>
Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all sore,<br/>
And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the floor,<br/>
And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh—<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh God! let me breathe, and look up at thy sky!</span><br/>
Good is as hundreds, evil as one;<br/>
Round about goeth the golden sun.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>V.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">How Captain Sword, in Consequence of his Great Victories, became infirm in his Wits.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>But</span> to win at the game, whose moves are death,</span><br/>
It maketh a man draw too proud a breath:<br/>
And to see his force taken for reason and right,<br/>
It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite.<br/>
Never did chief of the line of Sword<br/>
Keep his wits whole at that drunken board.<br/>
He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate,<br/>
Of the field of his action, for soul as great:<br/>
He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span>And saith "Lo! I rule both body and mind."<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Captain Sword forgot his own soul,</span><br/>
Which of aught save itself, resented controul;<br/>
Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still,<br/>
Bodiless monarch, enthron'd in his will:<br/>
He forgot the close thought, and the burning heart,<br/>
And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging apart,<br/>
Which lifteth the seas with her gentle looks,<br/>
And growth, and death, and immortal books,<br/>
And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls,<br/>
Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles;<br/>
Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word;<br/>
Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard;<br/>
Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day,<br/>
Mighty, and genial, and just alway,<br/>
Owning no difference, doing no wrong,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span>Loving the orbs and the least bird's song,<br/>
The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod,<br/>
Bright with the smile of the distance of God.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Captain Sword, like a witless thing,</span><br/>
Of all under heaven must needs be king,<br/>
King of kings, and lord of lords,<br/>
Swayer of souls as well as of swords,<br/>
Ruler of speech, and through speech, of thought;<br/>
And hence to his brain was a madness brought.<br/>
He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West,<br/>
Fiercer for sights of men's unrest,<br/>
Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men,<br/>
Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen,<br/>
A conqueror strange, who sat in his home<br/>
Like the wizard that plagued the ships of Rome,<br/>
Noiseless, show-less, dealing no death,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span>But victories, winged, went forth from his breath.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Three thousand miles across the waves<SPAN name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</SPAN></span><br/>
Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves:<br/>
Three thousand miles did the echo return<br/>
With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks burn.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore<SPAN name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</SPAN></span><br/>
Their name in the map should never be more:<br/>
Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before.<br/>
Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head<br/>
And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see;</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span>For with that very people, their leader, stood he,<br/>
Incarnate afresh, like a Cæsar of old;<SPAN name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</SPAN><br/>
But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold,<br/>
Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold.<br/>
Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost!<br/>
Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place</span><br/>
The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face,<SPAN name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</SPAN><br/>
Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right,<br/>
Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might,<br/>
And squaring its claims with his old small sight;<br/>
Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd,<br/>
And said, "I will walk through a subject world:<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</SPAN></span>Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure,<br/>
The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor;<br/>
And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow<br/>
Thus far; but presume no farther to flow:<br/>
For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"<br/></div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i006.jpg" width-obs="375" height-obs="440" alt="THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN" title="" /></div>
<div class='poem2'>
THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN,<br/>
AND SAID, "NOW OBSERVE ME—I'M CAPTAIN PEN."<br/>
<div class='sig'>
<SPAN href="#Page_34"><i>Canto</i> V. <i>p.</i> 34.</SPAN><br/></div>
</div>
<div class='poem'><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,<SPAN name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</SPAN></span><br/>
"The king thou set'st over us, by a free air<br/>
Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then<br/>
First knew the might of great Captain Pen.<br/>
So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain,<br/>
That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign;<br/>
Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now<br/>
'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.<br/>
Then suddenly came he, with gowned men,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</SPAN></span>And said, "Now observe me—<i>I'm</i> Captain Pen:<br/>
<i>I'll</i> lead all your changes—I'll write all your books—<br/>
I'm every thing—all things—I'm clergymen, cooks,<br/>
Clerks, carpenters, hosiers—I'm Pitt—I'm Lord Grey."<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas painful to see his extravagant way;</span><br/>
But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong,<br/>
What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?<br/><br/><br/></div>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><SPAN name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></SPAN> The American War.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote"><p><SPAN name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></SPAN> The French War.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote"><p><SPAN name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></SPAN> Napoleon.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote"><p><SPAN name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></SPAN> The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote"><p><SPAN name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></SPAN> The Glorious Three Days.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>VI.</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">Of Captain Pen, and how he fought with Captain Sword.</span></h3>
<div class='poem'>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class='smcap'>Now</span> tidings of Captain Sword and his state</span><br/>
Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great,<br/>
Who rose and said, "His time is come."<br/>
And he sent him, but not by sound of drum,<br/>
Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath,<br/>
Hot with questions of life and death,<br/>
But only a letter calm and mild;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span>And Captain Sword he read it, and smil'd,<br/>
And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear,<br/>
(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger near,<br/>
For brave was he ever) "Let Captain Pen<br/>
Bring at his back a million men,<br/>
And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then."<br/>
Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen,<br/>
"I'll bring at my back a <i>world</i> of men."<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword,</span><br/>
But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word,<br/>
For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears<br/>
Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs,<br/>
And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound<br/>
Now heard in the distance, now gathering round,<br/>
Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span>But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indestructible souls among men</span><br/>
Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen;<br/>
Sages, patriots, martyrs mild,<br/>
Going to the stake, as child<br/>
Goeth with his prayer to bed;<br/>
Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head;<br/>
Poets, making earth aware<br/>
Of its wealth in good and fair;<br/>
And the benders to their intent,<br/>
Of metal and of element;<br/>
Of flame the enlightener, beauteous,<br/>
And steam, that bursteth his iron house;<br/>
And adamantine giants blind,<br/>
That, without master, have no mind.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heir to these, and all their store,</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span>Was Pen, the power unknown of yore;<br/>
And as their might still created might,<br/>
And each work'd for him by day and by night,<br/>
In wealth and wondrous means he grew,<br/>
Fit to move the earth anew;<br/>
Till his fame began to speak<br/>
Pause, as when the thunders wake,<br/>
Muttering, in the beds of heaven:<br/>
Then, to set the globe more even,<br/>
Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste,<br/>
Which hath left old Time displac'd—<br/>
And Iron, mightiest now for Pen,<br/>
Each of his steps like an army of men—<br/>
(Sword little knew what was leaving him then)<br/>
And out of the witchcraft of their skill,<br/>
A creature he call'd, to wait on his will—<br/>
Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold—<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span>Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd,<br/>
And uttered his words a million fold.<br/>
Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew,<br/>
And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,</span><br/>
But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;<br/>
And that same night of the letter, some strange<br/>
Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change;<br/>
And at midnight the sound grew into a roll<br/>
As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole,<br/>
From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime,<br/>
Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;—<br/>
A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords<br/>
Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words,<br/>
And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming,<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span>A tread as if all the world were coming.<br/>
And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet<br/>
Call'd into music those terrible feet,<br/>
Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round<br/>
To the burn of their speed with a golden sound;<br/>
With a golden sound, and a swift repose,<br/>
Such as the blood in the young heart knows;<br/>
Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease;<br/>
When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when Captain Sword got up next morn,</span><br/>
Lo! a new-fac'd world was born;<br/>
For not an anger nor pride would it shew,<br/>
Nor aught of the loftiness now found low,<br/>
Nor would his own men strike a single blow:<br/>
Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span>Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword;<br/>
But weaponless all, and wise they stood,<br/>
In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good;<br/>
Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands,<br/>
For such were their new lord's commands,<br/>
Lessons rather, and brotherly plea;<br/>
Reverence the past, quoth he;<br/>
Reverence the struggle and mystery,<br/>
And faces human in their pain;<br/>
Nor his the least, that could sustain<br/>
Cares of mighty wars, and guide<br/>
Calmly where the red deaths ride.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword;</span><br/>
"Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word?<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span>What! traitors? deserters?"<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"Ah no!" cried they;</span><br/>
"But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And where's your old spirit?"</span><br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"The same, though another;</span><br/>
Man may be strong without maiming his brother."<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But enemies?"</span><br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Enemies! Whence should they come,</span><br/>
When all interchange what was known but to some?"<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war!</span><br/>
Look round—what has earth, now it equably speeds,<br/>
To do with these foul and calamitous needs?<br/>
Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows,<br/>
And its heart is open, never to close?<br/></div>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i007.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="471" alt="AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART" title="" /></div>
<div class='poem2'>
AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART,<br/>
HE STOOD AT HIS WALL, AND RUSTED APART.<br/>
<div class='sig'>
<SPAN href="#Page_44"><i>Canto</i> VI. <i>p.</i> 44.</SPAN><br/></div>
</div>
<div class='poem'><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Still I can govern," said Captain Sword;</span><br/>
"Fate I respect; and I stick to my word."<br/>
And in truth so he did; but the word was one<br/>
He had sworn to all vanities under the sun,<br/>
To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done.<br/>
Besides, what had <i>he</i> with his worn-out story,<br/>
To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory?<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No: Captain Sword a sword was still,</span><br/>
He could not unteach his lordly will;<br/>
He could not attemper his single thought;<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span>It might not be bent, nor newly wrought:<br/>
And so, like the tool of a disus'd art,<br/>
He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.<br/>
<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen</span><br/>
To make a world of swordless men.<br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>POSTSCRIPT;</h2>
<h3>CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.</h3>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>POSTSCRIPT;</h2>
<h3>CONTAINING SOME REMARKS<br/> ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.</h3>
<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>The</span> object of this poem is to show the horrors
of war, the false ideas of power produced
in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference,
the unfitness of those leaders for the government
of the world.</div>
<p>The author intends no more offence to any
one than can be helped: he feels due admiration
for that courage and energy, the supposed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span>
misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily
acknowledges the probability, that that supposed
misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection,
but a necessity—but he believes that the time
is come when, by encouraging the disposition to
question it, its services and its sufferings may be
no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder
the veil from the sore places of war,—would
show what has been hitherto kept concealed, or
not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,—would
prove, at all events, that the time has come for
putting an end to those phrases in the narratives
of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is
palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything
has been done to excite his admiration of
war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital of
its miseries—that "a veil" is drawn over them—a
"truce" given to descriptions which only
"harrow up the soul," <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span>&c.</p>
<p>Suppose it be necessary to "harrow up the
soul," in order that the soul be no longer harrowed?
Moralists and preachers do not deal after
this tender fashion with moral, or even physical
consequences, resulting from other evils. Why
should they spare these? Why refuse to look
their own effeminacy in the face,—their own
gaudy and overweening encouragement of what
they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder
in the streets worth attending to,—a single
wounded man worth carrying to the hospital,—and
are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of
wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the
famines, the miseries of families, and the rickety
frames and melancholy bloods of posterity, only
fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown
over them? Must "ladies and gentlemen" be
called off, that they may not "look that way,"
the "sight is so shocking"? Does it become<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span>
us to let others endure, what we cannot bear
even to think of?</p>
<p>Even if nothing else were to come of inquiries
into the horrors of war, surely they would
cry aloud for some better provision against their
extremity <i>after</i> battle,—for some regulated and
certain assistance to the wounded and agonized,—so
that we might hear no longer of men left
in cold and misery all night, writhing with torture,—of
bodies stripped by prowlers, perhaps
murderers,—and of frenzied men, the other
day the darlings of their friends, dying, two and
even several days after the battle, of famine!
The field of Waterloo was not completely cleared
of its dead and dying till nearly a week! Surely
large companies of men should be organized for
the sole purpose of assisting and clearing away the
field after battle. They should be steady men,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span>
not lightly admitted, nor unpossessed of some
knowledge of surgery, and they should be attached
to the surgeon's staff. Both sides would
respect them for their office, and keep them
sacred from violence. Their duties would be too
painful and useful to get them disrespected for
not joining in the fight—and possibly, before long,
they would help to do away their own necessity,
by detailing what they beheld. Is that the reason
why there is no such establishment? The question
is asked, not in bitterness, but to suggest a self-interrogation
to the instincts of war.</p>
<p>I have not thought proper to put notes to the
poem, detailing the horrors which I have touched
upon; nor even to quote my authorities, which
are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse
horrors still. They are furnished by almost every
history of a campaign, in all quarters of the world.
Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span>
render them public for their own sakes, would,
I thought, even meet with less attention in prose
than in verse, however less fitted they may appear
for it at first sight. Verse, if it has any
enthusiasm, at once demands and conciliates attention;
it proposes to say much in little; and
it associates with it the idea of something consolatory,
or otherwise sustaining. But there is
one prose specimen of these details, which I will
give, because it made so great an impression on
me in my youth, that I never afterwards could
help calling it to mind when war was spoken of;
and as I had a good deal to say on that subject,
having been a public journalist during one of the
most interesting periods of modern history, and
never having been blinded into an admiration
of war by the dazzle of victory, the circumstance
may help to show how salutary a record
of this kind may be, and what an impression
the subject might be brought to make on<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span>
society. The passage is in a note to one of
Mr Southey's poems, the "Ode to Horror,"
and is introduced by another frightful record,
less horrible, because there is not such agony
implied in it, nor is it alive.</p>
<p>"I extract" (says Mr Southey) "the following
picture of consummate horror from notes to a
poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the
campaign of 1794 and 1795: it was during the
retreat to Deventer. 'We could not proceed a
hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies
of men, women, children, and horses, in every
direction. One scene made an impression upon
my memory which time will never be able to
efface. Near another cart we perceived a stout-looking
man and a beautiful young woman, with
an infant, about seven months old, at the breast,
all three frozen and dead. The mother had most<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</SPAN></span>
certainly expired in the act of suckling her child;
as with one breast exposed she lay upon the
drifted snow, the milk to all appearance in a
stream drawn from the nipple by the babe, and
instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its
lips had but just then been disengaged, and it
reposed its little head upon the mother's bosom,
with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from
the mouth. Their countenances were perfectly
composed and fresh, resembling those of persons
in a sound and tranquil slumber.'"</p>
<p>"The following description (he continues) of a
field of battle is in the words of one who passed
over the field of Jemappe, after Doumourier's
victory: 'It was on the third day after the victory
obtained by general Doumourier over the Austrians,
that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies
on a waste common, rendered then more dreary<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span>
by the desertion of the miserable hovels before
occupied by peasants. Everything that resembled
a human habitation was desolated, and for the
most part they had been burnt or pulled down,
to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of
the contending armies. The ground was ploughed
up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons;
everything like herbage was trodden into mire;
broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead horses
and men, were strewed over the heath. <i>This was
the third day after the battle: it was the beginning
of November, and for three days a bleak wind
and heavy rain had continued incessantly.</i> There
were still remaining alive several hundreds of
horses, and of the human victims of that dreadful
fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen
more than four hundred men <i>still living</i>, unsheltered,
<i>without food</i>, and without any human
assistance, most of them confined to the spot
where they had fallen <i>by broken limbs</i>. The two<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span>
armies had proceeded, and abandoned these
miserable wretches to their fate. <i>Some of the
dead persons appeared to have expired in the act
of embracing each other.</i> Two young French
officers, who were brothers, had crawled under
the side of a dead horse, where they had contrived
a kind of shelter by means of a cloak: they were
both mortally wounded, and groaning <i>for each
other</i>. One very fine young man had just strength
enough to drag himself out of a hollow partly
filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock
groaning with agony; <span class="smcap">a grape-shot had cut
across the upper part of his belly, and he
was keeping in his bowels with a handkerchief
and hat</span>. He begged of me to end his
misery! He complained of dreadful thirst. I filled
him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which
he nearly drank off at once, and left him to that
end of his wretchedness which could not be far
distant.'"<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I hope (concludes Mr Southey), I have
always felt and expressed an honest and Christian
abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce
them; but my ideas of their immediate
horrors fell infinitely short of this authentic
picture."</p>
<p>Mr Southey, in his subsequent lives of conquerors,
and his other writings, will hardly be
thought to have acted up to this "abhorrence of
wars, and of the systems that produce them." Nor
is he to be blamed for qualifying his view of the
subject, equally blameless (surely) as they are to
be held who have retained their old views, especially
by him who helped to impress them. His
friend Mr Wordsworth, in the vivacity of his
admonitions to hasty complaints of evil, has
gone so far as to say that "Carnage is God's
daughter," and thereby subjected himself to the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</SPAN></span>
scoffs of a late noble wit. He is addressing the
Deity himself:—</p>
<div class='poem'>
"But thy most dreaded instrument,<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In working out a pure intent,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Is man, array'd for mutual slaughter:</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."</span><br/></div>
<div class='unindent'>Mr Wordsworth is a great poet and a philosophical
thinker, in spite of his having here paid a tremendous
compliment to a rhyme (for unquestionably
the word "slaughter" provoked him into that
imperative "Yea," and its subsequent venturous
affiliation); but the judgment, to say no more of
it, is rash. Whatever the Divine Being intends,
by his permission or use of evil, it becomes us to
think the best of it; but not to affirm the appropriation
of the particulars to him under their worst
appellation, seeing that he has implanted in us
a horror of them, and a wish to do them away.
What it is right in him to do, is one thing;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</SPAN></span>
what it is proper in us to affirm that he actually
does, is another. And, above all, it is idle to
affirm what he intends to do for ever, and to have
us eternally venerate and abstain from questioning
an evil. All good and evil, and vice and virtue
themselves, might become confounded in the human
mind by a like daring; and humanity sit down
under every buffet of misfortune, without attempting
to resist it: which, fortunately, is impossible.
Plato cut this knotty point better, by regarding
evil as a thing senseless and unmalignant (indeed
no philosopher regards anything as malignant, or
malignant for malignity's sake); out of which, or
notwithstanding it, good is worked, and to be
worked, perhaps, finally to the abolition of evil.
But whether this consummation be possible or not,
and even if the dark horrors of evil be necessary
towards the enjoyment of the light of good, still the
horror must be maintained, where the object is
really horrible; otherwise, we but the more idly<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</SPAN></span>
resist the contrast, if necessary—and, what is
worse, endanger the chance of melioration, if
possible.</div>
<p>Did war appear to me an inevitable evil, I
should be one of the last men to shew it in any
other than its holiday clothes. I can appeal to
writings before the public, to testify whether I am
in the habit of making the worst of anything, or of
not making it yield its utmost amount of good.
My inclinations, as well as my reason, lie all that
way. I am a passionate and grateful lover of all
the beauties of the universe, moral and material;
and the chief business of my life is to endeavour
to give others the like fortunate affection. But,
on the same principle, I feel it my duty to look
evil in the face, in order to discover if it be capable
of amendment; and I do not see why the miseries
of war are to be spared this interrogation, simply
because they are frightful and enormous. Men<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</SPAN></span>
get rid of smaller evils which lie in their way—nay,
of great ones; and there appears to be no
reason why they should not get rid of the greatest,
if they will but have the courage. We have
abolished inquisitions and the rack, burnings for
religion, burnings for witchcraft, hangings for forgery
(a great triumph in a commercial country),
much of the punishment of death in some countries,
all of it in others. Why not abolish war?
Mr Wordsworth writes no odes to tell us that the
Inquisition was God's daughter; though Lope de
Vega, who was one of its officers, might have done
so—and Mr Wordsworth too, had he lived under its
dispensation. Lope de Vega, like Mr Wordsworth
and Mr Southey, was a good man, as well as a celebrated
poet: and we will concede to his memory
what the English poets will, perhaps, not be equally
disposed to grant (for they are severe on the Romish
faith) that even the Inquisition, <i>like War</i>, might
possibly have had some utility in its evil, were it<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</SPAN></span>
no other than a hastening of Christianity by its
startling contradictions of it. Yet it has gone.
The Inquisition, as War may be hereafter, is no
more. Daughter if it was of the Supreme Good,
it was no immortal daughter. Why should
"Carnage" be,—especially as God has put it in
our heads to get rid of it?</p>
<p>I am aware of what may be said on these occasions,
to "puzzle the will;" and I concede of course,
that mankind may entertain false views of their
power to change anything for the better. I concede,
that all change may be only in appearance,
and not make any real difference in the general
amount of good and evil; that evil, to a certain
invariable amount, may be necessary to the amount
of good (the overbalance of which, with a most
hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknowledge);
and finally, that all which the wisest of men could
utter on any such subject, might possibly be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</SPAN></span>
nothing but a jargon,—the witless and puny voice
of what we take to be a mighty orb, but which,
after all, is only a particle in the starry dust
of the universe.</p>
<p>On the other hand, all this may be something
very different from what we take it to be, setting
aside even the opinions which consider mind as
everything, and time and space themselves as
only modifications of it, or breathing-room in
which it exists, weaving the thoughts which it calls
life, death, and materiality.</p>
<p>But be his metaphysical opinions what they
may, who but some fantastic individual, or ultra-contemplative
scholar, ever thinks of subjecting
to them his practical notions of bettering his condition!
And how soon is it likely that men will
leave off endeavouring to secure themselves against
the uneasier chances of vicissitude, even if<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span>
Providence ordains them to do so for no other
end than the preservation of vicissitude itself,
and not in order to help them out of the husks
and thorns of action into the flowers of it, and
into the air of heaven? Certain it is, at all
events, that the human being is incited to increase
his amount of good: and that when he is endeavouring
to do so, he is at least not fulfilling
the worst part of his necessity. Nobody tells
us, when we attempt to put out a fire and to
save the lives of our neighbours, that Conflagration
is God's daughter, or Murder God's daughter.
On the contrary, these are things which Christendom
is taught to think ill off, and to wish
to put down; and therefore we should put
down war, which is murder and conflagration by
millions.</p>
<p>To those who tell us that nations would grow
cowardly and effeminate without war, we answer,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</SPAN></span>
"Try a reasonable condition of peace first, and
then prove it. Try a state of things which mankind
have never yet attained, because they had
no press, and no universal comparison of notes;
and consider, in the meanwhile, whether so
cheerful, and intelligent, and just a state, seeing
fair play between body and mind, and educated
into habits of activity, would be likely to uneducate
itself into what was neither respected nor
customary. Prove, in the meanwhile, that nations
are cowardly and effeminate, that have been long
unaccustomed to war; that the South Americans
are so; or that all our robust countrymen, who do
not "go for soldiers," are timid agriculturists and
manufacturers, with not a quoit to throw on the
green, or a saucy word to give to an insult.
Moral courage is in self-respect and the sense
of duty; physical courage is a matter of health
or organization. Are these predispositions likely
to fail in a community of instructed freemen?<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</SPAN></span>
Doubters of advancement are always arguing from
a limited past to an unlimited future; that is to
say, from a past of which they know but a point,
to a future of which they know nothing. They
stand on the bridge "between two eternities,"
seeing a little bit of it behind them, and nothing
at all of what is before; and uttering those
words unfit for mortal tongue, "man ever was"
and "man ever will be." They might as well
say what is beyond the stars. It appears to be
a part of the necessity of things, from what
we see of the improvements they make, that all
human improvement should proceed by the co-operation
of human means. But what blinker
into the night of next week,—what luckless prophet
of the impossibilities of steam-boats and
steam-carriages,—shall presume to say how far
those improvements are to extend? Let no man
faint in the co-operation with which God has
honoured him.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>As to those superabundances of population
which wars and other evils are supposed to be
necessary in order to keep down, there are questions
which have a right to be put, long before
any such necessity is assumed: and till those
questions be answered, and the experiments dependent
upon them tried, the interrogators have
a right to assume that no such necessity exists.
I do not enter upon them—for I am not bound to
do so; but I have touched upon them in the
poem; and the "too rich," and other disingenuous
half-reasoners, know well what they are. All
passionate remedies for evil are themselves evil,
and tend to re-produce what they remedy. It is
high time for the world to show that it has come
to man's estate, and can put down what is wrong
without violence. Should the wrong still return,
we should have a right to say with the Apostle,
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" for
meanwhile we should "not have done evil that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span>
good may come." That "good" may come! nay,
that evil may be perpetuated; for what good, superior
to the alternatives denounced, is achieved
by this eternal round of war and its causes? Let
us do good in a good and kind manner, and trust
to the co-operation of Providence for the result.
It seems the only real way of attaining to the
very best of which our earth is capable; and
at the very worst, necessity, like the waters,
will find its level, and the equity of things be
justified.</p>
<p>I firmly believe, that war, or the sending thousands
of our fellow-creatures to cut one another
to bits, often for what they have no concern in,
nor understand, will one day be reckoned far
more absurd than if people were to settle an
argument over the dinner-table with their knives,—a
logic indeed, which was once fashionable in
some places during the "good old times." The<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span>
world has seen the absurdity of that practice:
why should it not come to years of discretion,
with respect to violence on a larger scale? The
other day, our own country and the United States
agreed to refer a point in dispute to the arbitration
of the king of Holland; a compliment (if
we are to believe the newspapers) of which his
majesty was justly proud. He struck a medal
on the strength of it, which history will show
as a set-off against his less creditable attempts
to force his opinions upon the Belgians. Why
should not every national dispute be referred, in
like manner, to a third party? There is reason
to suppose, that the judgment would stand a good
chance of being impartial; and it would benefit
the character of the judge, and dispose him to
receive judgments of the same kind; till at length
the custom would prevail, like any other custom;
and men be astonished at the customs that preceded
it. In private life, none but school-boys<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span>
and the vulgar settle disputes by blows; even
duelling is losing its dignity.</p>
<p>Two nations, or most likely two governments,
have a dispute; they reason the point backwards and
forwards; they cannot determine it; perhaps they
do not wish to determine; so, like two carmen in
the street, they fight it out; first, however, dressing
themselves up to look fine, and pluming themselves
on their absurdity; just as if the two carmen
were to go and put on their Sunday clothes, and
stick a feather in their hat besides, in order to
be as dignified and fantastic as possible. They
then "go at it," and cover themselves with mud,
blood, and glory. Can anything be more ridiculous?
Yet, apart from the habit of thinking
otherwise, and being drummed into the notion by
the very toys of infancy, the similitude is not one
atom too ludicrous; no, nor a thousandth part
enough so. I am aware that a sarcasm is but a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span>
sarcasm, and need not imply any argument; never
includes all;—but it acquires a more respectable
character when so much is done to keep it out of
sight,—when so many questions are begged against
it by "pride, pomp, and circumstance," and allegations
of necessity. Similar allegations may
be, and are brought forward, by other nations of
the world, in behalf of customs which we, for our
parts, think very ridiculous, and do our utmost to
put down; never referring them, as we refer our
own, to the mysterious ordinations of Providence;
or, if we do, never hesitating to suppose, that Providence,
in moving us to interfere, is varying its
ordinations. Now, all that I would ask of the
advocates of war, is to apply the possible justice of
this supposition to their own case, for the purpose
of thoroughly investigating the question.</p>
<p>But they will exultingly say, perhaps, "Is this
a time for investigating the question, when military<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span>
genius, even for civil purposes, has regained
its ascendancy in the person of the Duke of Wellington?
When the world has shown that it
cannot do without him? When whigs, radicals,
liberals of all sorts, have proved to be but idle
talkers, in comparison with this man of few words
and many deeds?" I answer, that it remains to
be proved whether the ascendancy be gained or
not; that I have no belief it will be regained;
and that, in the meanwhile, never was time fitter
for questioning the merits of war, and, by inference,
those of its leaders. The general peacefulness
of the world presents a fair opportunity for
laying the foundations of peaceful opinion; and
the alarm of the moment renders the interrogation
desirable for its immediate sake.</p>
<p>The re-appearance of a military administration,
or of an administration <i>barely civil</i>, and military at
heart, may not, at first sight, be thought the most<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span>
promising one for hastening a just appreciation of
war, and the ascendancy of moral over physical
strength. But is it, or can it be, lasting?
Will it not provoke—is it not now provoking—a
re-action still more peremptory against the
claims of Toryism, than the state of things which
preceded it? Is it anything but a flash of success,
still more indicative of expiring life, and
caused only by its convulsive efforts?</p>
<p>If it be, this it is easy enough to predict,
that Sir Robert Peel, notwithstanding his abilities,
and the better ambition which is natural to them,
and which struggles in him with an inferior one,
impatient of his origin, will turn out to be nothing
but a servant of the aristocracy, and (more or
less openly) of a barrack-master. He will be
the servant, not of the King, not of the House
of Commons, but of the House of Lords, and
(as long as such influence lasts, which can be but a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>
short while), of its military leader. He will do
nothing whatsoever contrary to their dictation,
upon peril of being treated worse than Canning;
and all the reform which he is permitted to
bring about will be only just as much as will
serve to keep off the spirit of it as long as possible,
and to continue the people in that state of
comparative ignorance, which is the only safeguard
of monopoly. Every unwilling step of
reform will be accompanied with some retrograde
or bye effort in favour of the abuses reformed:
cunning occasion will be seized to convert boons,
demanded by the age, into gifts of party favour,
and bribes for the toleration of what is withheld;
and as knowledge proceeds to extort public
education (for extort it it will, and in its own
way too at last), mark, and see what attempts
will be made to turn knowledge against itself,
and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy
acquiescence of the good people of Germany.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>
Much good is there in that people—I would not
be thought to undervalue it—much <i>bonhommie</i>—and
in the most despotic districts, as much sensual
comfort as can make any people happy who know
no other happiness. But England and France,
the leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the
world, cannot be confined to those lazy and
prospectless paths. They have gone through the
feudal reign; they must now go through the
commercial (God forbid that for any body's sake
they should stop there!), and they will continue
to advance, till all are instructed, and all are
masters; and government, in however gorgeous
a shape, be truly their servant. The problem of
existing governments is how to prepare for this
inevitable period, and to continue to be its masters,
by converting themselves frankly and truly into
its friends. For my part, as one of the people,
I confess I like the colours and shows of feudalism,
and would retain as much of them as would adorn<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
nobler things. I would keep the tiger's skin,
though the beast be killed; the painted window,
though the superstition be laid in the tomb.
Nature likes external beauty, and man likes it.
It softens the heart, enriches the imagination, and
helps to show us that there are other goods in the
world besides bare utility. I would fain see the
splendours of royalty combined with the cheapness
of a republic and the equal knowledge of all
classes. Is such a combination impossible? I
would exhort the lovers of feudal splendour to
be the last men to think so; for a thousand
times more impossible will they find its retention
under any other circumstances. Their
royalties, their educations, their accomplishments
of all sorts, must go along with the Press and
its irresistible consequences, or they will be set
aside like a child in a corner, who has insisted
on keeping the toys and books of his brothers
to himself.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Now, there is nothing that irritates a just cause
so much as a threatening of force; and all impositions
of a military chief on a state, where civil
directors will, at least, do as well, is a threatening
of force, disguise it, or pretend to laugh at it, as its
imposers may. This irritation in England will
not produce violence. Public opinion is too
strong, and the future too secure. But deeply
and daily will increase the disgust and the ridicule;
and individuals will get laughed at and catechised
who cannot easily be sent out of the way as
ambassadors, and who might as well preserve their
self-respect a little better. To attempt, however
quietly, to overawe the advance of improvement,
by the aspect of physical force, is as idle as if
soldiers were drawn out to suppress the rising
of a flood. The flood rises quietly, irresistibly,
without violence—it cannot help it—the waters
of knowledge are out, and will "cover the earth."
Of what use is it to see the representative of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span>
a by-gone influence—a poor individual mortal
(for he is nothing else in the comparison), fretting
and fuming on the shore of this mighty sea, and
playing the part of a Canute reversed,—an antic
really taking his flatterers at their word?</p>
<p>The first thirty-five years of the nineteenth
century have been rich in experiences of the
sure and certain failure of all soldiership and
Toryism to go heartily along in the cause of the
many. There has been the sovereign instance
of Napoleon Bonaparte himself—of the allies
after him—of Charles the Tenth—of Louis
Philippe, albeit a "schoolmaster,"—and lastly,
of this strange and most involuntary Reformer
the Duke of Wellington, who refused to do, under
Canning, or for principle's sake, what he consented
to do when Canning died, for the sake of regaining
power, and of keeping it with as few concessions
as possible. Canning perished because<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span>
Toryism, or the principle of power for its own
sake, to which he had been a servant, could not
bear to acknowledge him as its master. His
intellect was just great enough (as his birth was
small enough) to render it jealous of him under
that aspect. There is an instinct in Toryism
which renders pure intellect intolerable to it,
except in some inferior or mechanical shape, or in
the flattery of voluntary servitude. But, by a
like instinct, it is not so jealous of military
renown. It is glad of the doubtful amount of
intellect in military genius, and knows it to be
a good ally in the preservation of power, and in
the substitution of noise and show for qualities
fearless of inspection. Is it an ascendancy of
this kind which the present age requires, or will
permit? Do we want a soldier at the head of
us, when there is nobody abroad to fight with?
when international as well as national questions
can manifestly settle themselves without him?<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span>
and when his appearance in the seat of power
can indicate nothing but a hankering after those
old substitutions of force for argument, or at
best of "an authority for a reason," which every
step of reform is hoping to do away? Do we
want him to serve in our shops? to preside over
our studies? to cultivate "peace and good will"
among nations? wounding no self love—threatening
no social?</p>
<p>There never was a soldier, purely brought
up as such—and it is of such only I speak, and
not of rare and even then perilous exceptions,—men
educated in philosophy like Epaminondas,
or in homely household virtues and citizenship
like Washington—but there never was a soldier
such as I speak of, who did more for the world
than was compatible with his confined and arbitrary
breeding. I do not speak, of course, with
reference to the unprofessional part of his character.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</SPAN></span>
Circumstances, especially the participation
of dangers and vicissitude, often conspire
with naturally good qualities to render soldiers
the most amiable of men; and nothing is more
delightful to contemplate than an old military
veteran, whose tenderness of heart has survived
the shocks of the rough work it has been tried in,
till twenty miserable sights of war and horror
start up to the imagination as a set-off against
its attractiveness. But, publicly speaking, the
more a soldier succeeds, the more he looks upon
soldiership as something superior to all other
kinds of ascendancy, and qualified to dispense with
them. He always ends in considering the flower
of the art of government as consisting in issuing
"orders," and that of popular duty as comprised
in "obedience." Cities with him are barracks,
and the nation a conquered country. He is at
best but a pioneer of civilization. When he
undertakes to be the civilizer himself, he makes<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</SPAN></span>
mistakes that betray him to others, even supposing
him self-deceived. Napoleon, though
he was the accidental instrument of a popular
re-action, was one of the educated tools of the
system that provoked it,—an officer brought up at
a Royal Military College; and in spite of his
boasted legislation and his real genius, such he
ever remained. He did as much for his own
aggrandizement as he could, and no more for the
world than he thought compatible with it. The
same military genius which made him as great as
he was, stopped him short of a greater greatness;
because, quick and imposing as he was in acting
the part of a civil ruler, he was in reality a soldier
and nothing else, and by the excess of the soldier's
propensity (aggrandizement by force), he over-toppled
himself, and fell to pieces. Soldiership
appears to have narrowed or hardened the public
spirit of every man who has spent the chief part
of his life in it, who has died at an age which gives<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</SPAN></span>
final proofs of its tendency, and whose history
is thoroughly known. We all know what Cromwell
did to an honest parliament. Marlborough
ended in being a miser and the tool of his wife.
Even good-natured, heroic Nelson condescended
to become an executioner at Naples. Frederick
did much for Prussia, as a power; but what became
of her as a people, or power either, before
the popular power of France? Even Washington
seemed not to comprehend those who thought
that negro-slaves ought to be freed.</p>
<p>In the name of common sense then, what do
we want with a soldier who was born and bred
in circumstances the most arbitrary; who never
advocated a liberal measure as long as he could
help it; and who (without meaning to speak
presumptuously, or in one's own person unauthorized
by opinion) is one of the merest
soldiers, though a great one, that ever existed,—without<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</SPAN></span>
genius of any other sort,—with scarcely
a civil public quality either commanding or engaging
(as far as the world in general can see),—and
with no more to say for himself than the most
mechanical clerk in office? In what respect is
the Duke of Wellington better fitted to be a parliamentary
leader, than the Sir Arthur Wellesley
of twenty years back? Or what has re-cast the
habits and character of the Colonel Wellesley of
the East Indies, to give him an unprofessional
consideration for the lives and liberties of his
fellow-creatures?</p>
<p>And yet the Duke of Wellington (it is said)
<i>may</i>, after all, be in earnest in his professions of
reform and advancement. If so, he will be the
most remarkable instance that ever existed, of
the triumph of reason over the habits of a
life, and the experience of mankind. I have
looked for some such man through a very remarkable<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</SPAN></span>
period of the world, when an honest
declaration to this effect would have set him at
the top of mankind, to be worshipped for ever;
and I never found the glorious opportunity
seized,—not by Napoleon when he came from
Elba,—not by the allies when they conquered
him,—not by Louis Philippe, though he was educated
in adversity. I mean that he has shown
himself a prince born, of the most aristocratic
kind; and evidently considers himself as nothing
but the head of a new dynasty. When the
Duke of Wellington had the opportunity of
being a reformer, of his own free will, he
resisted it as long as he could. He opposed
reform up to the last moment of its freedom
from his dictation; he declared that ruin would
follow it; that the institutions of the country
were perfect without it; and that, at the very
least, the less of it the better. And for this
enmity, even if no other reason existed,—even<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</SPAN></span>
if his new light were sincere,—the Duke of Wellington
ought not to have the <i>honour</i> of leading
reform. It is just as if a man had been doing
all he could to prevent another from entering his
own house, and then, when he found that the
by-standers would insist on his having free passage,
were to turn to them, smiling, and say,
"Well, since it must be so, allow me to do
the honours of the mansion." Everybody knows
what this proposal would be called by the by-standers.
And if the way in which greatness is
brought up and spoilt gives it a right to a less
homely style of rebuke (as I grant it does), still
the absurdity of the Duke's claim is not the less
evident, nor the air of it less provoking.</p>
<p>I can imagine but two reasons for the remotest
possible permission of this glaring anomaly—this
government of anti-reforming reformers—this hospital
of sick guides for the healthy, supported<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</SPAN></span>
by involuntary contributions: first, sheer necessity
(which is ludicrous); and second, a facilitation
of church reform through the Lords and
the bench of Bishops; the desirableness of which
facilitation appears to be in no proportion to the
compromise it is likely to make with abuses. I
have read, I believe, all the utmost possible things
that can be said in its favour, the articles, for
instance, written by the <i>Times</i> newspaper (admirable,
as far as a rotten cause can let them
be, and when not afflicted by some portentous
mystery of personal resentment); and though I
trust I may lay claim to as much willingness
to be convinced, as most men who have suffered
and reflected, I have not seen a single argument
which did not appear to me fully answered by
the above objection alone (about the "honour");
setting aside the innumerable convincing ones
urged by reasoners on the other side: for
as to any dearth of statesmen in a country like<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</SPAN></span>
this, it never existed, nor ever can, till education
and public spirit have entirely left it. There
have been the same complaints at every change
in the history of administrations; and the crop
has never failed.</p>
<p>Allow me to state here, that any appearance
of personality in this book is involuntary. Public
principles are sometimes incarnate in individual
shapes; and, in attacking them, the individual may
be seemingly attacked, where, to eyes which look
a little closer, there is evidently no such intention.
I have been obliged to identify, in some measure,
the Power of the Sword with several successive
individuals, and with the Duke of Wellington
most, because he is the reigning shape, and includes
all its pretensions. But as an individual
who am nothing, except in connexion with
what I humanly feel, I dare to affirm, that I
have not only the consideration that becomes<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</SPAN></span>
me for all human beings, but a flesh and
blood regard for every body; and that I as
truly respect in the Noble Duke the possession of
military science, of a straight-forward sincerity,
and a valour of which no circumstances or years
can diminish the ready firmness, as I doubt the
fitness of a man of his education, habits, and political
principles, for the guidance of an intellectual
age.</p>
<p>I dislike Toryism, because I think it an unjust,
exacting, and pernicious thing, which tends to
keep the interests of the many in perpetual subjection
to those of the few; but far be it from
me, in common modesty, to dislike those who have
been brought up in its principles, and taught to
think them good,—far less such of them as adorn
it by intellectual or moral qualities, and who
justly claim for it, under its best aspect in private
life, that ease and urbanity of behaviour which<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</SPAN></span>
implies an acknowledgment of its claims to respect,
even where those claims are partly grounded
in prejudice. I heartily grant to the privileged
classes, that, enjoying in many respects the best
educations, they have been conservators of polished
manners, and of the other graces of intercourse.
My quarrel with them is, that the inferior part
of their education induces them to wish to keep
these manners and graces to themselves, together
with a superabundance, good for nobody, of all
other advantages; and that thus, instead of being
the preservers of a beautiful and genial
flame, good for all, and in due season partakeable
by all, they would hoard and make an idolatrous
treasure of it, sacred to one class alone, and such
as the diffusion of knowledge renders it alike
useless and exasperating to endeavour to withhold.</p>
<p>I will conclude this Postscript with quotations
from three writers of the present day, who may<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</SPAN></span>
be fairly taken to represent the three distinct
classes of the leaders of knowledge, and who
will show what is thought of the feasibility
of putting an end to war,—the Utilitarian, or
those who are all for the tangible and material—the
Metaphysical, or those who recognize, in
addition, the spiritual and imaginative wants of
mankind—and lastly (in no offensive sense), the
Men of the World, whose opinion will have the
greatest weight of all with the incredulous, and
whose speaker is a soldier to boot, and a man
who evidently sees fair play to all the weaknesses
as well as strengths of our nature.</p>
<p>The first quotation is from the venerable Mr
Bentham, a man who certainly lost sight of no
existing or possible phase of society, such as the
ordinary disputants on this subject contemplate.
I venture to think him not thoroughly philosophical
on the point, especially in what he says in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</SPAN></span>
reproach of men educated to think differently
from himself. But the passage will show the
growth of opinion in a practical and highly influential
quarter.</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"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.</p>
<p>"Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the
admiration of heroes is the most pernicious; and
how delusion should have made us admire what<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</SPAN></span>
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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</SPAN></span>
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?</p>
<p>"The period will assuredly arrive, when better<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</SPAN></span>
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,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</SPAN></span>
many of the heads we deem <i>heroic</i>; while
the true fame and the perdurable glories will
be gathered around the creators and diffusers of
happiness."—<i>Deontology.</i></p>
</div>
<p>Our second quotation is from one of the
subtilest and most universal thinkers now living—Thomas
Carlyle—chiefly known to the public
as a German scholar and the friend of Goethe,
but deeply respected by other leading intellects
of the day, as a man who sees into the utmost
recognized possibilities of knowledge. See what
he thinks of war, and of the possibility of putting
an end to it. We forget whether we got the
extract from the <i>Edinburgh</i> or the <i>Foreign
Quarterly Review</i>, having made it sometime back
and mislaid the reference; and we take a liberty
with him in mentioning his name as the writer,
for which his zeal in the cause of mankind will
assuredly pardon us.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"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.</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</SPAN></span>
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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</SPAN></span>
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.</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</SPAN></span>
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."</p>
</div>
<p>My last and not least conclusive extract (for
it shows the actual hold which these speculations
have taken of the minds of practical men—of men
out in the world, and even of <i>soldiers</i>) is from a
book popular among all classes of readers—the
<i>Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau</i>, written by
Major Sir Francis Head. What he says of one
country's educating another, by the natural progress
of books and opinion, and of the effect
which this is likely to have upon governments
even as remote and unwilling as Russia, is particularly
worthy of attention.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>The author is speaking of some bathers at whom
he had been looking, and of a Russian Prince,
who lets us into some curious information respecting
the leading-strings in which grown gentlemen
are kept by despotism:—</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>"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 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</SPAN></span>
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.</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</SPAN></span>
with respectful astonishment, to ask, 'Why travel
by so uninteresting a route'?</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</SPAN></span>
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.</p>
<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</SPAN></span>
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?</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</SPAN></span>
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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</SPAN></span>
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.</p>
<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</SPAN></span>
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."—<i>Bubbles from the Brunnens
of Nassau</i>, p. 164.</p>
</div>
<p>By the 'Penny Magazine,' our author means,
of course, not only that excellent publication,
but all cheaply-diffused knowledge—all the tranquil
and enlightening deeds of "Captain Pen"
in general—of whom it is pleasant to see the
gallant Major so useful a servant, the more so
from his sympathies with rank and the aristocracy.
But "Pen" will make it a matter of necessity,
by and by, for all ranks to agree with him, in
vindication of their own wit and common sense;
and when once this necessity is felt, and fastidiousness<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</SPAN></span>
shall find out that it will be considered
"absurd" to lag behind in the career of knowledge
and the common good, the cause of the
world is secure.</p>
<p>May princes and people alike find it out by
the kindliest means, and without further violence.
May they discover that no one set of human
beings, perhaps no single individual, can be
thoroughly secure and content, or enabled to
work out his case with equal reasonableness,
<i>till all are so</i>,—a subject for reflection, which
contains, we hope, the beneficent reason <i>why all
are restless</i>. The solution of the problem is co-operation—the
means of solving it is the Press.
If the Greeks had had a press, we should probably
have heard nothing of the inconsiderate question,
which demands, why they, with all their philosophy,
did not alter the world. They had not
the means. They could not command a general<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</SPAN></span>
hearing. Neither had Christianity come up, to
make men think of one another's wants, as well
as of their own accomplishments. Modern times
possess those means, and inherit that divine incitement.
May every man exert himself accordingly,
and show himself a worthy inhabitant of
this beautiful and most capable world!</p>
<h3>THE END.</h3>
<hr style="width: 25%;" />
<div class='center'><br/><br/><br/>
LONDON:<br/>
<small>Printed by C. and W. <span class="smcap">Reynell</span>,</small><br/>
<small>Little Pulteney Street.</small><br/></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i008.jpg" width-obs="324" height-obs="425" alt="P. 112." title="" /> <span class="caption"><span style="margin-left: 22em;"><SPAN href="#Page_112"><i>P.</i> 112.</SPAN></span></span></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class='tnote'>
<p>Transcriber's Note: On <SPAN href="#Page_67">page 67</SPAN>, a quote begins but has no end that this
transcriber can find. It was retained as printed. ("Try a reasonable
condition)</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />