Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

Therefore, in forming our judgment of human affairs, we must apply a "Lesbian rule," instead of one that is inflexible. Here it is that the line is drawn between science, and the wisdom which has for its object the administration of human affairs. The masters of science explore a multitude of phenomena to ascertain a single cause; the statesman and legislator, engaged in pursuits "hardliest reduced to axiom," examine a multitude of causes to explain a solitary phenomenon. The investigations, however, to which such questions lead, are singularly difficult, as they require an accurate analysis of the most complicated class of facts which can possibly engross our attention, and to the complete examination of which the faculties of any one man must be inadequate. The finest specimens of such enquiries which we possess are the works of Adam Smith and Montesquieu. The latter, indeed, may be called a great historian. He sought in every quarter for his account of those fundamental principles which are common to all governments, as well as of those peculiarities by which they are distinguished one from another. The analogy which reaches from the first dim gleam of civility to the last and consummate result of policy and intelligence, from the law of the Salian Franks to the Code Napoleon, it was reserved for him to discover and explain. He saw that, though the shape into which the expression of human thought and will was moulded as the family became a tribe, and the tribe a nation, might be fantastic and even monstrous—that the staple from which it unrolled itself must be the same. Treading in the steps of Vico, he more than realized his master's project, and in his immortal work (which, with all its faults, is a magnificent, and as yet unrivalled, trophy of his genius, and will serve as a landmark to future enquirers when its puny critics are not known enough to be despised) he has extracted from a chaos of casual observations, detached hints—from the principles concealed in the intricate system of Roman jurisprudence, or exposed in the rules which barely held together the barbarous tribes of Gaul and Germany—from the manners of the polished Athenian, and from the usages of the wandering Tartar—from the rudeness of savage life, and the corruptions of refined society—a digest of luminous and coherent evidence, by which the condition of man, in the different stages of his social progress, is exemplified and ascertained. The loss of the History of Louis XI.—a work which he had projected, and of which he had traced the outline—is a disappointment which the reader of modern history can never enough deplore.

The province of science lies in truths that are universal and immutable; that of prudence in second causes that are transient and subordinate. What is universally true is alone necessarily true—the knowledge that rests in particulars must be accidental. The theorist disdains experience—the empiric rejects principle. The one is the pedant who read Hannibal a lecture on the art of war; the other is the carrier who knows the road between London and York better than Humboldt, but a new road is prescribed to him and his knowledge becomes useless. This is the state of mind La Fontaine has described so perfectly in his story of the "Cierge."

"Un d'eux, voyant la brique au feu endurcie Vaincre l'effort des ans, il eut la même envie; Et nouvel Empédocle, aux flammes condamné Par sa pure et propre folie, Il se lança dédans—ce fût mal raisonné, Le Cierge ne savait grain de philosophie."

The mere chemist or mathematician will apply his truths improperly; the man of detail, the mere empiric, will deal skilfully with particulars, while to all general truths he is insensible. The wise man, the philosopher in action, will use the one as a stepping-stone to the other, and acquire a vantage-ground from whence he will command the realms of practice and experience.

History teems with instances that—although the general course of the human mind is marked out, and each succeeding phasis in which it exhibits itself appears inevitable—the human race cannot be considered, as Vico and Herder were, perhaps, inclined to look upon it, as a mass without intelligence, traversing its orbit according to laws which it has no power to modify or control. On such an hypothesis, Wisdom and Folly, Justice and Injustice, would be the same, followed by the same consequences and subject to the same destiny—no certain laws establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end; the feelings, faculties, and instincts of man would be useless in a world where the wise was always as the foolish, the just as the unjust, where calculation was impossible, and experience of no avail.

Man is no doubt the instrument, but the unconscious instrument, of Providence; and for the end they propose to themselves, though not for the result which they attain, nations as well as individuals are responsible. Otherwise, why should we read or speak of history? it would be the feverish dream of a distempered imagination, full of incoherent ravings, a disordered chaos of antagonist illusions—

——"A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

But on the contrary, it is in history that the lessons of morality are delivered with most effect. The priest may provoke our suspicion—the moralist may fail to work in us any practical conviction; but the lessons of history are not such as vanish in the fumes of unprofitable speculation, or which it is possible for us to mistrust, or to deride. Obscure as the dispensations of Providence often are, it sometimes, to use Lord Bacon's language—"pleases God, for the confutation of such as are without God in the world, to write them in such text and capital letters that he who runneth by may read it—that is, mere sensual persons which hasten by God's judgments, and never tend or fix their cogitations upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and race urged to discern it." In all historical writers, philosophical or trivial, sacred or profane, from the meagre accounts of the monkish chronicler, no less than from the pages stamped with all the indignant energy of Tacitus, gleams forth the light which, amid surrounding gloom and injustice, amid the apparent triumph of evil, discovers the influence of that power which the heathens personified as Nemesis. Her tread, indeed, is often noiseless—her form may be long invisible—but the moment at length arrives when the measure of forbearance is complete; the echoes of her step vibrate upon the ear, her form bursts upon the eye, and her victim—be it a savage tyrant, or a selfish oligarchy, or a hypocritical church, or a corrupt nation—perishes.

"Come quei che va di notte, Che porta il lume dietro, e a se non giova, Ma dopo se fa le persone dotte."

And as in daily life we rejoice to trace means directed to an end, and proofs of sagacity and instinct even among the lower tribes of animated nature, with how much greater delight do we seize the proofs vouchsafed to us in history of that eternal law, by which the affairs of the universe are governed? How much more do we rejoice to find that the order to which physical nature owes its existence and perpetuity, does not stop at the threshold of national life—that the moral world is not fatherless, and that man, formed to look before and after, is not abandoned to confusion and insecurity?

Fertile and comprehensive indeed is the domain of history, comprising the whole region of probabilities within its jurisdiction—all the various shapes into which man has been cast—all the different scenes in which he has been called upon to act or suffer; his power and his weakness, his folly and his wisdom, his virtues in their meridian height, his vices in the lowest abyss of their degradation, are displayed before us, in their struggles, vicissitudes, and infinitely diversified combinations: an inheritance beyond all price—a vast repository of fruitful and immortal truths. There is nothing so mean or so dignified; nothing so obscure or so glorious; no question so abstruse, no problem so subtile, no difficulty so arduous, no situation so critical, of which we may not demand from history an account and elucidation. Here we find all that the toil, and virtues, and sufferings, and genius, and experience, of our species have laboured for successive generations to accumulate and preserve. The fruit of their blood, of their labour, of their doubts, and their struggles, is before us—a treasure that no malignity can corrupt, or violence take away. And above all, it is here that, when tormented by doubt, or startled by anomalies, stung by disappointment, or exasperated by injustice, we may look for consolation and encouragement. As we see the same events, that to those who witnessed them must have appeared isolated and capricious, tending to one great end, and accomplishing one specific purpose, we may learn to infer that those which appear to us most extraordinary, are alike subservient to a wise and benevolent dispensation. Poetry, the greatest of all critics has told us, has this advantage over history, that the lessons which it furnishes are not mixed and confined to particular cases, but pure and universal. Studied, however, in this spirit, history, while it improves the reason, may satisfy the heart, enabling us to await with patience the lesson of the great instructor, Time, and to employ the mighty elements it places within our reach, to the only legitimate purpose of all knowledge—"The advancement of God's glory, and the relief of man's estate."

POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER

No. V.

THE VICTORY FEAST

[This noble lyric is perhaps the happiest of all those poems in which Schiller has blended the classical spirit with the more deep and tender philosophy which belongs to modern romance. The individuality of the heroes introduced is carefully preserved. The reader is every where reminded of Homer; and yet, as a German critic has observed, there is an under current of sentiment which betrays the thoughtful Northern minstrel. This detracts from the art of the Poem viewed as an imitation, but constitutes its very charm as an original composition. Its inspiration rises from a source purely Hellenic, but the streamlets it receives at once adulterate and enrich, or (to change the metaphor) it has the costume and the gusto of the Greek, but the toning down of the colours betrays the German.]

The stately walls of Troy had sunken, Her towers and temples strew'd the soil; The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken, Richly laden with the spoil, Are on their lofty barks reclin'd Along the Hellespontine strand; A gleesome freight the favouring wind Shall bear to Greece's glorious land; And gleesome sounds the chaunted strain, As towards the household altars, now, Each bark inclines the painted prow— For Home shall smile again! And there the Trojan women, weeping, Sit ranged in many a length'ning row; Their heedless locks, dishevell'd, sweeping Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe. No festive sounds that peal along, Their mournful dirge can overwhelm; Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song Commingled, wails the ruin'd realm. "Farewell, beloved shores!" it said, "From home afar behold us torn, By foreign lords as captives borne— Ah, happy are the Dead!" And Calchas, while the altars blaze, Invokes the high gods to their feast! On Pallas, mighty or to raise Or shatter cities, call'd the Priest— And Him, who wreathes around the land The girdle of his watery world, And Zeus, from whose almighty hand The terror and the bolt are hurl'd. Success at last awards the crown— The long and weary war is past; Time's destined circle ends at last— And fall'n the Mighty Town! The Son of Atreus, king of men, The muster of the hosts survey'd, How dwindled from the thousands, when Along Scamander first array'd! With sorrow and the cloudy thought, The Great King's stately look grew dim— Of all the hosts to Ilion brought, How few to Greece return with him! Still let the song to gladness call, For those who yet their home shall greet!— For them the blooming life is sweet: Return is not for all! Nor all who reach their native land May long the joy of welcome feel— Beside the household gods may stand Grim Murther with awaiting steel; And they who 'scape the foe, may die Beneath the foul familiar glaive. Thus He2 to whose prophetic eye Her light the wise Minerva gave:— "Ah! blest whose hearth, to memory true, The goddess keeps unstain'd and pure— For woman's guile is deep and sure, And Falsehood loves the New!" The Spartan eyes his Helen's charms, By the best blood of Greece recaptured; Round that fair form his glowing arms— (A second bridal)—wreathe enraptured. "Woe waits the work of evil birth— Revenge to deeds unblest is given! For watchful o'er the things of earth, The eternal Council-Halls of Heaven. Yes, ill shall ever ill repay— Jove to the impious hands that stain The Altar of Man's Hearth, again The doomer's doom shall weigh!" "Well they, reserved for joy to day," Cried out Oïleus' valiant son, "May laud the favouring gods who sway Our earth, their easy thrones upon; Without a choice they mete our doom, Our woe or welfare Hazard gives— Patroclus slumbers in the tomb, And all unharm'd Thersites lives. While luck and life to every one Blind Fate dispenses, well may they Enjoy the life and luck to day By whom the prize is won! "Yes, war will still devour the best!— Brother, remember'd in this hour! His shade should be in feasts a guest, Whose form was in the strife a tower! What time our ships the Trojan fired, Thine arm to Greece the safety gave— The prize to which thy soul aspired, The crafty wrested from the brave.3 Peace to thine ever-holy rest— Not thine to fall before the foe! Ajax alone laid Ajax low: Ah—wrath destroys the best!" To his dead sire—(the Dorian king)— The bright-hair'd Pyrrhus4 pours the wine:— "Of every lot that life can bring, My soul, great Father, prizes thine. Whate'er the goods of earth, of all, The highest and the holiest—FAME! For when the Form in dust shall fall, O'er dust triumphant lives the Name! Brave Man, thy light of glory never Shall fade, while song to man shall last; The Living, soon from earth are pass'd, 'THE DEAD—ENDURE FOR EVER!'" "While silent in their grief and shame, The conquer'd hear the conqueror's praise," Quoth Tydeus' son, "let Hector's fame, In me, his foe, its witness raise! Who, battling for the altar-hearth, A brave defender, bravely fell— It takes not from the victor's worth, If honour with the vanquish'd dwell. Who falleth for the altar-hearth, A rock and a defence laid low, Shall leave behind him, in the foe, The lips that speak his worth!" Lo, Nestor now, whose stately age Through threefold lives of mortals lives!— The laurel'd bowl, the kingly sage To Hector's tearful mother gives. "Drink—in the draught new strength is glowing, The grief it bathes forgets the smart! O Bacchus! wond'rous boons bestowing, Oh how thy balsam heals the heart! Drink—in the draught new vigour gloweth, The grief it bathes forgets the smart— And balsam to the breaking heart, The healing god bestoweth. "As Niobe, when weeping mute, To angry gods the scorn and prey, But tasted of the charmed fruit, And cast despair itself away; So, while unto thy lips, its shore, This stream of life enchanted flows, Remember'd grief, that stung before, Sinks down to Lethè's calm repose. So, while unto thy lips, its shore, The stream of life enchanted flows— Drown'd deep in Lethè's calm repose, The grief that stung before!" Seized by the god—behold the dark And dreaming Prophetess5 arise! She gazes from the lofty bark, Where Home's dim vapour wraps the skies— "A vapour, all of human birth! As mists ascending, seen and gone, So fade earth's great ones from the earth, And leave the changeless gods alone! Behind the steed that skirs away, Or on the galley's deck—sits Care! To-morrow comes—and Life is where? At least—we'll live to-day!"

RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG.—A BALLAD

[Hinrichs properly classes this striking ballad (together with the yet grander one of the "Fight with the Dragon") amongst those designed to depict and exalt the virtue of Humility. The source of the story is in Ægidius Tschudi—a Swiss chronicler—and Schiller (who, as Hinrichs suggests,) probably met with it in the researches connected with the compositions of his drama, "William Tell," appears to have adhered, with much fidelity, to the original narrative.]

At Aachen, in imperial state, In that time-hallow'd hall renown'd, At solemn feast King Rudolf sate, The day that saw the hero crown'd! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine, Give this the feast, and that the wine; The Arch Electoral Seven, Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won, The anointed choice of Heaven. In galleries raised above the pomp, Press'd crowd on crowd, their panting way; And with the joy-resounding tromp, Rang out the million's loud hurra! For closed at last the age of slaughter, When human blood was pour'd as water— LAW dawns upon the world!6 Sharp Force no more shall right the wrong, And grind the weak to crown the strong— War's carnage-flag is furl'd! In Rudolf's hand the goblet shines— And gaily round the board look'd he; "And proud the feast, and bright the wines, My kingly heart feels glad to me! Yet where the lord of sweet desire, Who moves the heart beneath the lyre, And dulcet Sound Divine? Dear from my youth the craft of song, And what as knight I loved so long, As Kaisar, still be mine." Lo, from the circle bending there, With sweeping robe the Bard appears, As silver, white his gleaming hair, Bleach'd by the many winds of years: "And music sleeps in golden strings— The minstrel's hire, the LOVE he sings; Well known to him the ALL High thoughts and ardent souls desire!— What would the Kaisar from the lyre Amidst the banquet-hall?" The Great One smiled—"Not mine the sway— The minstrel owns a loftier power— A mightier king inspires the lay— Its hest—THE IMPULSE OF THE HOUR! As through wide air the tempests sweep, As gush the springs from mystic deep, Or lone untrodden glen; So from dark hidden fount within, Comes SONG, its own wild world to win Amidst the souls of men!" Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd, And loud the music swept the ear:— "Forth to the chase a Hero rode, To hunt the bounding chamois-deer: With shaft and horn the squire behind:— Through greensward meads the riders wind— A small sweet bell they hear. Lo, with the HOST, a holy man,— Before him strides the sacristan, And the bell sounds near and near. The noble hunter down-inclined His reverent head and soften'd eye, And honour'd with a Christian's mind The Christ who loves humility! Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves A brook—the rains had fed the waves, And torrents from the hill. His sandal shoon the priest unbound, And laid the Host upon the ground, And near'd the swollen rill! "What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began, As, marvelling much, he halted there. "Sir Count, I seek a dying man, Sore hungering for the heavenly fare. The bridge that once its safety gave, Rent by the anger of the wave, Drifts down the tide below. Yet barefoot now, I will not fear (The soul that seeks its God, to cheer) Through the wild wave to go!" He gave that priest the knightly steed, He reach'd that priest the lordly reins, That he might serve the sick man's need, Nor slight the task that heaven ordains. He took the horse the squire bestrode; On to the chase the hunter rode, On to the sick the priest! And when the morrow's sun was red, The servant of the Saviour led Back to its lord the beast. "Now Heaven forefend," the hero cried, "That e'er to chase or battle more These limbs the sacred steed bestride, That once my Maker's image bore! But not for sale or barter given; Henceforth its Master is the Heaven— My tribute to that King, From whom I hold as fiefs, since birth, Honour, renown, the goods of earth, Life, and each living thing." "So may the God who faileth never To hear the weak and guide the dim, To thee give honour here and ever, As thou hast duly honour'd Him! Far-famed ev'n now through Switzerland Thy generous heart and dauntless hand; And fair from thine embrace Six daughters bloom—six crowns to bring— Blest as the Daughters of a KING— The Mothers of a RACE!" The mighty Kaisar heard amazed; His heart was in the days of old: Into the minstrel's eyes he gazed— That tale the Kaisar's own had told. Yes, in the bard, the priest he knew, And in the purple veil'd from view The gush of holy tears. A thrill through that vast audience ran, And every heart the godlike man, Revering God, reveres!

THE WORDS OF ERROR

Three errors there are, that for ever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound— And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but these shadows to grasp— So long as Man dreams of some Age in this life When the Right and the Good will all evil subdue; For the Right and the Good lead us ever to strife, And wherever they lead us, the Fiend will pursue. And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length) The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength!7 So long as Man fancies that Fortune will live, Like a bride with her lover, united with Worth; For her favours, alas! to the mean she will give— And Virtue possesses no title to earth! That Foreigner wanders to regions afar, Where the lands of her birthright immortally are! So long as Man dreams that, to mortals a gift, The Truth in her fulness of splendour will shine; The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift, And all we can learn is—to guess and divine! Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form? The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm! O, Noble Soul! fly from delusions like these, More heavenly belief be it thine to adore; Where the Ear never hearkens, the Eye never sees, Meet the rivers of Beauty and Truth evermore! Not without thee the streams—there the Dull seek them;—No! Look within thee—behold both the fount and the flow!