Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348

The ambassador now found it necessary to look for support against the Prussian propensities of the minister; and he had recourse to Potemkin and the Orloffs, as the antagonists of Panin. Potemkin was one of the most extraordinary men whom the especial circumstances of the court and country raised into public distinction. He had been but a cornet of cavalry on the memorable night when Catharine, uncertain whether she was mounting a throne or a scaffold, put herself at the head of the guards, and deposed her husband. As she rode along, observing that she had not a military plume in her hat, she turned to ask for one; the cornet instantly plucked out his own, and presented it to her—as Raleigh threw his cloak on the ground for Elizabeth to walk over. These gallant acts are never lost upon a woman of the superior order of mind. The favour of the throne followed alike in both instances; and Potemkin soon became the guide of the Russian councils. It was the custom of the French memoir writers—a race who always aimed at pungency of narrative in preference to truth, and who, for their generation, performed the part of general libellers—to represent Potemkin as a savage, devoted to drinking, and whose influence was solely the result of his grossness. But the conferences which he held with this British ambassador, and the extracts of his opinions given in these letters, show him to have been a man of remarkable clearness of comprehension, dexterity of resource, and readiness of knowledge. It is obvious that nothing but the exertion of distinguished skill in the ways of courts, could have accomplished the objects which no other man of his time attained with such complete success. In a court of contention and favouritism, he retained supreme influence to the last; released from the labours of office, he possessed more than the power of a minister—and nominally a subject, he was scarcely less than emperor. Boundless wealth, the highest rank, and every honour which the empire could lavish on its first noble, were the prizes of Potemkin.

People at home are in the habit of looking upon the diplomatic body abroad as a collection of very subtle and sagacious personages—a collection of sages. A nearer view sometimes strips the idea down to humble dimensions. Sir James Harris (he had now obtained the Order of the Bath, which he seems to have deserved by his diligence) thus sketches the new ambassadorial body—a general change having just taken place. “The Imperial, Danish, French, Prussian, and Spanish ministers are all altered, and one from Naples is added to our corps.” The Neapolitan he describes as “utterly unfit for business;” Count Cobenzel, the Austrian ambassador, “as a man of excellent parts and great activity;” Goertz, the Prussian, “a very able and artful man.” So far as this point, the honour of the corps is sustained; but then come the ciphers. Monsieur Verac, the cunning French envoy, is “more amiable in company than formidable in cabinet.” The Swede and the Saxon ministers, “most perfectly insignificant and overpowered with debts.” The Dutch resident, Swartz, “a man neither of birth nor character, totally improper for the post he fills. The Swiss resident, having no other business than the lawsuits of his countrymen,” &c.

Of the culpable habits of the empress we shall say no more. The respect which this country feels for the character of Emperor Nicholas, and the total contrast which that character presents to the especial failings of his ancestor, justly prevent our wandering into those observations. But we have a curious instance of the skill and adroitness of this memorable woman, in an interview in which she was wholly left to herself, and yet succeeded perfectly in what is presumed to be the chef-d’œuvre of   diplomacy—the art of disguising her intentions. The British ambassador, after a long period of comparative failure, had succeeded in obtaining an audience through Potemkin—who always pretended to be powerless, yet who could do every thing which he desired. The appointment to meet the ambassador was made, and Potemkin prefaced his service by the following singular sketch of his sovereign. “Do not expect that it is in the power of any living being to prevent her from concluding her favourite plan of armed neutrality. Content yourself with destroying the effects—the resolution is immovable. As it was conceived by mistake and perfected by vanity, it is maintained by pride and obstinacy. You well know the hold of those passions on a female mind; and if you attempt to slacken, you will only tighten the knot.”

One of the imperial valets then came to lead the ambassador to the interview; which he gives in French, and which he commenced in a strain which we hope will never be imitated again by any cabinet of England.

“I have come to represent to your imperial majesty the critical situation in which our affairs are at present. You know our reliance on you. We venture to flatter ourselves that you will avert the storm, and reassure us as to our fears of having lost your friendship.” If the expressions were not in print, we should scarcely have thought it possible that such crouching language could have been used. The ambassador, of course, is but the mouthpiece of his government. The blame must fall, not on the intelligent servant, but on the feeble masters. Who can wonder if the daring and haughty spirit of Catharine scoffed at the remonstrances, and despised the interests of a country, whose cabinet adopted language so unfitting the dignity and real power of the mighty British empire? The expressions of this dialogue would have been humiliating to the smallest of the “square-league” sovereignties of the Continent. The answer of the empress was precisely what she might have addressed to the envoy of Poland or the Crimea. “Sir, you are aware of my sentiments relative to your nation; they are equally sincere and invariable. But I have found so little return on your part, that I feel I ought not to consider you any longer among my friends.”

To this haughty tone, what is the reply of the ambassador?

“It is in the hope that those sentiments were not entirely effaced, that I wished to address myself directly to your Majesty. But it was not without fear that I approached you. Appearances only too strongly prove the impressions which you have received from our enemies.” And so goes on the dialogue, like a scene in a play, see-sawing through six intolerable pages. How differently would Pitt’s cabinet have acted, and how differently did it act! When the Russian councils menaced the seizure of even a paltry Turkish fortress on the Black Sea, the great minister ordered a fleet to be ready as his negotiators; and though the factiousness of Opposition at the time prevented this manly demonstration of policy and justice, the evidence was given, in the reign of Paul, when a British fleet crushed the armed neutrality—that trick of French mountebanks imposing on the ambition of the north—and restored Russia to so full a sense of the power and the honour of England, that she sent her fleet into her safe keeping at the approach of Napoleon’s invasion, and has been her fast and honourable ally ever since. “Cromwell’s ambassador” is the true one for England at all times. A stout British squadron sent to the Baltic in 1780 would have wonderfully solved the difficulties of the British negotiation, have completely cleared the empress’s conscience, have enlightened Count Panin’s brains, and have convinced even the wily Potemkin himself that the art of political delusion was too dangerous a game to be tried against England.

But the true value of history is to instruct the future. We are now in nearly the same relative position to France in which we were sixty-four years ago relative to Russia. We are exhibiting the same dilatoriness which we exhibited then, and we shall be fortunate if we escape the same consequences. A strong fleet sent to the Mediterranean would do more to calm the elements of strife effectually, than all the remonstrances of all our negotiators. Or, if the French were foolish enough to provoke a battle, a repetition of the 1st of June or the   21st of October would be the tranquillizer of a restless people, who can never suffer Europe to rest in peace but when they themselves have been taught the miseries of war.

In justice to the cabinet of 1780, it must be acknowledged that the personal tone of the ambassador was criticised; and we thus find him making his diplomatic apology to Lord Stormont, then secretary for foreign affairs:—

“I have often been conscious of the remark your lordship makes, and have myself felt that I was not acting up to the character of an English minister, in bestowing such fulsome incense on the empress. But here, too, I was drawn from my system and principles by the conduct of my adversaries. They ever addressed her as a being of a superior nature; and as she goes near to think herself infallible, she expects to be approached with all the reverence due to a divinity.” No excuse could be more unsatisfactory. If other men chose to bow down, there would have only been the more manliness, and the more effect too, in refusing to follow such an example.

In 1783, the ambassador obtained permission to return to England. His correspondence at the period immediately previous, is remarkably interesting; and it is striking to see that the successive secretaries for the foreign department, under all changes of administration, formed the same view of the substantial policy of England. When, in 1783, Fox assumed the foreign seals, he thus writes to Harris, in the course of a long letter on the foreign policy of the cabinet:—“You will readily believe me, that my system of foreign politics was too deeply rooted to make it likely that I should have changed it. Alliances with the northern powers ever have been, and ever will be, the system of every enlightened Englishman.”

In the year following, Sir James Harris was appointed by Pitt to the Dutch embassy, to which he had been previously nominated by Fox, his friend and political leader. The appointment by the new cabinet was thus the strongest testimony to his talents. His letters from the Hague contain a very intelligent statement of the parties and principles which agitated Holland in 1787. The object was the establishment of a democracy and the extinction of the Stadtholderate, or at least its suppression as a hereditary dignity. The court of France was busy in this democratic intrigue; and its partial success unquestionably added new combustibles to the pile on which that unfortunate monarchy, in the hour of infatuation, was preparing to throw itself. The ambassador’s language on this occasion is characteristic and memorable. In one of his despatches to the Marquis of Carmarthen, then secretary of state, he thus says:—

“The infamy and profligacy of the French make me long to change my profession, and to fight them with a sharper instrument than a pen. It must be with those (not our pens, but our swords) that we must carry the mediation through, if we mean it should be attended with any success. There are strong reports of a popular insurrection in France:”—“Si Dieu voulait les punir par où ils ont peché, comme j’admirerais la justice divine!” The remark was natural; it was almost prophetic; and it was on the eve of realization. In 1789, but two years after, the Revolution began.

These volumes contain a great deal of extremely curious material, especially important to every man who may in future be employed in the foreign service of our diplomacy. They supply a model of the manner in which those offices may be most effectively sustained. We have already expressed dissatisfaction at the submissive style used in addressing the Russian empress. But in other instances, the language of the ambassador seems to have been prompt and plain. It is remarkable that England has, at the present time, arrived at a condition of European affairs bearing no slight resemblance to that of the period between 1783 and 1789. It is true that there will be no second French Revolution; one catastrophe of that terrible extent is enough for the world. But there are strong symptoms of those hostilities which the Bourbons were endeavouring to kindle against this country, for at least a dozen years before the Revolution which crushed their monarchy.

Without any provocation on the part of England, any actual claim, or   any desire whatever of war, this country finds itself suddenly made an object of perpetual insult on the part of all the active mind of France. The cry from every organ of public opinion seems to be, war with England, whether with or without cause. A violent clamour is raised for our national ruin; the resources of France are blazoned in all quarters; and the only contemplation popular in France is, how most suddenly and effectually French armies may be poured on our shores, our fields ravaged, our maritime cities burned, and our people massacred! It must be hoped that this detestable spirit does not reach higher than the Jacobin papers, and the villains by whom that principal part of the French press is conducted. Yet we find but little contradiction to it in even the more serious and authentic portion of the national sentiments. In such circumstances, it is only right to be prepared. We find also the still more expressive evidence of this spirit of evil, in the general conduct of the agents of France in her colonies—a habit of sudden encroachment, a growing arrogance, and a full exhibition of that bitter and sneering petulance, which was supposed to have been scourged out of the French by their desperate defeats towards the close of the war. All this insolence may, by possibility, pass away; but it also may go on to further inflammation, and it may be necessary to scourge it again; and this discipline, if once begun, must be carried through more effectually than when the Allies last visited Paris. The respect felt for the French king and his prime minister, as the friends of peace, naturally restrains the language with which aggression deserves to be reprobated. But the French government, if it desires to retain that respect, must exhibit its sincerity in making some substantial effort to preserve peace. No man of sense in Europe can believe in the necessity of the seizure of Algiers, nor in the necessity of the war with Morocco. But every man can see the influence of both on the freedom of the Mediterranean. The seizure of the British consul at Otaheite shows a spirit which must be summarily extinguished, or the preservation of peace will be impossible. In the mean time, we hear from France nothing but a cry for steam-ships, and threats of invasion. We ask, what has England done? Nothing to offend or injure: there is not even an allegation of any thing of the kind. But if war must come, woe be to those by whom it is begun! The history of all the wars of England with France, is one of French defeat. We have beaten the French by land, we have beaten them by sea; and, with the blessing of Heaven on the righteous cause and our own stout hands, we shall always beat them. We have beaten them on the soil of the stranger—we have beaten them on their own. From the fourteenth century, when English soldiers were masters of the half of France, down to Waterloo, we have always beaten France; and if we beat her under Napoleon, there can be no fear of our not beating her under a race so palpably his inferiors. All England deprecates war as useless, unnatural, and criminal. But the crime is solely on the head of the aggressor. Woe to those who begin the next war! It may be final.

The late visit of the Emperor of Russia to this country, which so much perplexed the political circles of both France and England, now probably admits of elucidation. The emperor’s visit has been followed by that of the ablest and most powerful diplomatist in his dominions, the Count Nesselrode, his foreign minister. For this visit, too, a speedy elucidation may be found. The visits of the King of Saxony, and the Princes of Prussia and Holland, also have their importance in this point of view; and the malignant insults of the French journals may have had a very influential share in contributing to the increased closeness of our connexion with the sovereignties of Germany and Russia. The maxim of Fox, that the northern alliances are the true policy of England, is as sound as ever. Still, we deprecate war—all rational men deprecate war; and we speak in a feeling which we fully believe to be universal in England, that nothing would be a higher source of rejoicing in Great Britain, than a safe peace with France, and harmony with all the nations of the world.

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE

No. II

Goethe’s love for the Fine Arts amounted almost to a passion. In his earlier years, he performed the painter’s customary pilgrimage through Italy, and not merely surveyed, but studied with intense anxiety, the works of the great modern masters. A poet, if he understands the theory of his own calling, may learn much from pictures; for the analogy between the sister arts is very strong. The secret of preserving richness without glare, fulness without pruriency, and strength without exaggeration, must be attained alike by poet and painter, before either of them can take their rank among the chosen children of immortality. It is a common but most erroneous idea, that an artist is more indebted for success to inspiration, than to severe study. Unquestionably he must possess some portion of the former—that is, he must have within him the power to imagine and to create; for if he has not that, the fundamental faculty is wanting. But how different are the crude shapeless fancies, how meagre and uncertain the outlines of the mental sketch, from the warm, vivid, and glowing perfection of the matured and finished work! It is in the strange and indescribable process of moulding the rude idea, of giving due proportion to each individual part, and combining the whole into symmetry, that the test of excellence lies. There inspiration will help but little; and labour, the common doom of man in the loftiest as well as the lowest walks of life, is requisite to consummate the triumph.

No man better understood, or more thoroughly acted upon the knowledge of this analogy, than Goethe. He wrought rigidly by the rule of the artist. Not one poem, however trifling might be the subject, did he suffer to escape from his hands, until it had received the final touches, and undergone the most thorough revision. So far did he carry this principle, that many of his lesser works seem absolutely mere transcripts or descriptions of pictures, where the sentiment is rather inferred than expressed; and in some, for example that which we are about to quote, he even brings before the reader what may be called the process of mental painting.

Cupid As a Landscape Painter

Once I sate upon a mountain,Gazing on the mist before me;Like a great grey sheet of canvass,Shrouding all things in its cover,Did it float ’twixt earth and heaven.Then a child appear’d beside me;Saying, “Friend, it is not seemly,Thus to gaze in idle wonder,With that noble breadth before thee.Hast thou lost thine inspiration?Hath the spirit of the painterDied within thee utterly?”But I turn’d and look’d upon him,Speaking not, but thinking inly,“Will he read a lesson now!”“Folded hands,” pursued the infant,“Never yet have won a triumph.Look! I’ll paint for thee a pictureSuch as none have seen before.”And he pointed with his finger,Which like any rose was ruddy,And upon the breadth of vapourWith that finger ’gan to draw.First a glorious sun he painted,Dazzling when I look’d upon it;And he made the inner borderOf the clouds around it golden,With the light rays through the massesPouring down in streams of splendour.Then the tender taper summitsOf the trees, all leaf and glitter,Started from the sullen void;And the slopes behind them rising,Graceful-lined in undulation,Glided backwards one by one.Underneath, be sure, was water;And the stream was drawn so trulyThat it seem’d to break and shimmer,That it seem’d as if cascadingFrom the lofty rolling wheel.There were flowers beside the brooklet;There were colours on the meadow—Gold and azure, green and purple,Emerald and bright carbuncle.Clear and pure he work’d the etherAs with lapis-lazuli,And the mountains in the distanceStretching blue and far away—All so well, that I, in raptureAt this second revelation,Turn’d to gaze upon the painterFrom the picture which he drew.“Have I not,” he said, “convinced theeThat I know the painter’s secret?Yet the greatest is to come.”Then he drew with gentle finger,Still more delicately pointed,In the wood, about its margin,Where the sun within the waterGlanced as from the clearest mirror,Such a maiden’s form!Perfect shape in perfect raiment,Fair young cheeks ’neath glossy ringlets,And the cheeks were of the colourOf the finger whence they came.“Child,” I cried, “what wond’rous masterIn his school of art hath form’d thee,That so deftly and so truly,From the sketch unto the burnish,Thou hast finish’d such a gem?”As I spoke, a breeze arisingStirr’d the tree-tops in the picture,Ruffled every pool of water,Waved the garments of the maiden;And, what more than all amazed me,Her small feet took motion also,And she came towards the stationWhere I sat beside the boy.So, when every thing was moving,Leaves and water, flowers and raiment,And the footsteps of the darling—Think you I remain’d as lifelessAs the rock on which I rested?No, I trow—not I!

This is as perfect a landscape as one of Berghem’s sunniest.

An artist is, to our mind, one of the happiest creatures in God’s creation. Now that the race of wandering minstrels has passed away, your painter is the only free joyous denizen of the earth, who can give way to his natural impulses without fear of reproach, and who can indulge his enthusiasm for the bright and beautiful to the utmost. He has his troubles, no doubt; for he is ambitious, and too often he is poor; but it is something to pursue ambition along the natural path with unwarped energies, and ardent and sincere devotion. As to poverty, that is a fault that must daily mend, if he is only true to himself. In a few years, the foot-sore wanderer of the Alps, with little more worldly goods than the wallet and sketch-book he carries, will be the royal academician, the Rubens or the Reynolds of his day, with the most recherché studio in London, and more orders upon his list than he has either time or inclination to execute. Goethe has let us into the secret of the young German artist’s life. Let us look upon him in the dawnings of his fame, before he is summoned to adorn the stately halls of Munich with frescoes from the Niebelungen Lied.

The Artist’s Morning Song

My dwelling is the Muses’ home—What matters it how small?And here, within my heart, is setThe holiest place of all.When, waken’d by the early sun,I rise from slumbers sound,I see the ever-living formsIn radiance group’d around.I pray, and songs of thanks and praiseAre more than half my prayer,With simple notes of music, tunedTo some harmonious air.I bow before the altar then,And read, as well I may,From noble Homer’s master-work,The lesson for the day.He takes me to the furious fight,Where lion warriors throng;Where god-descended heroes whirlIn iron cars along.And steeds go down before the cars;And round the cumber’d wheel,Both friend and foe are rolling now,All blood from head to heel!Then comes the champion of them all,Pelides’ friend is he,And crashes through the dense array,Though thousands ten they be!And ever smites that fiery swordThrough helmet, shield, and mail;Until he falls by craft divine,Where might could not prevail.Down from the glorious pile he rolls,Which he himself had made,And foemen trample on the limbsFrom which they shrank afraid.Then start I up, with arms in hand,What arms the painter bears;And soon along my kindling wallThe fight at Troy appears.On! on again! The wrath is hereOf battle rolling red;Shield strikes on shield, and sword on helm,And dead men fall on dead!I throng into the inner press,Where loudest rings the din;For there, around their hero’s corpse,Fight on his furious kin!A rescue! rescue! bear him henceInto the leaguer near;Pour balsam in his glorious wounds,And weep above his bier.And when from that hot trance I pass,Great Love, I feel thy charm;There hangs my lady’s picture near—A picture yet so warm!How fair she was, reclining there;What languish in her look!How thrill’d her glance through all my frame!The very pencil shook.Her eyes, her cheeks, her lovely lips,Were all the world to me;And in my breast a younger lifeRose wild and wantonly.Oh! turn again, and bide thee here,Nor fear such rude alarms;How could I think of battles moreWith thee within my arms!But thou shalt lend thy perfect formTo all I fashion best;I’ll paint thee first, Madonna-wise,The infant on thy breast.I’ll paint thee as a startled nymph,Myself a following fawn;And still pursue thy flying feetAcross the woodland lawn.With helm on head, like Mars, I’ll lieBy thee, the Queen of Love,And draw a net around us twain,And smile on heaven above.And every god that comes shall pourHis blessings on thy head,And envious eyes be far awayFrom that dear marriage-bed!

There is abundance of spirit here. For once, in describing the battle and fall of Patroclus, Goethe seems to have caught a spark of Homeric inspiration, and the lines ring out as clearly as the stroke of the hammer on the anvil. There is no rhyme in the original, which, we confess, appears to us a fault; more especially as the rhythm is that of the ordinary ballad. We have, therefore, ventured to supply it, with as little deviation otherwise as possible. It is for the reader to judge whether the effect is diminished.