Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

fidelity he could give-that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

completely vanquished all the mean superstitions of the heart, may incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it with the entrance into the world of the Prince of Peace, proclaimed in a holy temple by a venerable sage, and not long before not worse announced by the voice of angels to the quiet innocence of shepherds.

At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of unguarded transport. I knew, indeed, that the sufferings of monarchs make a deThis king, to say no more of him, and this licious repast to some sort of palates. There queen, and their infant children, (who once were reflections which might serve to keep this would have been the pride and hope of a great appetite within some bounds of temperance. and generous people,) were then forced to But when I took one circumstance into my abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid consideration, I was obliged to confess, that palace in the world, which they left swimming much allowance ought to be made for the soin blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed│ciety, and that the temptation was too strong with scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. for common discretion; I mean, the circumThence they were conducted into the capital stance of the Io Pæan of the triumph, the of their kingdom. Two had been selected animating cry which called "for all the from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous BISHOPS to be hanged on the lamp-posts,' slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen might well have brought forth a burst of enof birth and family who composed the king's thusiasm on the foreseen consequences of this body guard. These two gentlemen, with all happy day. I allow to so much enthusiasm the parade of an execution of justice, were some little deviation from prudence. I allow cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and this prophet to break forth into hymns of joy beheaded in the great court of the palace. and thanksgiving on an event which appears Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led like the precursor of the Millennium, and the the procession; whilst the royal captives who projected fifth monarchy,5 in the destruction of followed in the train were slowly moved along, all church establishments. There was, howamidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, ever, (as in all human affairs there is,) in the and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, midst of this joy, something to exercise the and all the unutterable abominations of the patience of these worthy gentlemen, and to try furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest the long-suffering of their faith. The actual of women. After they had been made to taste, murder of the king and queen, and their child, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of was wanting to the other auspicious circumdeath, in the slow torture of a journey of stances of this "beautiful day." The actual twelve miles, protracted to six hours, they murder of the bishops, though called for by so were, under a guard, composed of those very many holy ejaculations, was also wanting. A soldiers who had thus conducted them through group of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter, this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old was indeed boldly sketched, but it was only palaces of Paris now converted into a bastile sketched. It unhappily was left unfinished, in for kings. this great history-piece of the massacre of innocents. What hardy pencil of a great master, from the school of the rights of men,* will finish it, is to be seen hereafter. The age has not yet the complete benefit of that diffusion of knowledge that has undermined superstition and error; and the king of France wants another object or two to consign to oblivion, in consideration of all the good which is to 4 Ancient shout of victory.

Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars? to be commemorated with grateful thanksgiving to be offered to the divine humanity with fervent prayer and enthusiastic ejaculation?These Theban and Thracian orgies,2 acted in France, and applauded only in the Old Jewry,3 I assure you, kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this kingdom: although a saint and apostle, who may have revelations of his own, and who has so

2 Bacchanalian orgies of ancient Greece.

* A London street, where Dr. Richard Price, of the Revolution Society, had preached a sermon in approbation of the Revolution in France.

5 The dream of a Puritan sect of Cromwell's time, to establish a monarchy rivaling ancient Assyria, Persia, Macedonia and Rome. Ironically alluding to the philosophers who upheld revolutionary doctrines in the name of humanity. Burke's extreme conservatism on this subject must not be forgotten.

arise from his own sufferings, and the patriotic crimes of an enlightened age.

|

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, Although this work of our new light and at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this knowledge did not go to the length that in all orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more probability it was intended it should be car- delightful vision. I saw her just above the ried, yet I must think that such treatment of horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated any human creatures must be shocking to any sphere she just began to move in,-glittering but those who are made for accomplishing like the morning-star, full of life, and splenrevolutions. But I cannot stop here. In- dour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and fluenced by the inborn feelings of my nature, what a heart must I have to contemplate withand not being illuminated by a single ray of out emotion that elevation and that fall! Little this new sprung modern light, I confess to did I dream when she added titles of veneration you, Sir, that the exalted rank of the persons to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful suffering, and particularly the sex, the beauty, love, that she should ever be obliged to carry and the amiable qualities of the descendant of the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed so many kings and emperors, with the tender in that bosom; little did I dream that I should age of royal infants, insensible only through have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her infancy and innocence of the cruel outrages | in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men to which their parents were exposed, instead of being a subject of exultation, adds not a little to my sensibility on that most melancholy occasion.

of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dig

I hear that the august person, who was the principal object of our preacher's triumph, though he supported himself, felt much on that shameful occasion. As a man, it became him to feel for his wife and his children, and the faithful guards of his person, that were mas-nified obedience, that subordination of the sacred in cold blood about him; as a prince, it became him to feel for the strange and frightful transformation of his civilized subjects, and to be more grieved for them than solicitous for himself. It derogates little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honour of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which it is not becoming in us to praise the virtues of the great.

I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other object of the triumph, has borne that day, (one is interested that beings made for suffering should suffer well,) and that she bears all the succeeding days, that she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her captivity, and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sovereigns distinguished for her piety and her courage; that, like her, she has lofty sentiments; that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity she will save herself from the last disgrace; and that, if she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand.

6 Maria Theresa

heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss I fear will be great. It is this which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which has distinguished it under all its forms of government, and distinguished it to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world. It was this, which, without confounding ranks, had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into 7 By poison, self-administered.

able of filling their place. These public affections, combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as correctives, always as aids to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states:-Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto.s There ought to be a system of manners in every nation, which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

companions, and raised private men to be fel- | admiration, or attachment. But that sort of lows with kings. Without force or opposition, reason which banishes the affections is incapit subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher of laws to be subdued by manners. But now all is to be changed. All the pleas ing illusions, which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.

On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal, and an animal not of the highest order. All homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views, is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and parricide, and sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only common homicide; and if the people are by any chance, or in any way, gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny.

WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800)

FROM OLNEY HYMNS

XXXV. LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS
1

GOD moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

2

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

3

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

4

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
5

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of their academy,* at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, in persons; so as to create in us love, veneration, The Athenian philosophers conducted their instruction walking in the groves of the 8 "It is not enough that poems be beautiful, they Academe. See Newman, Site of a University, must have sweetness." Horace Ars Poetica, in the present volume. 99.

6

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain:
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

[blocks in formation]

The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears
away!''

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 11

O welcome guest, though unexpected here!
Who bidst me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long,
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,
A momentary dream that thou art she.

20

My mother! when I learned that thou wast
dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun!
Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss:
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss-
Ah, that maternal smile! It answers-Yes.
I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,

Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou might 'st know me safe and warmly
laid;

Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 60
The biscuit, or confectionary plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and
glowed;

All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes,
That humour interposed too often makes;
All this still legible in memory's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 70
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,
Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed
here.

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the
hours

When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,

The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I pricked them into paper with a pin

(And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile),

And, turning from my nursery window, drew 30 Could those few pleasant days again appear, 80
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! Might one wish bring them, would I wish them
But was it such-It was.-Where thou art here?
gone,

40

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more!
Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.
What ardently I wished I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived.
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no
more,

Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped,
"Tis now become a history little known
That once we called the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair
That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.

I would not trust my heart-the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might-
But no-what here we call our life is such
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed)

Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 90
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons
smile,

There sits quiescent on the floods that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the
shore,

50Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 100
Always from port withheld, always distressed-
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass
lost,

And day by day some current 's thwarting force

« AnteriorContinuar »