Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844

"Descend, man of massacre!"

I saw Danton start back as if he had been shot. At length, recovering his breath, he said feebly—

"Citizens, of what am I accused?"

"Of the three days of September," uttered the voice again, in a tone so strongly sepulchral, that it palpably awed the whole assemblage.

"Who is it that insults me? who dares to malign me? What spy of the Girondists, what traitor of the Bourbons, what hireling of the gold of Pitt, is among us?" exclaimed the bold ruffian, yet with a visage which, even at the distance, I could observe had lost its usual fiery hue, and turned clay-colour. "Who accuses me?"

"I!" replied the voice, and I saw a thin tall figure stalk up the length of the hall, and stand at the foot of the tribune. "Descend!" was the only word which he spoke; and Danton, as if under a spell, to my astonishment, obeyed without a word, and came down. The stranger took his place, none knew his name; and the rapidity and boldness of his assault suspended all in wonder like my own. I can give but a most incomplete conception of the extraordinary eloquence of this mysterious intruder. He openly charged Danton with having constructed the whole conspiracy against the unfortunate prisoners of September; with having deceived the people by imaginary alarms of the approach of the enemy; with having plundered the national treasury to pay the assassins; and, last and most deadly charge of all, with having formed a plan for a National Dictatorship, of which he himself was to be the first possessor. The charge was sufficiently probable, and was not now heard for the first time. But the keenness and fiery promptitude with which the speaker poured the charge upon him, gave it a new aspect; and I could see in the changing physiognomies round me, that the great democrat was already in danger. He obviously felt this himself; for starting up from the bench to which he had returned, he cried out, or rather yelled—

"Citizens, this man thirsts for my blood. Am I to be sacrificed? Am I to be exposed to the daggers of assassins!" But no answering shout now arose; a dead silence reigned: all eyes were still turned on the tribune. I saw Danton, after a gaze of total helplessness on all sides, throw up his hands like a drowning man, and stagger back to his seat. Nothing could be more unfortunate than his interruption; for the speaker now poured the renewed invective, like a stream of molten iron, full on his personal character and career.

"Born a beggar, your only hope of bread was crime. Adopting the profession of an advocate, your only conception of law was chicanery. Coming to Paris, you took up patriotism as a trade, and turned the trade into an imposture. Trained to dependence, you always hung on some one till he spurned you. You licked the dust before Mirabeau; you betrayed him, and he trampled on you; you took refuge in the cavern of Marat, until he found you too base even for his base companionship, and he, too, spurned you; you then clung to the skirts of Robespierre, and clung only to ruin. Viper! known only by your coils and your poison; like the original serpent, degraded even from the brute into the reptile, you already feel your sentence. I pronounce it before all. The man to whom you now cling will crush you. Maximilien Robespierre, is not your heel already lifted up to tread out the life of this traitor? Maximilien Robespierre," he repeated with a still more piercing sound, "do I not speak the truth?" "Have I not stripped the veil from your thoughts? Am I not looking on your heart?" He then addressed each of the Jacobin leaders in a brief appeal. "Billaud Varennes, stand forth—do you not long to drive your dagger into the bosom of this new tyrant? Collot d'Herbois, are you not sworn to destroy him? Couthon, have you not pronounced him perjured, perfidious, and unfit to live? St Just, have you not in your bosom the list of those who have pledged themselves that Danton shall never be Dictator; that his grave shall be dug before he shall tread on the first step of the throne; that his ashes shall be scattered to the four winds of heaven; that he shall never gorge on France?"

A hollow murmur, like an echo of the vaults beneath, repeated the concluding words. The murmur had scarcely subsided when this extraordinary apparition, flinging round him a long white cloak, which he had hitherto carried on his arm, and which, in the dim light, gave him the look of one covered with a shroud, cried out in a voice of still deeper solemnity, "George Jacques Danton, you have this night pronounced the death of your king—I now pronounce your own. By the victims of the 20th of June—by the victims of the 10th of August—by the victims of the 2d of September—by the thousands whom your thirst of blood has slain—by the tens of thousands whom your treachery has sent to perish in a foreign grave—by the millions whom the war which you have kindled will lay in the field of slaughter—I cite you to appear before a tribunal, where sits a judge whom none can elude and none can defy. Within a year and a month, I cite you to meet the spirits of your victims before the throne of the Eternal."

He stopped; not a voice was heard. He descended the steps of the Tribune, and stalked slowly through the hall; not a hand was raised against him. He pursued his way with as much calmness and security as if he had been a supernatural visitant, until he vanished in the darkness.

This singular occurrence threw a complete damp on the regicidal ardour; and, as no one seemed inclined to mount the Tribune, the club would probably have broken up for the night, when a loud knocking at one of the gates, and the beating of drums, aroused the drowsy sitters on the benches. The gallery was as much awake as ever; but seemed occupied with evident expectation of either a new revolt, or a spectacle; pistols were taken out to be new primed, and the points and edges of knives duly examined. The doors at length were thrown open, and a crowd, one half of whom appeared to be in the last stage of intoxication, and the other half not far from insanity, came dancing and chorusing into the body of the building. In the midst of their troop they carried two busts covered with laurels—the busts of the regicides Ravaillac and Clement, with flags before them, inscribed, "They were glorious; for they slew kings!" The busts were presented to the president, and their bearers, a pair of poissardes, insisted on giving him the republican embrace, in sign of fraternization. The president, in return, invited them to the "honours of a sitting;" and thus reinforced, the discussion on the death of the unhappy monarch commenced once more, and the vote was carried by acclamation. The National Convention was still to be applied to for the completion of the sentence; but the decree of the Jacobins was the law of the land.

I had often looked towards the gallery door, during the night, for the means of escape; but my police friend had forbade my moving before his return. I therefore remained until the club were breaking up, and the gallery began to clear. Cautious as I had been, I could not help exhibiting, from time to time, some disturbance at the atrocities of the night, and especially at the condemnation of the helpless king. In all this I had found a sympathizing neighbour, who had exhibited marked civility in explaining the peculiarities of the place, and giving me brief sketches of the speakers as they rose in succession. He had especially agreed with me in deprecating the cruelty of the regicidal sentence. I now rose to bid my gentlemanlike cicerone good-night; but, to my surprise, I saw him make a sign to two loiterers near the door, who instantly pinioned me.

"We cannot part quite so soon, Monsieur l'Aristocrat," said he; "and, though I much regret that I cannot have the honour of accommodating you in the Temple, near your friend Monsieur Louis Capet, yet you may rely on my services in procuring a lodging for you in one of the most agreeable prisons in Paris."

I had been entrapped in the most established style, and I had nothing to thank for it but fortune. Resistance was in vain, for they pointed to the pistols within their coats; and with a vexed heart, and making many an angry remark on the treachery of the villain who had ensnared me—matters which fell on his ear probably with about the same effect as water on the pavement at my feet—I was put into a close carriage, and, with ny captors, carried off to the nearest barrier, and consigned to the governor of the well-known and hideous St Lazare.

THE OLYMPIC JUPITER

Calm the Olympian God sat in his marble fane,High and complete in beauty too pure and vast to wane;Full in his ample form, Nature appear'd to spread;Thought and sovran Rule beam'd in his earnest head;From the lofty foliaged brow, and the mightily bearded chin,Down over all his frame was the strength of a life within.Lovely a maid in twilight before the vision knelt,Looking with upturn'd gaze the awe that her spirit felt.Hung like the skies above her was bow'd the monarch mild,Hearing the whisper'd words of the fair and panting child.—Could she be dear to him as dews to ocean are,Be in his wreath a leaf, on his robes a golden star!Could she as incense float around his eternal throne,Sound as the note of a hymn to his deep ear alone!Lo! while her heart adoring still to the God exhales,Speech from his glimmering lips on the silent air prevails:—"Child of this earth, bewilder'd in thine aërial dream,Turn thee to Powers that are, and not to those that seem.All of fairest and noblest filling my graven formFirst in a human spirit was breathing alive and warm.Seek thou in him all else that he can evoke from nought,Seek the creative master, the king of beautiful thought."—Down the eyes of the maiden sank from the Thunderer's look,Pale in her shame and terror, and yet with delight she shookSwift on her brow she felt a crown by the God bestow'd,Shading her face that now with a hope too lively glow'd.Bending the Sculptor stood who wrought the work divine,Godlike in voice he spake—Ever, oh, maid be mine!J. S.

A ROMAN IDYL

Oh! blame not, friend, with scoff unfeeling,The gentle tale of grief and wrong,Which, all the pain of life revealing,Yet teaches peace by thoughtful song.The landscape round us wide expandedAs ere was heard the name of Rome;And Rome, though fallen, our souls commanded,In this her empire's earliest home.Her brightness beam'd on each far mountain,Her life made green the grass we trode,Her memory haunted still the fountain,And spread her shadows o'er the sod.Her ruins told their tale of glory,Decreed to that eternal sky;And through that ancient grove, her storyWith sibyl whisper seem'd to sigh.The pile her wealthiest mourner builded,In glimpse we caught through ilex gloom—Metella's Tower, by sunshine gilded,That beams alike on feast or tomb.And on this plain, not yet benighted,'Mid awful ages mouldering there,Young hands in new-bloom flowers delighted,Young eyes look'd bright in sunniest air.Till we, Viterbo's wine-cup quaffing,Which fairer lips refused to grace,Could win by jest those lips to laughing,And veil'd in folly wisdom's face.But say, my friend, thou sage mysterious,What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strainWhich bade our heedless mirth be serious,And woke our ears to nobler pain?That region grave of plain and highland,With Rome's grey ruin strewn around,Is not a soft Calypso's island,Nor fades at Truth's evoking sound.High thoughts in words of quiet beautyAccord with visions grand as these,And song's imperishable dutyHas holier aims than but to please.By word and image deeply wedded,By cadence apt and varied rhyme,To rouse the soul in sloth imbedded,And tune its powers to life sublime.By loftier shows of man's large beingThan man's dim actual hour displays,To clear our eyes for purer seeing,And nerve the flagging spirit's gaze.By strains of bold heroic pleasure,And action strong as thought conceives,By many a doom-resounding measureThat best our selfish woes relieves;By these to stir, by these to brighten,By these to lift the soul from earth,The Poet dares our joys to frighten,And thrills the dirge of lazy mirth.Ye Ruins, dust of empires vanish'd,Ye mountains, clad with countless years,From your great presence ne'er be banish'dSad songs that live in earnest ears:Sad songs, the music of all sorrow,Profound and calm as night's blue deep:Accurst the dreams of any morrowWhen man will feel he cannot weep.J. S.

GOETHE

Alas! on earth his marvels done,The noble German bosom lies,His fatherland's Athenian son,Amid the sage must largely rise!Amid the sage the generous raceOf soaring thought and steadfast glow,He breathes no more who gave a graceTo all our daily lot below.He gave to man's encumber'd hoursThe tuneful joys of truth serene,And twined our life's neglected flowersWith nature's holiest evergreen.Alas! for him the soul of fire,For him of fancy's golden rays,For him whose aims ascended higherThan all that won a nation's praise!We pause and ask—Why gloom'd the graveFor one of light so broadly mild?And wonder beauty could not saveFrom death's deep night her eager child.But could the lyre be heard again,Its widow'd notes would seem to cry—In all was he a man of men,For them to live, like them to die.What life inspires 'twas his to feel,With ampler soul than all beside;What earth's bright shows to few reveal,His art for all expanded wide.With earnest heed from hour to hour,Through all his years of striving hope,He fed his lamp, its light to showerOn paths where myriads dimly grope.He taught nankind by toil, by love,To cheer the world that must be theirs;And ne'er to look for peace above,By scorning earthly joys and cares.Ah! pages full of grief and fear,But all attuned to melody,Vesuvio's flame reflected clearIn glassy seas of Napoli.And on that sea we seem to floatIn amber light, and catch from far,'Mid ocean's boundless Voice, the noteOf girl who hymns the evening-star.The sweetest word, the melting tone,The pictured wisdom bright as day,And Faust's remorse, and Tasso's groan,And Dorothea's morning lay,Glad Egmont, light of Clara's eyes,Free Goetz, the warmth of manhood's noon,And Mignon, all a tune of sighs,And lorn Ottilia crush'd so soon.Ah! tale that tells the life of allTo lovelier truth by fancy wrought,And songs that e'en to us recallThe bliss a poet's vision caught!All these are ours, yes, all—but he.And who that lives can find a strainOf worth like his the soul to freeFrom bonds of sublunary pain?A strain like his we vainly seekTo sound above the singer's grave,A voice empower'd like his to speakThe word our aching bosoms crave.That word is not—Oh! not, farewell!To thee whom all thy lays restore;But deeply longs the heart to tellA love thy smile accepts no more.J. S.

HYMN OF A HERMIT

Long the day, the task is longer;Earth the strong by heaven the stronger.Still is call'd to rise and brighten,But, alas! how weak the soul;While its inbred phantoms frighten,While the past obscures the whole.Shadows of the wise departed,Be the brave, the loving-hearted;Deathless dead, resounding, rushing,From the morning-land of hopeCome, with viewless footsteps, crushingDreams that make the wing'd ones grope.Socrates, the keen, the truthful,In thy hoary wisdom youthful;Smiling, fear-defying spirit,From beside thy Grecian waves,Teach us Norsemen to inheritThoughts whose dawn is life to graves.Rome's Aurelius, thou the holyKing of earth, in goodness lowly,From thy ruins by the Tiber,Look with tearless aspect mild,Till each agonizing fibreLike thine own is reconciled.Augustinus, bright and torrid,Isles of green in deserts horridOnce thy home, thy likeness ever!We with sword no less divineWould the good and evil sever,In a larger world than thine.Soft Petrarca, sweet and subtle,Weaving still, with silver shuttle,Moony veils for human feeling—Thine the radiance from above,Half-transfiguring, half-concealing,Wounds and tears of earthly love.Saxon rude, of thundering stammer,Iron heart, by sin's dread hammerGround to better dust than golden,May thy prophecy be true.Melt the stern, the weak embolden;Teach what Luther never knew.Pale Spinosa, nursed in fable,Painted hopes and portent sable,Then an opener wisdom finding,Let thy round and wintry sunChase the lurid vapour, blindingSouls that seek the Holy One.Thou from green Helvetia roaming,Meteor pale in misty gloaming,With a breast too fiercely burning;Generous, tuneful, frail Rousseau!Would that all to truth returning,Gave, like thee, a tear to woe!Eye of clear and diamond sparkle,Where the Baltic waters darkle,Lonely German seer of Reason,Great and calm as Atlas old;Through our formless foggy season,Short thine adamantine cold.Shelley, born of faith and passion,Nobler far than gain and fashion;Daring eaglet arm'd with lightning,Firing soon thy native nest,Still the eternal blaze is brighteningOcean where thy pinions rest.Heroes, prophets, bards, and sages,Gods and men of climes and ages,Conquerors of lifelong sorrow,Torment that ye made your throne,Help, Oh! help in us the morrow,Full of triumph like your own.J. S.

THE LUCKLESS LOVER

"If aught on earth assault may bideOf ceaseless time and shifting tide,Beloved! I swear to theeIt is the truth of hearts that love,United in a world aboveThe moment's misty sea."Oh! sweeter than the light of dawn,Than music in the woods withdrawnFrom clamours of the crowd,A new creation all our own,Unvisited by scoff or groan,Is faith in silence vow'd."Two hearts by reason nobly sad,Nor rashly blind, nor lightly glad,Possess they not a blissIn their communion, felt and full,Beyond all custom's deadly rule?For life is only this."In sighs we met, in sighs and sobs,Such grief as from the wretched robsThe hope to heaven allied:Great calm was ours, a strength severe,Though wet with many a scalding tear,When soul to soul replied."Of thy dark eyes and gentle speech,The memory has a power to teachWhat know not many wise.New stars may rise, the ancient fade,But not for us, my own pale maid,Be lost that pure surprise—"The pure delight, the awful change,Chief miracle in wonder's range,That binds the twain in one;While fear, foes, friends, and angry Fate,And all that wreck our mortal stateShall pass, like motes i' the sun."In his fine frame the throstle feelsThe music that his note reveals;And spite of shafts and nets,How better is the dying birdThan some dumb stone that ne'er was heard,That arrow never threats?"Disdaining man, the mountains rise;Is love less kindred with the skies,Or less their Maker's will?The strains, without a human cause,Flow on, unheeding lies and laws—Will hearts for words be still?"What cliffs oppose, what oceans roll,What frowns o'ershade the weeping soul,Alas! were long to tell.But something is there more than these,Than frowns and coldness, rocks and seas:Until its hour—farewell!"So sang the vassal bard by night,Beneath his high-born lady's lightThat from her turret shone.Next morning in the forest gladeHis corpse was found. Her brother's bladeHad cut his bosom's bone.What reap'd Lord Wilfrid by the stroke?Before another morning broke,She, too, was with the blest:And 'twas her last and only prayer,That her sweet limbs might slumber whereThe minstrel had his rest.J. S.

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION

THE CORN LAWS

It is remarkable that, while we hear so much of the advantages of free trade, the reciprocity of them is always in prospect only. By throwing open our harbours to foreign nations, indeed, we give them an immediate and obvious advantage over ourselves; but as to any corresponding advantages we are to gain in our intercourse with them, we are still waiting, in patient expectation of the anticipated benefit. Our patience is truly exemplary; it might furnish a model to Job himself. We resent nothing. No sooner do we receive a blow on one cheek, than we turn up the other to some new smiter. No sooner are we excluded, in return for our concessions, from the harbours of one state, than we begin making concessions to another. We are constantly in expectation of seeing the stream of human envy and jealousy run out:—

"Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis: at illeLabitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum."

We are imitating the man who made the experiment of constantly reducing the food on which his horse is to live. Let us take care that, just as he is learning to live on nothing, we do not find him dead in his stall.

This, however, is no joking matter. The total failure of the free trade system to procure any, even the smallest return, coupled with the very serious injury it has inflicted on many of the staple branches of our industry, has now been completely demonstrated by experience, and is matter of universal notoriety. If any proof on the subject were required, it would be furnished by Porter's Parliamentary Tables, to which we earnestly request the attention of our readers. The first exhibits the effect of the reciprocity system, introduced by Mr Huskisson in Feb. 1823, in destroying our shipping with the Baltic powers, and quadrupling theirs with us. The second shows the trifling amount of our exports to these countries during the five last years, and thereby demonstrates the entire failure of the attempt to, extend our traffic with them by this gratuitous destruction of our shipping. The third shows the progress of our whole exports to Europe during the six years from 1814 to 1820, before the free trade began, and from 1833 to 1839, after it had been fifteen years in operation, and proves that it had declined in the latter period as compared with the former, despite all our gratuitous sacrifices by free trade to augment our commerce.12

The free traders fully admit, and deeply deplore, as we have shown on a former occasion, these unfavourable results; but they say that it is to be hoped they will not continue: that foreign nations must, in the end, come to see that they are as much interested as we are in enlightened system of free trade; and that, meantime, it is for our interest to continue the system; or even though it totally fails in producing any augmentation in our exports, it is obviously for our advantage to continue it, as it brings in the immediate benefit of purchasing articles imported at a cheaper rate. Supposing, say they, we obtain no corresponding advantage from other states, there is an immense benefit accrues to ourselves from admitting foreign goods at a nominal duty, from the low price at which they may be purchased by the British consumer. To that point we shall advert in the sequel; in the mean time, it may be considered as demonstrated, that the free trade system has entirely failed in procuring for us the slightest extension of our foreign exports, or abating in the slightest degree the jealousy of foreign nations at our maritime and manufacturing superiority. Nor is there any difficulty in discovering to what this failure has been owing. It arises from laws inherent in the nature of things, and which will remain unabated as long as we continue a great and prosperous nation.

It is related of the Lacedemonians, that while all the other citizens of Greece were careful to surround their towns with walls, they alone left a part open on all sides. Thus, superiority in the field rendered them indifferent to the adventitious protection of ramparts. It is for a similar reason that England is now willing to throw down the barriers of tariffs, and the impediments of custom-houses; and that all other nations are fain to raise them up. It is a secret sense of superiority on the one side, and of inferiority on the other, which is the cause of the difference. We advocate freedom of trade, because we are conscious that, in a fair unrestricted competition, we should succeed in beating them out of their own market. They resist it, and loudly clamour for protection, because they are aware that such a result would speedily take place, and that the superiority of the old commercial state is such, that on an open trial of strength, it must at once prove fatal to its younger rivals. As this effect is thus the result of permanent causes affecting both sides, it may fairly be presumed that it will be lasting; and that the more anxiously the old manufacturing state advocates or acts upon freedom of commercial intercourse, the more strenuously will the younger and rising ones advocate protection. Reciprocity, therefore, is out of the question between them: for it never could exist without the destruction of the manufactures of the younger state; and if that state has begun to enter on the path of manufacturing industry, it never will be permitted by its government.