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DR. FRANCIS LIEBER,
Professor of History oud Law in Columbia Collet New York

,THf>GIFT OF

MICHAEL REESE,

Of San Francisco..
1873.

T Doney.sc

rf.s: o&

'/ .

WRITINGS

HUGH SW1NT0N LEGA-RE,

LATE ATTORNEY GENERAL

AND ACTING SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES \

CONSISTING OF

A DIARY OF BRUSSELS, AND JOURNAL OF THE RHINE;

EXTRACTS FROM HIS

PRIVATE AND DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE ;
ORATIONS AND SPEECHES ;

AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

NEW-YORK AND SOUTHERN REVIEWS.

PREFACED BY A

MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE.

EMBELLISHED WITH A PORTRAIT,

EDITED BY HIS SISTER.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. L

CHARLESTON, S. C. :
BURGES & JAMES, 6 BROAD-STREET.

PHILADELPHIA : THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO.

NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & CO.

BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE & CO.

1846.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 184(3,

By Mary S. Legark,

In the Clerk's office of the District of South-Carolina.

CHARLESTON:

Rl ROKri AND JAMK.S, I'RINTKRS

'i BROAO-STRKKT.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

VOLUME I.

Page.

1. Biographical Notice, * . v.

2. Diary of Brussels, 1

3. Journal of the Rhine, 103

4. Diplomatic Correspondence, —

To the Hon. Edward Livingston, Secretary of State, . . 153

To the same, 156

To the same, 157

To the same, 158

To the same, 161

To the same, 162

To the same, 163

To the same, . .164

Mr. Livingston to Mr. Legare, 167

To the Hon. Edward Livingston, Secretary of State, . . 168

To the Hon. Louis McLane, " " . 169

To the same, 170

To the same, 173

To the same, 177

To the same, 185

To the same, 188

To the Hon. John Forsyth, Secretary of State 196

To the same, , 198

To the same, 199

To the same, 200

5. Private Correspondence, —

Mr. Legare to the Hon. Isaac E. Holmes, 203

" to the Hon. Alfred Huger 216

" to the same, 219

" to the same, 221

H to his Sister, 225

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Mr. Legare to Henry Middleton, Esq.,
" to the same,

44 to Thomas C. Reynolds, Esq.

44 to the same,

44 to his Sister,

44 to the same,

44 to his Sisters,

44 to his Mother,

44 to his Sister,

6. Oration on the 4th of July, 1823,

7. Speech before the Union Party,

8. Spirit of the Sub-Treasury,

9. Recognition of Hayti,

10. Southern Naval Depot, .

11. Official Defalcations,

12. Arbitrement of National Disputes,

13. The Constitutional History of Greece,

14. Demosthenes, the Man, the Statesman and the Orator,

15. The Origin, History and Influence of Roman Legislation,

229
230
231
233
234
235
236
238
241
243
244
ib.
250
251
257
270
280
322
329
338
354
367
443
502

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

To have joined, in a degree singular every where, the studies of
the closet with practical life in several of its most difficult forms : to
have plunged, with an early passion of scholarship, into its vigils,
never afterwards intermitted, and yet not to have stiffened into the
pedant or the professor: after attaining the command of Arts and
Learning, to have known how to rise to a far nobler, rarer thing, and
bring them into the vigorous service of active affairs and the great
world : not to have studied himself out of the native strength of his
parts, but only into their readier and surer exercise : not to have lost
himself in words or systems, but turned their mastery into that of
things: to have filled himself to the lips with languages without
spoiling his own, and with literature without losing his originality :
in a country of rapidity and shallowness, where to do quickly and
popularly is to do successfully, to have dared to be solid and sincere :
unabated in his purposes by public inappreciation, the luck of igno-
rance, the jeers of blockheads, to have held on his courageous way
to honor: to have scorned all success, but that which is seized and
bome off by the mere strong hand and violence of ability and merit :
as a lawyer, pausing little at forms, technicalities, the jargon of the
science, the mere symbols of its knowledge, to have grasped, from the
outset, at all those nearly unattempted resorts, that should make a
light and an era in jurisprudence amongst us : as an orator, to have
armed himself with an eloquence, not the mere happiness or ill abun-
dance of such speech, glittering and facile, as popular institutions
at once make common and forbid to rise to art the most consummate,
but such as vied, in regularity, force and polish, with the glories of
classic greatness : as a statesman, to have made his way, through a
succession of important trusts up to nearly the most eminent, almost
without popular favor, in a country where that favor is all in all, to
blow, like the wind, where it listeth, and to fall, like the rain, upon

VI. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

the godly and ungodly alike : in such stations, to have won, even
amid those furies of party, which make of our politics little else than
hostile camps, and a perpetual civil war without the honor of arms,
the respect and regrets of all parties at once: — these things are the
praise of him whose life we are about to relate, with as little exagge-
ration or partiality, as a warm personal attachment will permit.

Hugh Swinton Legare, the son of Solomon Legare, junr., and of
Mary Swinton his wife, was born in Charleston, S. C, on the 2nd
January, 1797. On the father's side, he was of that Huguenot race,
the incunabula of many of the best families of his State, whom the
same spirit, which drove the ''Pilgrims" of New-England to its then
dreary coast, led to seek Freedom under a more genial sky and gentler
institutions, planned by the philosophic liberality of Locke, but des-
tined— except in the real religious equality, the legal toleration
which they were the first to establish — to endure, like other instances
of extemporized Constitutions and philosophic visions of government,
barely until they had been reduced to practice.

On the maternal side, he was of a lineage still more strenuous —
that of those Scottish Swintons, celebrated for their prowess in the
traditions of the Border which they long defended ; one of whom,
"stout Sir Alan," figures in the animated page of Froissart and in his
copyist, Sir Walter Scott.* The genealogy, lost in every other form,

* See his "Halidon Hill," Sir Alan is its hero. The notes contain various re-
ferences to the history of the family, of whom, this chief was the companion of
the Bruce. Sir Walter says of them, in his Preface, after reciting Pinkerton's
account of the part Sir Alan played in the battle of Halidon Hill, "The tradi-
tion of the Swinton family, which still survives in lineal descent, and to which the
author has the honor to be related, avers," etc. He afterwards describes, as they
really were, his remarkable person, his extraordinary prowess, and the cogni-
zance of his family :

"There needed not, to blazon forth the Swinton,
His ancient burgonet, the sable boar
Chain'd to the gnarled oak, nor his proud step,
Nor giant stature, nor the ponderous mace,
Which only he, of Scotland's realm, can wield :
His discipline and wisdom mark the leader,
As doth his frame the champion."

Douglas, in his "Baronage," p. 132, says, "The armorial bearings of the ancient
family of Swinton are sable, a cheveron, or, between three boar's heads erased,
argent. Crest, a boar chained to a tree, and above, on an escroll, J'espere. Sup-
porters, two boars standing on a compartment, whereon are the words, Je
pense.v Scott makes them trace their feats up "to the old days of Malcolm call'd
the maiden ;" who belongs to some date that was very old in Bruce's time. We

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Vli.

is still assured, among their American descendants, by one of those
-domestic marks which even Democracy, in its enmity of all distinc-
tions, but slowly obliterates — the transmission, from generation to ge-
neration, of certain favorite baptismal names. Those of Hugh and
Alan, proper to the Swintons of that ilk, of Simprin-Mains and Swin-
ton-duarter, seem of frequent recurrence among the Carolinian race.
Of the precise date of their migration hither, we are not informed.
William Swinton, the grand-father of Mrs. Legare, is believed to
have been sent out, as Surveyor-General of the Province, some time
between 1721 and 1731. The family names were William, Hugh
and Alexander. They are reputed, however, to have been Covenant-
ers; so that he of whom we write mixed in his veins whatever of
either French or Scottish blood was inimical to tyrants -

His progenitor, Solomon Legare, the first emigrant of the name,
from whom he was fifth in descent, left his native land for America in
1695 or 1696, and fixed his residence in the north-eastern part of the
city of Charleston. Acquiring in that quarter of the town a consi-
derable landed property, he bestowed it upon two of his sons and a
daughter : while, purchasing another body, on the opposite side of the
city, traversed by a street which still bears his name, he left this, en-
tire, to his son Solomon, the father of Thomas, whose son, a third So-
lomon, was the father of Hugh Swinton Legare. The city estate
thus inherited by the second Legare he sold, in great part, — purchas-
ing, in its stead, possessions on the neighboring John's Isand ; which
henceforth became the chief seat of that branch of the family, and
where still remain, in the possession of those of the name, two an-
cient mansions, erected by their forefather, the son of the emigrant.*

find a modern Swinton one of the authors of the great "Universal History,"
Another Swinton, to whom we cannot now more precisely refer, is said to have
made, on his estate of Swintondale, one of the earliest attempts at what has since
become the steam-boat.

* The South-Carolina Gazette, of the year 1760, contains the subjoined notice
of the death of the original emigrant :

"Died, on the 8th May, 1760, Mr. Solomon Legare, Senr., in the 87th year of
5iis age — one of the oldest settlers in this Province. He had been here 64 years."

The steps of descent and alliance are traced as follows :

I. Solomon Legare", the Huguenot emigrant.

II. Solomon, the son ; who intermarried with Mary Stock.

III. Thomas, the grandson ; intermarried with Elizabeth Barnet.

IV. Solomon, the great-grandson ; who, intermarrying with Mary, the daugh-
ter of Hugh Swinton and of Susannah Splatt his wife, became the father of Hugh
Swinton Legare\

▼111. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

Of Solomon Legare, Jr., the father of the late Attorney General,
we are in possession of few particulars beyond his early death : a mis-
fortune usually involving, to male children — especially if there be but
one — ill-governed youth and a neglected education.* These were,
however, in this instance, averted, partly by the admirable qualities
of the mother, partly by the strong faculties of the boy, betokened al-
most from his cradle ; and what seemed, at first, another cruel cala-
mity, came only to aid, at the expense of his body, his intellectual de-
velopment.

He was born of fine and singularly large proportions, which up to
his fourth year promised the strength and the stature of his stalwart
ancestry, those baronial prickers who, for a thousand years keeping
the Borders, won such titles and attributes of arms as "John with the
Long Spear" — "Archibald of the Axe" — "Richard the Ready" — or
"Stout Sir Alan," "of that huge mace still seen where war was wild-
est."! But, at that age, it became necessary to inoculate him with
the small-pox : the artificial disease took a more than usual viru-
lence : medical mismanagement probably aggravated it ; and it finally
put on the confluent form, fixing itself upon the larger joints (his el-
bows and knees) in deep imposthumes. These kept him for some
three months on his back, utterly helpless, and at length so mere a
skeleton that, from stout as he had been, he came to be, for some
time, borne about by his mother on a pillow. When these wasting
tumours were at last dissipated, they left him his fine trunk greatly
enfeebled, though otherwise unimpaired; but with limbs which,
though stout, never afterwards grew to their proper length or shape-
liness. For eight or nine years, he is said scarcely to have gained in
height at all ; and then, on his transfer to school and college in the
upper country, to have shot up, with great rapidity ; but it was in the
superior part of his person almost entirely ; for while his chest, bust
and head became those of a very fine torso, his members remained
those of a very short man. Seated, his length of body set off by a
broad and manly chest, a noble head, and an air unusually imposing —
he looked of commanding person ; but risen, he seemed suddenly
to have shrunk out of his bodily advantages. The defective con-
formation thus superinduced, unfitted him, in boyhood for its sports, in
manhood for its exercises, and so consigned him, as sickliness did
Pope, or distortion of the feet Scott and Byron, to intellectual activity

* The Gracchi and Sir William Jones afford the most remarkable exceptions.
1 Scott, "Halidon Hill," Act ii., Scene 3.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. IX

and the relief of study only. In these he sought and found noble
compensation for whatever he had lost in strength or beauty of limbs.
The instincts of a powerful nature, which might else have found vent
in robuster pursuits and a more vulgar excellence, were thus compres-
sed into all the vehemence of a single feeling — the necessity of know-
ledge and its delights — the passion of mastering other men with his
mind, since he could no longer hope to master them with his body.

The domestic traditions, however — -those fond personal romances,
woven between Memory and Imagination, which delight to embellish
and magnify into auguries of greatness each little fact of the child-
hood of remarkable people — are not wanting in the recollection of
presages of his genius, that appeared from his tenderest age. There
could usually need, in truth, little but a recurrence to the fancies — for-
gotten, like dreams, when the event has not confirmed them — awa-
kened in mothers and nurses by each childish trait, in order to establish,
in almost any person's favour, these promises of something extraordi-
nary. Probably if all the world turned out sages or heroes — which
were perhaps a pity — the authentic legends of every body's surprising
infancy would be much the same. So, at least, in concession to the
rationalism of an age averse to prodigies of every sort, except Mes-
merism, Millerism, Paper Constitutions, Hydropathy and Progressive
Democracy, we are willing to argue: but we ourselves have a faith
less material, and love, when we believe in fables, that they should be
of the older kind, such as Voltaire demolished without and Niebuhr
with learning — the fables of God, and those fables of a prodigious and
inborn personal superiority which — perhaps with not a little loss to
mankind — must cease, like other miracles, when checked by an uni-
versal refusal to believe that such things can be.

Be all this as it may, and whether or not it be as wise as it is nat-
ural that an Age of Littleness should discredit individual eminence,
just as a world of Pigmies must be expected to disbelieve in Giants,
it is none the less our business as historians to manage this mytho-
logical period in our subject as grave writers have so often done the
fabulous ages of Greek, Roman and other annals. Positive facts
being few, we must recite myths or allegories ; and, as geographers
were formerly wont to scatter about those unknown parts, which they
could not otherwise figure in their maps, monsters such as Zoology
has never been able to describe, so must we fill this part of our page
with what, perhaps, that which entitles itself Criticism and delights in
disenchanting us of many things noble or agreeable or useful to believe,

VOL. I. A

X. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

will refuse to accept as any thing but poetic inventions or even nursery
tales.

He is reputed, then, in the domestic reminiscences, to have spoken
at a remarkably early age, and to have betrayed, when but a little
older, singular gleams of reflection and sense. As a child even, his
air, manners and habits bespoke something unusual, something entirely
superior to his years — indications of a marked and fine individuality.
These were no doubt much assisted by the powerful mould of the
person in which he was originatly cast, a large and strikingly deve-
loped head, and well-proportioned features, full of all the elements of
thought and passion. Such as we know him first by report, in a dis-
tant State, whither some of his companions and his chief rival at
college and elsewhere brought the fame (as it was for a youth of 17
or 18) of his extraordinary abilities — such as we afterwards knew
him, certainly far the most accomplished person and most, powerful
genius that we have ever met — and such as we know that he seemed y
at every part of his life, from his first school upwards, to all who re-
marked him as his elders or contended with him as his equals, we, at
least, are perfectly prepared to receive as genuine all that his family
relate of the earliest tokens which he gave of parts the most vigorous
and of tendencies the most invincible to the utmost intellectual excel-
lence to which one could be bred up in the country and at the time to
which he belonged. We have never seen any other instance of so
powerful a determination towards a consummate cultivation of all the
arts that are fit to crown admirable gifts with every advantage of
complete discipline ; and these things were in him so much beyond
any thing we ever witnessed in others, that we consider it certain that
his "strong nativity" of knowledge must have displayed itself be-
times.

It appears that he learnt to read in his mother's arms, while borne
about and tended in the manner that we have already described ; and
that, in the long feebleness of his lower limbs left even by returning
health, the new-found treasure of books must have become his main
delight. It was probably at this first period of study (as it is no abuse
to call it for him, even from the first) that he contracted the taste which
we have often heard him express for what had not yet been banished
by the Barbauld and de Genlis child's literature — the older tales, we
mean, of giants and pigmies, enchantments and fairy-land — the puis-
sant Tom Thumb ; or him of the giants, Jack ; or the veracious voya-
ger, Gulliver ; or the delicious wonders of the Arabian story-tellers ;

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XL

or that master-piece of probable fiction, Robinson Crusoe, in every
thing of this sort, he was deeply read, and was accustomed to dictate
afterwards on their superiority to what has displaced them, for the
formation of the young mind — the sensible or instructive books, that
would have children learn what men learn— that teach just science or
*act enough to forestal, not inform, and take the edge off curiosity —
books, in a word, which, before yet the fancy or the feelings have been
formed, inculcate advanced and multiplied morals for those who are
still incapable of experience and led chiefly by the senses. For that
age the compositions are fittest which captivate the most. Leave it
to the boy himself, and see what he will devour ! In this, indeed, we
have a guide obvious enough : the natural process of knowledge is
necessarily just that which the rise of knowledge itself has followed
among men : it begins among rude nations with tales and songs, with
what affects the imagination and the heart ; and advances long after-
wards to positive science. Barbarous nations are but larger and fairer
children. If these things seem out of place here, we have been led to
them, as the opinions of him concerning whom we write. They have
their place in his life, since they were a part of his mind, and proba-
bly had their influence over its formation*

Indeed, the care of such a mother as it was Legare's happiness to
have ; made, as it was, doubly solicitous by his becoming, through the
loss of his father, her undivided charge, and by the helpless condition
to which she saw him, her chief hope, reduced by disease— has an
image probably as just as it is sweet in the picture which a poet
has drawn of the education of one of the opposite sex by a widowed
father :

I may not paint those thousand infant charms,

(Unconscious fascination, undesigned !)

The orison, repeated in his arms,

For God to bless her sire and all mankind —

The book, the bosom on his knee reclined —

Or how sweet fairy-love he heard her con,

The play-mate, e'er the teacher, of her mind.

All uncompanion'd else her years had gone,

"Till now in Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer shone."*

The piety, the affection, the charity, the early love of knowledge,
the tender care repaid with caresses as tender, and probably the fairy-
love were all parts of this excellent mother's system: for she was
clearly wise enough to be "the play -mate e'er the teacher of his mind,"

* Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming, Canto I.

XII. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE,

Between his fourth year and his sixth, when he was first sent out
to school, he had probably, with the boundless curiosity which he
possessed, read much and formed, what is best formed by this earliest
reading, a good English. For 'tis not at school that a boy ever gets
a good knowledge of his own tongue, let him learn there whatever
else he may. 'Tis much reading, and not teacher's work, which
gives him that. But we find his first master, Mr, Ward, (an English-
man then teaching in Charleston,) declaring to his mother, when, in
his ninth year, he became importunate to be taught Latin, and she
resisted it because she supposed him unprepared, "that he was very
far advanced in English, a boy of high talents,, fine taste and great
industry." His course with this instructor, then, was probably the
usual rudimentary one in English — grammar, geography, the ele-
ments'of history and arithmetic.

Yielding now to the opinion of Mr. Ward and to his own urgent
wishes, his mother transferred him to the care of a Catholic priest,
Dr. Gallagher, reputed, in that day, the most eminent classical
teacher of Charleston. Under this master, with whom he seems to
have remained two or three j'ears, we know not precisely what was
his progress : we only learn that it was such that the reverend Dr.
himself, an enthusiast in Latin literature and in eloquence, but ap-
parently somewhat national in his favorite models of the latter, took
the greatest delight and pride in him, pronounced that he would be
"an honor to his country for erudition, and, as an orator, the Cur ran
and Burke of America." Mr. Legare himself was accustomed, at
any event, to say that it was to Dr. Gallagher that he owed his
passion for classical letters generally, and much of his knowledge
of Latin ; while it was to Dr. Waddel (his next teacher but one)
that he was indebted for his love of Greek.

We have here on the part of Dr Gallagher, a very bold prediction,
when uttered (as it certainly was) of a boy less than 12 years old:
bold, we mean, of course, omitting that other glory of Hibernian ora-
tory, who was such an exaggeration of Burke's greatest blemishes as
the rhapsodical Counsellor Phillips was of his. It would be difficult,
indeed, to fix on any one that has arisen among us so fit to be put in
parallel with the great smiter of Jacobinism as was Legare. Ample
as was that illustrious man's erudition ; wide and noble as his range
of public knowledge ; in these and in the entire command of one great
practical pursuit (Jurisprudence) Legare certainly excelled him; while
he as certainly surpassed him in all that gives success to the uttered
harangue. As an author, bating that they cannot fairly be compared

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, Xlll,

who died at ages so different, an entire superiority must, on the other
hand, be assigned to Burke — the more especially as his speeches be-
long rather to written than to spoken eloquence. Asa great political
philosopher again — we mean a statesman and politician in the largest
and best sense, and not a metaphysician and sophister of public things,
such as we could name if it were worth while — the palm over all
moderns, except the mighty Florentine secretary, must be assigned to
Burke. But here again, in favour of one whose legislative career on
a sufficient theatre was so short and yet ennobled by such admirable
speeches — one of which, in particular (that on the Sub-Treasury) need
shun the comparison of ability with none of Burke's — large allow-
ances must be made for inferior age or occasion or audience. The
various papers of Legare on the Democratic politics of Greece are of
a merit, at least approaching to that of the productions which consti-
tute Burke's superiority —his several discourses on the French Revo-
lution. Now, these were written under all the advantages of a present
event the most agitating and appalling, by a man above 60 ; and those
by one full 20 years younger. In the cast of their genius, of their
public virtues, and even, in no small degree of their opinions, they
were much alike. Originally, the American's tendency was to the
investing philosophic thought and what may be called intellectual
passion in a diction ornate and imaginative, like Burke's. In his
progress of practice and thought, however, he turned this gorgeousness
of a strong imagination to its legitimate and merely occasional office;
and arrived at a manner more vigorous, by dint of being simpler and
purer. His style grew to be for use that of Fox, for richness — where
richness could be permitted — that of Burke. In a word, he became
of a true vehemence, a Demosthenian severity and fire ; while Burke,
rarely addressing tumultuary audiences, never shook off his almost
unvarying Ciceronian pomp. Let us, however, return to our narrative,
perhaps already interrupted too much.

For what cause he was now, somewhere in his eleventh year, trans-
lated from the school of so able a master to another, we do not learn.
Probably enough it was out of a special personal admiration for the gen-
tleman (Mr. Mitchell King, afterwards an eminent lawyer and not
long since, under circumstances signally honorable, Recorder and
Judge of the City Court of Charleston*) then at the head of the lat-

* The remarkable trait of beneficence here alluded to cannot be more authenti-
cally given than in the subjoined statement of the Charleston Courier. We our-

XIV. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

ter — the High School as it really was, of Charleston. It has since
risen into what it was originally, in 1785, incorporated to be, the local
college of that very cultivated city ; and through fortunes suffering long
under what may be called the competition of its state, with its abun-
dantly endowed institution at Columbia, now flourishes, under not a
numerous but a highly efficient Faculty and the presidency of one who
conciliates for it a deserved esteem.

Under Mr. King's care, every way enlightened and affectionate,
young Legare remained between 12 and 18 months, that is, until
he had completed his 13th year. From the lessons of one not des-
tined to teach until his own knowledge had congealed into that of
the mere pedagogue, but of a better, freer, more general scholarship,
fit to be, as it presently became in Mr. K. the instrument of high
active pursuits, his pupil cannot have failed to derive if not a large
addition to his positive knowledge, yet much as to the taste, spirit
and aims that .were to give it life. Certain it is that they formed
for each other a regard which continued faithfully through life and

selves had, in another form, spoken of the fact upon distant and inexact informa-
tion, as follows.

"Mr. King, after a laborious life, distinguished as much by merit as by success,
has crowned a long professional career by accepting, in a very singular manner,
a high judicial appointment, of which the salary is appropriated to the support
of the almost destitute family of his predecessor." — American Review, No. 10. p.
417.

The Courier of Oct. 25. 1845, supplies a correcter and minuter account of the
circumstances :

"The tribute to Judge King is one richly merited by that erudite scholar, emi-
nent lawyer and benevolent gentleman ; but is somewhat inaccurate in detail.
He is not still the incumbent of the judicial chair (as one would infer from
the tense in which the reviewer speaks), which benevolence and public spirit
alone induced him to occupy only for a season. When the late estimable Judge
Axson, Recorder of the City and Judge of the City Court of Charleston, was
providentially struck down by paralysis, in the prime of life and usefulness,
Judge King, at great personal sacrifice and inconvenience, kindly accepted the of-
fice of Additional Recorder, and discharged the duties of the station gratuitously, in
order that Judge Axson might continue in the full receipt of his salary ; and, on
the death of that lamented functionary, he consented to serve for a few months
longer, receiving the salary only to bestow it on the family of the deceased — and
then, voluntarily vacated the office to resume his suspended professional engage-
ments and literary pursuits."

Merely as an author, and quite apart from the personal regard in which we
have cause to hold this excellent gentleman, we rejoice to be able to brighten our
page with an act of such singular disinterestedness.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XV.

of which the tokens are before us in a long and intimate interchange
of letters. Nor, indeed, were their relations as master and pupil to
cease, when they terminated in the academic form : for when Legare
exchanged, a few years later, the studies of a college for those of a
profession, it was in Mr. King's office that he began to prepare him-
self for the bar.

Meantime, offering a trait of character in him and of judgment in
his mother, we must not pass unmentioned the only fact which we
have heard of this part of his school life. As probably of junior
pupils and a boy of one of the lower forms, he seems to have been
under the immediate care of a harsh or injudicious usher, little obser-
vant of the boy's temper or perhaps of justice ; who for some slight
cause one day disgraced him in his own eyes by a blow. That eve-
ning, boiling with indignation at the unmerited dishonor which had
never before been inflicted upon him, he returned to his mother, im-
ploring her to remove him from the school ; protesting that he had
been unjustly degraded, and that he could not, would not endure it.
She, however moved by the strong sense of wrong and shame which
showed itself in his violent emotion, was too steady and too wise to
yield to his unexamined representations and perhaps thus teach that
he was always to be sustained against his teachers. She calmed
him, therefore, with the assurance that the matter should be looked
into, and meanwhile privately saw the head master. He no sooner
heard what had happened than he pronounced that the usher must
have acted injudiciously at least ; that the boy was clearly one with
whom everything could be done without blows and whom a blow
might ruin : 'twas too generous a spirit to be treated in that way. He
suggested, therefore, to Mrs. L. to send her son back to school, with the
healing assurance that Mr. King desired to take him under his own
charge: which was accordingly done.

About the close of his 13th year, his mother, probably now con-
sulting rather the physical benefits to his feeble frame to be derived
from an upland school, than any expectation of a better teacher ; or
perhaps under the sound idea that he had now reached the age when
the effeminacy of a home education should be broken — determined
to send him to a distance. For this purpose she pitched upon a
school, called the Willington Academy, then conducted with great
reputation by the Rev. Dr. Moses Waddell. It was situated in the
fine upland District of Abbeville, near the Savannah river, and there-
fore not far from the borders of Georgia ; from which State, as well
as upper Carolina, it drew many of its pupils : so that Dr. W. had

XVI. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

the good fortune to number among his disciples, at one time or
another, many men not a little distinguished in after life.*

The school, we have said, and its master were then of great repute;
and the fact that from it emerged many who figured in the public
life of their region, seems to justify Dr. W.'s reputation. Yet,
though he afterwards passed into Georgia, became the President of
its college at Athens, and reigned, down to less than 20 years since,
the Aristarch, the Parr, the Busby of a whole literary realm there-
abouts, we are little able to say what were his merits as a scholar,
or even as a teacher. His range of any thing like erudition was pro-
bably not large ; but within it he was exact, methodical and rigid— a
man to teach well, so far as he did it, by governing well ; which is
by-the-bye, the teacher's main qualification for the advancement of
the mass of pupils.

This, however, as will have been easily divined, was not the sort
of system of which Hugh Legare had need or by which he could
well be managed. A man of forms in the elevated pursuits which
he had now learned ardently to love, a teacher who,

With the same cement ever sure to bind,
Would bring to one dead level every mind,

suited not that fervor of knowledge which had now fired him and
would have hurried him on at a pace quite beyond the methods of
his new preceptor. In the spirit towards himself, he doubtless met
for the first time, a discipline not the most genial. In a word, he
and his teacher appear, from the first, to have understood each other
sufficiently ill. The school itself and the manners of his co mates
of the country seem soon to have grown most heartily distasteful to
him ; and he began, within but a few weeks, to supplicate his mother,
in frequent and very earnest letters, to remove him elsewhere. She,
however, bent on accomplishing what she had proposed to herself,
had the constancy to resist all his appeals. Repelled thus, he seems
to have grown exceedingly unhappy, especially when presently the
the teacher, who liked him not, made him, in his suspicions an
imaginary party, along with some of his lowland associates, to a
meditated plot or rebellion. At this harshly expressed persuasion, he
became as indignant as he had before been disgusted, and renewed
in the most vehement terms to his mother his entreaties to be recalled.
The letters conveying these fresh supplications are written in the

* Among them, besides Legar£, may be mentioned George McDuffie, Judge
William Harper, and James L. Petigru — all Carolinians.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE* XVlh

most passionate strain of indignation and suffering : but in the midst
of the extremest expression of emotions evidently the most violent, it
is still delightful to see that nothing escapes him, even when he
thinks his mother cruel in her persistance, that does not breathe the
completest filial respect and devotion. Every where, the mother is
apparent, in the correspondence, as one not less firm than tender — the
son as proud, vehement, even stormy, when his inborn, but yet, un-
formed feelings are once excited into full action ; but full, as to his
parent, of a sentiment that says all the while, to the very tempest and
surge of his passion, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther!"

It is in these letters, indeed, that first visibly opens to us the beauti-
ful (and ah ! the rare) spectacle of the unbroken, unceasing, entire
affection of these two. In the one, it is the fond maternal instinct,
heightened by the widow's, the sole protectress, and guardian's stronger
necessity to direct with a father's command, as well as cherish with
a woman's utmost tenderness, her boy, her darling, him the young
image of her husband, the hope of her house, its future honour : in
the other, it is that child repaying, by a feeling as deep and almost
as unmixed, the ceaseless solicitude, the admirable nurture, of which
he was the conscious object. In life, we can recal no equal instance
of this sort of love — but one that approaches it. Perhaps those of
Pope, Gray the poet, and Schiller, are the known examples likest it —
by all these, except in six touching lines of the verse of one of them,*
kept sacred (as it was by Legare) from the vulgar eye, and betrayed
only in the confidence of the most intimate interchanges of thought,
or in other records of what was passing in the breast. Of course, in
the Legares, main pleasure as it was in the existence of both, it often
discloses itself in their mutual letters : and his, which alone we see,

* In these days, when Wordsworth's read and Shelley understood, when
Bowles's sonnets "sell" ("stick to your sonnets, man! At least they sell ;" — By-
ron)— when Pollok has passed for sublime, and all the last sweepings-out of
Parnassus seem to have been flung down upon us, a mere reference to Pope is
not enough; and we must, in order to be sure to be understood, cite eight lines, six
of which are those to which we allude, and perfectly appropriate here, as descri-
bing the pious care with which Legare" watched over the failing years of his
mother :

"Ah friend ! may each domestic hliss he thine !

Be no intruding melancholy mine !

Me, let the tender omce long engage

To rock the cradle of declining age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's hreath,

Make languor smile and soothe the bed of death,

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

And keep at least one parent from the sky !"
VOL. I. B

XVni. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE,

tell plainly of what must be in hers. Upon occasions, however, and
even in the midst of public triumph, of ability the most intoxicating,
his heart evidently tuftrs from all that heaped upon him the accom-
plishment of the vision of his laborious life, to what rose up as a
reward above the applause of crowds and the admiration of Senates —
the delight which each great public success would carry to the bosom
of his parent. Indeed, these successes are known to those who un-
derstood him best to have dazzled and even to have moved him but
Httle. He had a critic in himself more difficult to please than any
mere audience ; and testimonies of public delight therefore became but
the confirmations of what powerful and regular Art had for him
already divined. At times, the burst of admiration, which might have
lifted others to the summit of gratified self-esteem, is known only to
have saddened him : whether that he remained unsatisfied with him-
self and disapproved the popular approval ; or that, in a nature full of
passion and sensibility, upon which, at such moments, pressed foremost
of all some thought of the affections, he was wrung — especially after
the death of his mother— with some recurring sorrow. She, however,
was entirely, through a great part of his life, the main centre of all
that moved him most deeply : she, and the passion of merited renown,
of lasting honour, won by great abilities nobly exerted.

Of an age yet to be governed by prejudices, and of a city the ele-
gance and delights of which inspired and still inspire its inhabitants
(of that order whose habits produce them) with a peculiar pride and
fondness towards it — a sort of local patriotism- the most fervid — it can
scarcely have been much else than the morgue, which breathed itself
there over the manners of its not a little exclusive circles, that made
our young student — full as he already was of his own lofty thoughts,
intent on intellectual eminence, and sympathizing with nothing that
bore not the outward marks of it in a cultivated demeanor — quite
distasteful to his fellow-pupils of the upper country and even to his
master. Them, in his turn, he disliked still more vehemently, through
all his earlier stay at Willington. Shy through life of all that pleased
him not, and not yet trained down to that cynic insensibility to the minor
elegances of life which democracies enforce, he probably held him-
self apart from the body of the school, and made his almost exclu-
sive associates of a few Charleston pupils, themselves by no* means
popular. Certain of these, it seems, probably richer and therefore
more irregular if not more insubordinate than the rest, had drawn on
themselves the particular rigour of Dr. Waddell, and incurred at last,
within the first few months of Legare's residence there, the suspicion

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, XiX.

of breeding plots, and even a rebellion. Utterly mistaking in such
things the possibilities of young Legare's character, and probably but
little sensible as yet of merits concealed by his aversion to the school,
the master included him in his suspicions and presently in his threats,
to the supposed culprits, of severe punishment. He seems to have
repelled the charge of any such conspiracy with indignation ; and
this, if Dr. W. had known the firm and invariable truth in which the
boy had been admirably bred, and from which he never deviated while
he lived, would have been enough : but the Doctor refused to believe
him, and, apparently, from his own letters to his mother, denounced
him to her. The injustice of the suspicion and the affront to his
veracity of course stung very deeply his young mind, full of rectitude
and sensitive to honour in all its best forms He complains violently,
in his letters to his mother, of the wrong done him; considers himself
treated with a rash and brutal injustice ; and appeals to her to say
whether he had ever before been suspected of such offences, and then,
when he purged himself of them, believed capable of falsehood? In
a word, he reiterates his entreaties for permission to go elsewhere ;
reminds her that she had at first promised him that he should not stay,
if not content ; and protests that he can never be reconciled to the
place or the people ; that they suit him not at all.

We know not precisely, beyond the original motives which had
determined this wise mother to send him thither, what reasons or what
judgment upon his grievances led her to persist in keeping him there.
Obviously, her purposes were not easily shaken — she withstood all his
remonstrances, all his supplications, and the stronger pleadings of her
own tenderness. Probably, sagacious as she was, she perfectly com-
prehended the advantage, for his future career, of exposing him to the
very repugnances by which he suffered, and of training him out of
them. She felt, perhaps, that the softening kindliness and equity of
home, the daintiness of patrician breeding, the niceties of town nurture,
were things not to be suffered to grow into fixed ideas, in one who
was not to have a life of silk. Destined to make his way, not in
saloons, but through all the roughness of a democracy, what was so
fit as that her boy should taste betimes of its rudeness, its insolence
its injustice, learn to tolerate robustious ignorance, shake hands with
uncouthness, and make friends with prejudice? Doubtless she remem-
bered the tale in Grecian fable, and that sorrowful stream in which
heroes were dipped, to make them invulnerable. At any event, like
the goddess, she took her son by the heels, and held him in.

Careful, however, to preserve his affections and not to crush in him

XX. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

that noble element, his pride, she took the gentlest means to her pur-
poses. Unable to visit him in person, she seized the occasion of a
journey of one of his uncles — a kinsman in whom she had great
confidence — into that quarter ; and contrived, through his intervention,
to satisfy Hugh that he ought to remain where he was, until he should
be in a condition to enter college — a term which his own exertions
might abridge no little. At the same time, it is probable that the un-
cle's representations were used with Dr. Waddell, to bring about a
better understanding, a juster mutual estimate, between the master and
his pupil. Certain it is, that a pacification ensued, and that this
ripened, before they parted, into such good will that Dr. W. began to
utter predictions of Hugh's future eminence ; while the latter formed
for his teacher, in return, the respect to which he was really entitled ;
and, through life, recurred with gratitude to the influence of his lessons
over the formation of his attainments. We know, besides, from him-
self, that the foundation of his large and rich Hellenistic studies, dated
from this school; and his distinguished fellow-collegian, Mr. Preston,*
informs us that he came from it to college, preceded by a boy-repu-
tation the most brilliant, for abilities and acquirements. It is clear,
therefore, that he had entirely vanquished, at Willington, the aversions
of others and his own, had made his extraordinary merits felt by all,
and had probably, by his rapidity of study, almost exhausted within
about a year, all that the place itself could confer: for, as we have
intimated, there was more exactness than erudition there, and more
discipline than elegance. |

It would seem, from his letters to his mother during the earlier term

* In his Eulogy, pronounced at Charleston, in 1843.

t We have ourselves some recollection of the venerable head of this and of
several other not a little famous schools. Indeed, we perhaps owe some trans-
mitted obligations to Dr. Waddell, in the person of a father, the earliest graduate
of the college, where, we believe, as tutor of Latin and Greek, Dr. W. first taught.
It was that of Hampden Sydney, in Virginia.

A leading divine of the straitest of all sects, he had then (about 1829) much of
its antique formality and air of being buckled-up in rigour and precision — looking
such as Cotton Mather must have looked, or as Dr. Samuel Parr turned Presby-
terian. In his customary canonicals of dress, manners and countenance, he
seemed terribly the austere polemic and the fierce pedagogue ; and, in that day of
very limited scholarship, shone as a sort of Aristarch of the South. His humane
attainments, if good for that era, were probably not considerable, or, at any eventf
rather grammatical than literary. Beneath his severity of aspect and pedantry
ot style, however, he bore a heart full of simplicity and kindliness, a sound un-
derstanding, a firm temper and great rectitude of character.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXI.

of his pupilage at Willington, that he was from the first far enough
advanced to have joined the college class which he now, at the age
of 1 4, entered. And thus his enforced stay and his entire progress at Dr-
Waddell's, served to place him in easy command of all those studies,
at which his fellows of the class were forced to toil, that they might
barely comprehend, while he could exult in learning to excel. This
ripeness for his studies, this amplitude of preparation, on which so
much depend all the real fruits of a good college course, his mother's
judgment and firmness had secured for him. It enabled him to go
forward with an ease, that each day placed him farther in advance of
his classmates, and led him on to each new subject with higher ad-
vantages.

Of the proficiency in study and the development of parts with which
he came to matriculate at Columbia (the college of his State) in its
lowest class, we cannot give any account so authentic as that of a
biographer, the companion of part of his college life, the rival in
brilliancy then and after of his reputation, and the associate of some
of his travels and labours abroad.* "He entered college at the very
early age of 1 4. His reputation having preceded him, he was, on his
arrival, an object of curiosity and interest to the students ; while, on
his part, with boyish ingenuousness, he was not indisposed to exhibit
his acquirements, nor backward in giving it to be understood, that he
intended to run for the honours of his class. His previous attainments,
the astonishing facility with which he added to them and the eager
industry with which he threw himself upon his studies, gave him at
once a lead which he maintained throughout his course, until he was
graduated not only with the* honours of college, but with a reputation
in the State. He mainly devoted himself to the departments of Clas.
sical Literature and Philosophy ; and he zealously engaged in the
discussions of the debating societies, in order to practice himself in
the art of speaking. These studies were a passion with him. His
attention to the Exact Sciences, however, seemed to be stimulated,
rather by an ambition and a sense of duty, than a particular inclina-
tion. His recitations in Mathematics, Chemistry and Natural Phi-
losophy were always good — equal to the best in his class : but his
heart was in the Classics."!

At the time of young Legare's matriculation there (1814), the

♦ Ex-Senator William C. Preston, now President of the South-Carolina Col-
lege:
t Preston, Eulogy.

XX11. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

Institution yet enjoyed a public favour, partly the just meed of the
talents and learning with which it was originally constituted, and
partly the gift of that sort of yet undiminished delight which the last
popular novelty begets. In its very able and amiable first president,
Dr. Maxcy, it possessed a chief of the studies and government, ex-
ceedingly fit to inspire a fine spirit as to both. Highly cultivated in
the liberal arts, of excellent attainments in general Belles Lettres and
in Philosophy, possessed of a fine native eloquence improved by taste
method, he joined to such qualities the gentleness and simplicity of
the scholar born and that fitness of manners breathing always the gen-
tleman and the man of every humane propensity, which more than
almost any other power commands the young, and which must give
success to his present much more brilliant successor, of far more capa-
cious mind and of personal qualities still more imposing as well as at-
tractive.

Second to Dr Maxcy in length of service — of very inferior abilities —
but really an excellent classical scholar and faithful, exact teacher,
stood the professor of Philology, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Park. Like
the president, a New-Englander,# but the most guileless and amiable
of human beings, his indulgence of temper and simplicity of heart
were such that, at recitations, a pupil had only to stumble, and Dr.
P. instantly, from mere kindness, helped him up, or, by a little boy's
adroitness, might easily be made to go through the whole lesson for
him — the unsuspecting and singularly modest old man all the while
unconscious of the manner in which he was played upon, of the
smiles of his class, and of the fact that he seemed rather to be reciting
to them than they to him. His attainments, as far as those of the
most humble-minded and bashful man in the world could be known,
seemed almost entirely confined to two subjects, the most sacred in
his eyes — the Bible, with some theology, and the classics with their
illustrative authors in antiquities, history and geography. His delight
and skill in these latter, however, gave him the respect, as did his
innocence of soul the affection, of pupils over whom he possessed no
other source of authority.

We mention these, because they were the teachers who presided
over Legare's favorite pursuits, and because the books that one has

• Dr Maxcy— elder brother of the late envoy to Belgium, Virgil Maxcy, who
was slain, with two Secretaries of Departments, by a certain gun called "the
Peace-maker"— was of Rhode-Island, and brought from one of its colleges to
direct that of South-Carolina. Dr. Park was, we believe, a Connecticut man, and
of Yale.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XX111.

read and the masters under whom he has studied form the history and
explain the fortunes of his mind.

In aid of teachers so fit, the one to animate, the other to assist his
own indomitable propensities, the Institution offered to Hugh another
instrument of the finest knowledge— a library if not voluminous in
its contents, yet choice in its composition, and particularly rich in its
classical collection, in literature at large, and in history, ancient and
modern.* To one like him, of a boundless ardour for the noblest
studies, of parts and an application already taking the largest, and
most muscular proportions, and rapidly growing into a strenuousness
fit to wrestle with whole libraries, such a collection was, of itself,
almost enough for this stage of his life. With it alone he would have
taught himself, almost as fast, every thing that lectures can impart,
'Tis but little. "Paul may plant, and Cephas may water ; but it is
only God that can give the increase." From the mere living, how
small the part which such a man as Legare would take ! The best
of them could only be to him an index and point him to higher, to
real sources. Do colleges educate such men? They educate them-
selves. Ordinary people are educated; but genius must be its own
instructor. He who learns no great deal more than professors can
teach him is, after all, but a better sort of blockhead and a sufficient
ignoramus. The degree, indeed, in which all real education is self-edu-
cation— the glow, the impulse, the passion and the power to know,
acting of itself — seems but little felt in this age of such imagined
improvements in the art of instruction. Pity that men should grow
worse scholars just in proportion to the improvement of erudition's
helps! This is the era and these the helps of mediocrity and facility,
that do nothing ill and nothing well. When all things come to be
easy, great things cease to be performed. It might have been well
or at least considerably more convenient for Mungo Park, could he
have travelled through Africa in stage-coaches ; but the fact would
not then have rendered Mungo a great man. Children may be made
to walk the sooner by the help of go-carts and leading-strings ; which,
however, enfeeble, just as much as they expedite the limbs. These

* It then embraced, probably, about 9,000 volumes — a moderate collection for an
English country-gentleman, but, among us, the library of a State. By this time,
it may contain 15,000 volumes. We knew it under the control of an Antiquarius,
(as the Latins called a librarian) who published a catalogue in which vastly vo-
luminous authors, named "CEuvres5' and "Opera," figured greatly. GEuvres
wrote Voltaire, Montesquieu, and most of the French books; Opera, Cicero,
Plato, and the larger Latin and Greek works generally.

xxiv. Biographical notice*

notions are not. inappropriate to our subject: we should not set them
down, however, if they were not those of him of whom we write.

It was here, then, for the first time, that our young student — groping
no longer, with uncertain hand, in the mere schoolroom, after a scanty
knowledge — came where, with every liberal aid and every light, it
courted his grasp on all sides. It was the narrow task, the penurious
illustration, the books already exhausted, no longer: a new world of
thought was before him; and he hailed it with the joy of that warlike
adventurer who, climbing the isthmus, first saw the South Seas be-
yond, and deemed all that deep his own.

Our allusion is no exaggerated one ; for no breast of conqueror or
world-finder ever knew a fervour of purpose or a rapture of hope
stronger than the enthusiasm of letters and of all the noble things of
which they may be made the instruments, that was now fast kindling
up in poor Legar6. Heretofore, he had seemed merely the boy of fine
capacity and inclinations : but now the instinct of what he was to be
awoke in him ; the dream of his young life took shape ; the forms of
every thing good and fair, that had flashed upon him intimations from
his studies or his thoughts, grew palpable and waived him on to tread
a career as yet unattempted in this country — of a preparation, the
completestj brought to practical life in its most difficult pursuits ; of
mastering, by consummate labour, learning enough for a lifetime of
erudition, accomplishments enough for a lifetime of leisure, and then
turning all these to the aid of public performance. Such soon grew to
be his conception ; nor did he ever after relax in its execution.

It will naturally be supposed that nothing short of an ambition the
most violent could have urged him to such a plan : yet we doubt if
that was really the passion that ever led him on. We have said that,
in after-life, his public successes seemed often to sadden him ; nor did
they ever appear eagerly sought. For even the distinctions at which
he had legitimately arrived, he was never in haste : he was rather
borne to them by his reputation than by any effort of his own compe-
tition. No man ever less possessed or less desired the art (Ambition's
main tool) of availing himself of other men, of rising by contrivance'
To deserve, and to be, if at all, by deserving, was evidently his only
thought. And he who aspires in but this wise, let him reach as high
as he may, if he can be said to be ambitious, is rather ambitious of
merit than its reward, which chance and men may bestow or refuse.
Another and a more antique passion, caught from more famous days
and their genius, certainly animated him, however — that which taught

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, XXV,

the Greek to prefer the laurel crown adjudged by his assembled nation,
to power supreme or unbounded wealth-
Glory, the reward

That sole excites to high attempts— the flame

Of most erected sp'rits, most tempered pure

Ethereal, who all pleasures else despise,

All treasures and all gain esteem as loss,

And dignities and powers.

For this alone — to have left some lasting monument to human
vecollection, an action that would preserve his name grateful to other
times, a book that might delight posterity — he asked no better than

<lTo scorn delights and live laborious days."

This, indeed, as all knew who knew him well, was the spirit of
the man : and with it there mixed two sentiments not a little sacred,
one of them so secret as to disclose itself only to those nearest him—
a profound and religious feeling (perhaps the offspring of his constitu.
tional melancholy) of the nothingness of every thing but virtue and
affection. A gloom often settled over him that frightened all vanity
from its shadow, lulled mere ambition in rebuke, and stilled all aspi-
rations but the most legitimate. The other sentiment, to which we
allude, was that of a filial love the most pious and fond, which, while
his mother lived, referred to her a great part of the pleasure of success •
and, after her death, made each triumph a mourning for her whom it
should have gladdened.

As to mere popular fame and the hour's notoriety; the perishable
opinion that can hardly remember its own immortalities of last year;
the oblivious glory which an obscure rout can confer ; the idle admi-
ration of an insensate crowd, the miscellaneous rabble of men, that
extol they know not what and exalt they know not whom, just as one
may lead another, or as the instant's cry may raise a particular
name— the love of this sort of thing, however much it suffices for
power or matches the ambition of democracies, was no feeling of
Legare's. Except so far as good men are pleased with the affection
of many and. so far as even the wise desire public favour that they
may through it serve their kind, he was absolutely indifferent to every
thing like a vulgar reputation, and cared not to live upon the tongues
and be the talk of those, of whom to be dispraised is often the better
commendation. He never earned and he never sought much of this
fool-renown. No man possessing so much of the powers that sway
the multitude ever exerted them less to draw it after him. Nor, indeed,

VOL, I, C

XXVI. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE,

was he — though borne by his opinions and habits towards the reve'
rence for authority, orders, and transmitted, historic greatness — much
more the captive or the slave of the more splendid extremity of life,
of aristocratic eminence: the men about him, in a word, the few or
the many, the great or the small, drew but little the homage of a
mind too large, too just, and measuring things around him too con-
stantly by the ideas of the past and its broad greatness^ to be dazzled
by rank or success, any more than numbers. To shine in brilliant cir-
cles and to be the observed of their observers was clearly not his wish.
In life, his associations were, from taste, few^ and led him always, of
preference, to a small and intimate body of friends, in whom his
sympathies and affections found fellowship, rather than any vanity
or interest its advantage. None of these characteristics — all of
which are unquestionable — are those of ambition. We take his
mind, in short, to have been of that rare cast which, when young, is
kindled up by no definite aim or hope, but simply by its own love of
what is fair and great. Such spirits are, in their immaturity, too
apprehensive of what is admirable, of too profound a sensibility to
the beautiful, for that self-enamourment which makes men ambitious
betimes. Such glow at the genius of others and pant after its pro-
ductions, when inferior men are thinking of their own. It is not
direct aspiration, then, that leads them on, but the need, the besoin to
nourish themselves with the food of greatness, its illustrious actions,
its immortal thoughts, the knowledge which is its instrument, the
art that must be its vehicle. A temper and a soul like this will, of
eourse, with the growing consciousness of learning mastered and skill
abtained, acquire an artificial ambition ; but sedate, calm, high, self-
judging, and even intent on the great past and future, not that petty
link between them, the present. Their ambition then, when formed,
is not that of momentary power or celebrity, but of something that
shall equal them with all former times and carry them far into future
ones. To write, if possible, his name upon his age and for his
country was the longing of Legare ; and this is not ambition, but
love of glory, of just and lasting praise. Certainly there was that
about him, in personal intercourse, which might seem, to those who
conceived him not, vanity. To have totally escaped its slighter influ-
ences over the manner was well-nigh impossible to one who had so
much commanded admiration every where, from his very childhood.
But they who knew him better knew that these apparent gleams of
self-esteem were really little else than a part of his early tincture of
antique feelings — of his Greek and Roman notion of the fitness and

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXV11.

fairness of encomium. To his friends, he sometimes talked of himself
or of them, as if in the third person, as Cicero or Pliny or Horace do,
with a classic ingenuousness. He had a pleasure in praising or being
praised with discrimination and by those he loved. Indeed, apart
from our modern coldness to such things, what can be fitter between
friends than this communion of judgments, this mutual criticism, to
fire each other's minds to the observing well? Yet, with all this, we
have never known a successful writer less addicted to referring to his
own performances, an orator less occupied with his own last speech,
a scholar less addicted to the needless display of learning. Let us,
however, resume the march of our narrative.

His college term of four years was of course one of prodigious
toil and proficiency : for now the original vigor of his temperament
was fast re-establishing itself from the severe shock in his childhood,
and seemed only to be excited by the very labors which would have
destroyed almost any body else. This extraordinary power of appli-
cation, too, stood by him to the last, unexhausted by a life of study
as incessant as is the utmost ardor or him who, at college, labors for
manhood's first honor and hope, a degree. Except that remarkable
scholar and man of science, Dr. Thomas Cooper, late president of
the South-Carolina College, who, up to the age of near 80, kept up
with all the progress of the chief sciences, with that of the main
parts of literature, devoured the very novels of an age of trash, and
read in short every thing, even to the congressional speeches and
quantities of reviews and newspapers, we have never known any one
of such vast intellectual activity. We need scarcely add that he
filled himself with Latin and Greek, mastered a large body of his-
tory, and acquired, besides a sound knowledge of the physical
sciences, a great amount of the best literature, poetry and eloquence,
together with an acquaintance with the principles and history of those
cognate arts of the imagination, painting, sculpture, and music, for
which his natural taste was strong. Much he mastered as far as for
the mere wholeness of a liberal education is necessary ; of much he
formed a solid basis for a future superstructure of knowledge ; and
in not a few subjects he had begun investigations, by and bye to
be resumed, somewhat

"As those who unripe veins in mines explore
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
'Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day."*

* Dry den, Annus Mirabilis.

XXV111. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

To this vehement prosecution of the regular academic studies and of
what could best elucidate, in voluntary research, his own favorite
pursuits, he joined an assiduous cultivation of whatever could lead
him to oratory as an art the most regular and finished. We need
scarcely say that he resorted, as was always his first thought in
whatever he undertook, at once to the great sources ; that he put
aside those false helps, rhetorical systems, the corruptors, not teachers,
of eloquence, born of its decline and expediting it, as incapable of
making the great speaker as the great poet or prosaist. He read with
the minutest care the great ancient masters of harangue, the true
models of persuasion ; and with them he joined all that the historians
and poets contain of eloquence in other forms. The great poets, per-
haps, claimed and received, even more than the orators, his study, as
affording, for all the purposes of oratory, resorts still more perfect —
forms of discourse more animated, imaginative, energetic and affect-
ing ; much greater delicacy and grace as well as precision and force
of diction ; an infinitely greater command of language and its me-
chanism, of sound and its resources, than the most admirable prose
compositions can furnish. He saw, in short, that for all the purposes
of composition, in no matter what language, the poets must be mas-
tered ; that from their art must descend all the others that deal with
the imagination and the senses. He perceived that oratory is little
but poetry subdued to the business of civic life. He studied it, there-
fore, as a great and serious part of knowledge ; first in the great epic
and tragic writers of antiquity, and afterwards in those of his own
tongue ; from which he passed to that of the modern Latin dialects —
French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and something of Provencal ;
with German, Low Dutch, and Romaic, later in life. In Ancient
Letters, he possessed himself very perfectly, for all literary and his-
torical or political purposes, of the Greek writers of all the latter age;
of Homer learnedly, as infinitely the greatest of merely human wits
and the main key to profane Antiquity ; of the three great tragic
poets, Pindar, and the lyric writers, accurately ; of Aristophanes, as
every way important, but especially in the elucidation of the worst
period of the Athenian democracy. To these he joined the finer
historians and above all Thucydides, whom he adored as far the pro-
foundest and noblest of such authors, an able soldier, an admirable
politician, an accomplished orator, and a writer unmatched in all the
severe beauties of composition. Of the orators, we need scarcely
speak ; his singularly fine and original defence of the greatest of

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXIX.

them* sufficiently manifests his intimate knowledge of them all.
Among the philosophers, he studied Plato and Aristotle most care-
fully ; and, in a word, his Hellenistic scholarship, not spent upon
philological niceties though far from neglecting them, was, for the
mastery of what is most worth possessing in that language, very
high indeed, such as is not easily found in Europe, and not at all
approached by any body in this country. With the Latins, though
less his delight, he was familiar in proportion Their poets, orators
and annalists he knew thoroughly,! and of every thing that could
illustrate the great system of jurisprudence with which Rome com-
pensated her conquests, he by and bye possessed himself very com-
pletely.;):

French, as the modern tongue of most immediate necessity, he
early learnt to speak and to write almost as purely as his own ; how-
ever, very highly valuing, its more elegant literature, — except Moliere,
Boileau, La Fontaine, Montaigne, Rabelais and the older writers.
He made himself well-versed in its historic authors, particularly its rich
old Chroniclers ; had dipped into its now-forgotten Romance, the
chivalric and classic ; and was duly read, as a part of his profession,
in whatever it contains of valuable in jurisprudence and legislation at
large.

As a tongue of richer and purer literature than any other modern
one, Italian delighted him greatly. From Dante and Boccaccio, and
Petrarch, he had read downwards through the long and bright line
of poets and historians to Alfieri. The illustrious, the profound, the
virtuous and patriotic, but ill-fated Machiavelli, who has painted so
admirably the wise tyrant and his arts that the bitterest of satires
has, ever since, out of Italy, passed for an encomium and a guide-
book of the merciless and faithless despot, was one of his main favo-
rites among books. His fondness for the fine arts found also its main
gratification in Italian. Its music was the favorite solace of his ear,
long accustomed to it in the tones and touch of a sister, much skilled
in it and landscape painting — talents which his own taste, forbidden
directly to cultivate, enjoyed greatly in her. j

* See his elaborate tractate "On Demosthenes, the orator, the statesman and
the man," originally produced in the "New- York Review."

t Witness his survey of them, in his criticism of Dunlop's History of Roman
Legislation."

t See his essay on "Roman Legislation," and other scattered proofs of his
learning in Civil Law and its sources.

XXX. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

Of German — entirely a later attainment, we must not speak, in this
survey of attainments strongly founded at college. Nor need we
pause to mention more of his Spanish than that he had explored its
early historic and romantic literature ; knew most of those whom the
Curate (that admirable critic) in Don Gluixotte hands not over to the
secular arm of the barber and the house-keeper ; had read, like Doiia
Inez herself,

"All Calderon and greater part of Lope*,"

and wrote and spoke the language with ease and correctness.

In his English, he had taken the same wide range as in his Greek,
making himself thoroughly acquainted with its archaic poets, its
early popular literature, and that wealth of antiquated forms, to
which, or when the age of commonplace comes and letters like gov-
ernment decline through the multitude of those interfering, the skilful
will return for fresher impressions and a diction that has not yet lost
its power to please. He studied carefully the older authors, that
wrote an unexhausted English — the sturdy, manly race that knew
not of slip-slop — our old writers, that Pope knew, but Johnson did
not — the forgotten poets and dramatists, Raleigh, Cowley, Clarendon,
Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and the Parliament men of the times of the
Commonwealth. Among all, however, his early and his incessant
passion was Milton, whose verse he had read and repeated with a
rapture always new, and whose prose he extolled as quite as much
nobler than all other English as his poetry.

Such were the merely philologic and literary studies on which he
thought it necessary to build that consummate art of eloquence to
which he aspired, as the first gift under a popular government. Trea-
tises, we have said, which set methods for that for which one has no
material and (as generally used) teach an art as compends alone
would teach history, he paid little attention to, knowing full well that
he had something better than rules to put into him, in order to become
an orator ; and that when he had filled himself with the spirit of orators
and poets, with knowledge and thought and passion, he should have
arrived at not merely the artificial rule, but the sources from which it
was drawn. When he had amassed ideas and images — something
to write about and to give a purpose — something totally different from
the senseless training of youths set at ornamenting a discourse before
they can make its basis, sense — tie practiced, assiduously, composition,
without a thorough discipline in which a man can no more become an
able speaker, than a great painter without having sketched for years.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE* XXXI*

We know not the fact directly, but it is certain that, with his strong
poetic temperament and taste, he must have been led to the practice
of versifying his thoughts and those of others. All who are strongly
sensible to the charms of verse naturally attempt it ; and Legare.
intent on every thing that could perfect him in the mechanism of
thought and sound, cannot have failed to perceive that rhythmical
Composition, from its far more artful structure, the choice of expres-
sion which it compels, and above all the habit of compacter sense
which it brings about, improves one's prose, just as dancing does one's
walking. That he ever permitted a verse of his to be seen, beyond
an epigram or two, we are not aware : but the sonorous management
of his sentences makes it clear that he had addicted himself to metri-
cal studies.

All these are the general studies of style : but besides, at this es-
pecial period of life, the attainment of a particular one is almost
invariably attempted. In spite of the axiom, Le style c'est Vhomme,
men are so largely mere copyists of others, that they almost univer-
sally select a model, upon which they endeavour to fashion, as to
manner, their own intellectual character. How many unhappy vota-
ries of the effort to be, not one's-self, but another, has Swift made %
How many victims, immolators of such little wit as God gave them^
have fallen before the shrines of those false divinities, Junius and Dr.
Johnson ! 'Twould be deplorable to think of, but that, happily, it is
of very little consequence how people write who have not enough in
them to be themselves. Their ideas rarely give one any occasion to
lament the feebleness of their expression. This mistake, Legare,
guided by the sure instinct of right study, evidently never committed.
His taste sought too wide a range, and excellences too various, for him
ever to sink into the shallow monomaniac of a single model, the
cuckoo of one little borrowed strain. He saw that a man's style must
be animated with his own entire individuality; and that it is what it
should be^ good or bad, just in proportion as it is the natural and ade*
quate vehicle of the mode and hues of his intellectual and moral
identity. He perceived that the imitation of a particular great writer
might be useful, as a mere exercise ; but chiefly either to correct some
defect of one's own^ or to form to one's-self a greater facility and
plasticity. He felt that, instead of one, he must study all models ;
learn to command, in no small degree, all styles ; and fuse them, in the
glow of his mind, into the proper image of his own thoughts and
feelingSi

Along with all these things went, of. course, the study of Declama-

XXX11. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

lion, and, as we have seen, the practice of extemporaneous speaking)
in one of those Debating Clubs which form a voluntary but an indis-
pensable adjunct of the American Institution of Learning ; but which
it only possesses in common with the school, the village, the town,
and nearly every other community, learned or unlearned.

To him who has not formed elsewhere a just oratorical taste, there
can be no worse school than these associations for debate. A few of
that sort which, like Samson's bees, can gather honey from a carcass,
may draw benefit from even these nurseries of disputatiousness and
rant, which can teach little but faults to those who do not cultivate
themselves abundantly in other methods : but in general this early
practice of an art so difficult and needing so many well-managed
auxiliaries can do little but to exhaust the fancy, corrupt the taste and
fix the habit of giving to the smallest number of ideas the greatest
number of words — a vice, accordingly, which the prevalence of these
exercitations in wrangling and roar has rendered almost universal
among us.

Yet the mere presence of an audience, the face of an adversary, the
stir and the glow of performance in public, make of these exerciseSj
for the student of eloquence, an important alternation with his solitary
labours. They afforded to Legare applications of what he had learnt,
experiments of his own powers ; and he no doubt profited by them.
But the habitual use of dramatic reading and of giving voice, in his
walks, to the most spirited compositions of the poets and orators
stored in his memory, was to him a still better discipline of speech,
always at his command, animating each lonely stroll with all the
pleasures of music, and leading him, by the sort of vocal criticism
which continual recitation produces, not merely to a nicer appreciation
of admirable passages, but to the whole art of conveying passion or
sense by the voice and the gesture. A temperament full of the pro-
foundest sensibility and an ear true to all tones and ready to thrill
with their effects, were seconded in him by a voice of extraordinary
compass, sweetness and power, which, cultivated by and by with
prodigious effort, became the most magnificent oratorical instrument
to which we ever listened.

We have been told by a mutual intimate, his associate at college,*

* The late professor Henry Junius Nott> of the South-Carolina college; whose
early death, Letters in the South lament, in common with the social affections,
which few were so fit to awaken. A more estimable person, we have never known,
and few of literary attainments more various and elegant. The gentleness,
kindliness and probity of his character, his gay and easy humour, the amenity

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, XXX1U.

that originally this matchless organ of his was weakly, harsh and
mexpressive ; and that he absolutely created it by training. We find,
however, that — misled, probably, by the pubescence of voice through
which Legare was then passing — his fellow-student was mistaken.
Great as was the labour which he bestowed upon it, his voice was
naturally of fine quality:* so that the extraordinary cultivation which
he gave to it was the suggestion of taste, rather than of necessity.
Or, possibly, his need to vanquish, by extreme art, the ungraceful
action of limbs injured by disease, compelled him to the chief part of
those severe exercises of the Delivery to which he addicted himself.
The practice of an easy and expressive gesture was necessarily asso-
ciated with the exertion of his voice, to animate it. Certain it is that,
for both purposes, he submitted himself, through several years, to
every species of discipline that could correct his action or perfect his
utterance. He declaimed to the winds and the waves ; or pitched his
tones to the murmur of the forest; or spoke in vaults, or lying stretch-
ed on the earth ; or let loose the full force of his voice in lonely places.
At home, in the country, where he felt himself more free, the servants
would often call the attention of his mother and sisters to his resounding
recitations, heard in the distance, probably in those matchless exerci-
tations of sonorous and vehement elocution, the speeches of the Infernal
council-chamber, in the second book of Paradise Lost.f In short, by
the unwearied practice of much more than Demosthenian methods,
he overcame every defect, he carried every natural advantage to the
highest excellence. The powers of his voice — the mastery, at every

of mind that breathed itself over his conversation and his writings alike, endeared
him singularly to his cultivated associates. He was a frequent contributor to the
Southern Review — chiefly on subjects of Belles Lettres. As very happy speci-
mens of agreeable learning, we may refer to his literary biographies of Wytten-
bach and Parr, in that work. He was exceedingly loved by Legare" — only less
than their common friend of still rarer merit, the admirable Petigru. Poor
Nott perished with his wife (a Brussels lady, of much talent, whom he had mar-
ried abroad) on his way home from a summer trip to the North, in the wreck of
that unfortunate vessel, "built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark," the
Home -, which went to pieces on Cape Hatteras* Though slight of body, he
might have saved himself without much difficulty, could he have abandoned his
wife, to rescue whom he sacrificed himself. Their bodies were driven ashore by
fhe sea fast-locked in each other's arms.

* It was a hereditary gift in his mother's family.

t He delighted in every part of the great poet and champion of Civil and
Religious Liberty, not Licence; but particularly in this magnificent satanic debate,
and in the wild grandeur, energy and pity of the "Samson Agonistes." A pocket
Milton was almost always one of his travelling companions, as he has told us.
VOL. I. — D

XXXIV. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

pitch, of those tones, whether deep and \tm or of the most command-
ing force, or sharp and sudden, or flowing and easy, or rapid and over-
whelming in the hurry of the passions — of the indefinable tone which?
in each of these moods of sound appropriate to the feeling, seizes
upon the senses and captivates the imagination — he developed to the
utmost. His articulation became golden in its distinctness ; his into-
nations, without any false or unmanly cadences that gave the idea of
artifice, as pure and beautiful a» those of Italian song. To this, alone,
indeed, as a system of sound the most perfect, could his management
of speech be likened. Thus trained, his voice became clear, musical,
delicate, true in its minutest inflections ; while, in its more vehement
bursts, it grew capable of filling the air with its absolute thunders, to
which we have often felt a large legislative hall tremble and ring-
He conquered, in like manner, or contrived to hide, his bodily defects,
so as to attain a command of gesture sufficient to second the beautiful
recitative of his voice and the play of features highly oratorical even
in the only part where they deviated from regularity — lip* and mouth
large, passionate and scornful : a countenance altogether striking and
imposing, lighted up with high intellect and feeling, and fit to mirror
all that eloquence can express.

To the traits of this part of his life, we have but to add some
parting ones, of his college course. He had been admitted into col-
lege, on the 16th of January, 1812, after (it would appear from his
letters) a very brief examination in Latin and Greek, so excellently
met that the professors were speedily satisfied that they had gotten
hold of a pupil who would justify to the full the strong recommenda-
tion of his respected instructor. He seems to have formed at once
the highest admiration of the abilities and worth of the heads of the
Institution, and of the ample advantages which it afforded. In the
sudden command of such means of knowledge, he appears, for some
time, to have in a manner rioted through his larger studies and been
completely happy. But even in that cup of early intellectual enjoy-
ment, some bitter mingles :* there are idlers, even among studious
cells ; dunces even amidst college shades ; and they broke upon his
hours and infested his rooms. To rid himself of them was to make
himself unpopular, unless at the cost of shunning even congenial
companions. Yet this he seems for some time to have done : for his
letters of the first two years of residence describe to his mother and
sister his habits as recluse, his feelings as of distaste for diversion)

'Fonte de medio leporum

Surgit amari aliq,uid."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXXV,

within the walls and for society without. He mentions, in his pro-
gress, the distribution of his time; of which about seven hours were
given to his classes and recitations, eight to his own voluntary studies,
two to meals and exercise, the rest to sleep. In his senior year, how-
over, his labours themselves appear to have retrieved the popularity
which they had compelled him to forfeit : the regular superiority of
his performances, whether in the lecture-room or his society, drew to
him a general admiration. He came to be considered, on all sides,
among students as well as professors, a youth such as the college had
perhaps never before contained. Contending with his fellow-pupils,
not courting them, he rose to such esteem among them that they con-
ferred upon him, unsought, the presidency of the literary society
which he had joined : and when, upon occasion of his assuming the
honour thus awarded, he pronounced an extemporaneous oration in
praise of eloquence and its uses, he was hailed with universal delight,
as having not only admirably explained the art, but singularly illustra-
ted it in his own person. Towards the close of his course, and up to
its last public effort as first graduate, applause and reputation the
most extraordinary for such a period of life thickened upon him,, and
spread his name and the expectation of his future eminence all over
his own and the neighbouring States.

Yet he had just been preceded by another, to whom nature had been
signally lavish of many of the brilliant qualities that adorned Legare,
and especially of the hereditary gift* of eloquence and of the abilities
for a high public part. These were set off by great advantages of
manner and person, a natural charm of speech the most striking,
accomplishments only inferior to Legare's among all that have figured
in our councils, a personal bearing singularly winning, honour, fidelity,
political probity, public aims all elevated and generous. It was as
the immediate successor of such a person that Legare rose, at only
eighteen, to this sort of celebrity. He had not only given, like the

* Mr. Preston is, by the maternal line, of the Henry family. Legare" and he,
associated by like aims, though of unequal classes, formed a college friendship,
for a while suspended by the return of the latter to his native State. It was,
however, speedily restored by their common pursuit of improvement abroad,
where similarity of studies again placed them together in Paris and at Edinburgh.
Parting again, they again met in their professional and public career, appointed
rivals of reputation, but dear friends, enjoying and aiding each the admiration
showered upon the other. The contests of Nullification found them of opposite
parties, but the same feelings; and Legare's embassy once more placed them in
different countries ; but again to be united in the same cause, in the great civil
struggle of 1837-40.

XXXVI. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

other, every early proof of capacity, but manifested the chief power, that
carries all other powers to perfection — that of a labour which nothing'
can daunt, nothing- can escape, and which teaches no subject nor no
performance without improvement. Superior to the other only in this
faculty — or rather, we should perhaps say, this vehemence of the
impulse to whatever can give to the most vigorous faculties the utmost
regularity and nobleness ; scarcely his equal in the mere happiness of
nature ; he had yet made it felt on all hands that here was a genius
that must achieve everything which toil can accomplish for parts the
finest, and eclipse at last all competitors.

He was graduated,* with the highest, honours of the college, in
the beginning of December, 1814. In spite of the continual applause
which had been gathering upon him during the year, his reluctance
to perform the leading part at commencement assigned him was ex-
treme, and not to be vanquished until the President, and one of the
Professors next in his confidence, had insisted that the oration which
he submitted to them was far above his own estimate, and would do
him the highest credit. At last his severe self-criticism and distrust
yielded to these maturer judgments, and he delivered, with signal
success, a discourse "On the influence of the imagination upon human
happiness:" a subject to the choice of which he had been probably
conducted by the fits of dejection and discouragement to which his
own temperament of mixed ardour and melancholy exposed him.

Of the matured man, his intellect and his actions, the performances
themselves are in a great degree the history. Illustrating, as nothing
else can do, his mind and character when these, their plasticity ceas-
ing, have hardened into a form and lineaments no more to change,
they need but narrative enough to correct them ; and all the rest may
be left to the critic and the biographer. In our riper years, in a word,
we write our own lives, brightly or obliviously according to the deeds
and the thoughts which we have. Legare did and would have done
this in a very noble manner, and requires, therefore, but little elucida-
tion. Thinking thus, we shall proceed rapidly over the greater part
of his further career ; while, on the contrary, we have chosen to dwell
with some minuteness upon the tale of his youthful labours, told only
as yet in their results. The admirable spirit that early fired him and

+ A letter to his mother (10th Nov. 1814) supplies the order and names of those
who shared the honours with him.

"The nomination is as follows: Valedictory, H. S. Legare* : Salid/itory, Trescot:
Intermediate Orati/ms to Camak, Dupre", Campbell, T. Legare', Haig (the last in
French). The Debate to Maxwell, McComb and O'Brien.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXXV11.

gave such sure presage of greatness ; all that might display the boy
that rose into such a man like this; the process of his whole toil of
self-formation ; the difficulties which he surmounted, the methods
which he employed, have seemed to us the part of his life to which
we might best give space. As a public man, for public men, his
story and his labours were already accessible : it was the boy and the
student, for youths and scholars, that it had yet need to be written.
In the men, indeed, who have shown as eminent, it is this earlier
existence that we are most curious to know. 'Tis the more legendary
part of their being — the fable, the poetry, the romance of greatness,
and such to it as the Golden to the Historic Age ; a time to the glad-
ness and beauty of which we turn with pleasure from the Real ; an
era within which the imagination has play, and may call up more of
its own. Perhaps our unconscious envy begets in us this fondness of
knowing famous men in the least imposing aspect and of looking
down upon them, as it were. Or it may be that, as even the least
day-dreamy of us recur with delight to a sort of visionary memory of
our own young day, its innocence and happiness, so, and through the
same feelings, we love to look upon greatness through the golden light
of youth.

He now returned to what was ever his favorite habitation — his
mother's house in Charleston. To that cultivated city, the seat of all
his boyish memories, of all those only local attachments which they
of a temperament full of meditation and sensibility are sure to retain
through life, he repaired, to form, between the studies which he was
now to prosecute with increased ardour, the association with many
loving and honouring such pursuits, and the occasional relaxation of
a society, then (as probably yet) the most genial and elegant that we
have ever known, a fresh affection for it, still fonder. It then joined
to the intellectual refinement which but one of our cities* possesses
in an equal degree, an easy hospitality, a spirit of society, and a gay
and graceful amenity of the manners, which made it a still more
agreeable abode. It was, indeed, and we imagine must still be the
best-bred and (in an older sense of that word) the humanest town
in all our country. Amidst its circles, Legare found, for the first
time, a lively congeniality with whatever a scholar's mind might
seek for its recreation or in its repose. It grew at once the centre
of his chief personal attachments and of his main desires of appro-
val. To win its judgment and to be cherished by it became the
more intimate and cordial thought of an ambition which, with him,
* Boston, of course is meant.

XXXV111. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

was always, more than half, of the heart. And as he referred
the main personal gratification of his future successes to his moth-
er, so did he to Charleston the principal delight of any public
admiration. It came, in a word, to be the immediate idol of his pub-
lic feelings, almost such, in his half-antique mind, as was the Greek
city to its aspiring inhabitant — his lesser country, the object of a
nearer patriotism than the wider and colder one beyond. The rest
was duty ; this, affection. Of this we shall have again to speak, in
one of the most, painful passages of his afterlife.

His profession had been already chosen, and his studies shaped
towards it. He was now to enter upon its more technical acquire-
ment. For this purpose, intent on mastering the science of the law
before he mixed with its mere practical forms, he went not (as is
usual) into an attorney's office, but sought a learned and skilful guide
to jurisprudence in its largest and soundest principles, as a great his-
torical and moral study. In his former tutor, Mr. Mitchell King,
(now a teacher no longer, but a leading barrister of Charleston, as
since of the State) he possessed a friend excellently qualified to direct
and eager to assist him. Under his general supervision, therefore, he
set about a course of wide and exact legal reading, which, relieved
by the classics and literature at large, occupied the next three years
of his life. His arrival at his 21st year found him, of course, amply
qualified for admission to the Bar. He had formed, however, a wor-
thier scheme than that of expiating, in the immature practice of five
or six years of brieflessness, the haste in which our young men almost
invariably are to be lawyers. Filled with the conception of what
must not stop short of the noblest and completest attainments that
study can confer, in countries where a severe erudition is brought to
all the higher practical pursuits, he determined to finish his course
and to perfect his liberal attainments abroad, partly among the great
libraries and schools of the French capital, and partly in a German
or British university. No meaner thought occupied him — nothing of
the futile purposes which usually lead our youths of the grand tour
abroad, or which alone, at any event, they often accomplish — to acquire
a foreign air ; to rid themselves of all indigenous sense ; to unfit them-
selves, as much by what they learn as what they forget, for useful-
ness, distinction or happiness in their own country : to have marbles
and canvases, masks and ballets and operas, actors and dancers, for
their talk ; to gather from guide books, ciceroni and valets-de-place
their antiquarian or classic erudition ; to expend still profounder re-
searches upon the comparative merits of Tortoni, Very, and the Ro-

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XXXIX.

cher de Cancal — upon the singing of Pasta, the fiddling of Paganini,
the vintages of France or the Rhine, the clothes of Stultz or his
rivals :* in a word, disabused of all taste for their own country, and
bringing back, to compensate them for that sad loss of sympathies,
little but what it is almost a shame to have learnt. To such young
tourists, there could not be a more complete opposite of the aims than
Legare. Why go so far to come back a trifler, as if travel alone could
make one that ? With a keen relish for the pleasures of life, yet almost
untasted ; with youth and health in his veins ; with an income suffi-
cient to support him agreeably, if well-managed ; he was of course to
encounter the usual temptations of an European and especially a
Parisian residence, its many appliances of pleasant idleness, its abun-
dant habits of systematized sensuality : but other tastes still stronger,
passions in him still more fervid, existed to defend him from yielding
himself to more loose delights or the strenuous waste of being in a
gay nothingness. Trained to self-command, he could taste without
intoxication the cup of permitted pleasures, and even turn his very'
amusements into the means of serious and regular improvement.

In the latter part of the month of May, 1818, then he embarked
from Charleston to Bordeaux. f He himself describes his passage
and something of his further plans, in his first letter from France ; of
which other parts also are worth copying, for the picture of his own
peculiar character which they give, and the strong purposes of self-
improvement which they express.

'■Bordeaux, 24th June, 1818.
"My dear Mother :

"I hasten to communicate to you, by the first opportunity, the news
of my safe arrival here.

"Our passage across the Atlantic was as delightful as could be
desired. With the exception of some slight squalls and one thunder-
storm, we had always fine weather. Indeed the whole voyage was
more like a party of pleasure on some smooth lake than a transit over
the great ocean. We arrived within the Garonne on the 34th day —

* See, lor a perfect Histoire generate des Voyages of these young gentlemen, the
description of the pupil, his suite and his exploits, in the Dunciad, book iv, line
293.

t On board a merchant-ship, apparently commanded by Captain Baar, for
whom he formed a strong attachment, and whose worth and continued good offices
he more than once mentions in his letters; announcing afterwards, from Edinburg
his death, of which he writes to Mrs. Legar6 as a personal loss that had affected
him much.

Xl. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

a pretty short passage, if a calm of one whole week, during which
the ship made scarcely any progress, be (as it might in all reason)
deducted.

"It is impossible for me to describe, my dear mother, the anguish
with which I tore myself from you on the day of our separation, and
which was so keenly renewed when I left the wharf and the harbour
of Charleston. To realize such sensations, it is necessary for a man
not only to be placed in the same situation, but to have the same turn
of mind as myself. He must be violent, almost to madness in his
passions ; and must at the same time experience more than one. He
must forget how to hope, and, while he aims at every thing that is
exalted, must look for nothing but disappointment and mortification.
In short, I am persuaded that such situations as mine was at that
time, very rarely occur in the course of one's life : at least I wish to
persuade myself so : it was a most dreadful conflict of opposite feel-
ings that threw me into such a state of irresolution as must, if in-
dulged, prove fatal to every generous undertaking.

"Well, it was impossible for me to change my nature ; and I am
not ashamed of the tears I shed : but 1 have reason to congratulate
myself upon the constancy with which I adhered to my resolution.
One of my objects — the restoration of my health and strength — has
been, in a great measure, attained; or, at least, I have good reason to
hope, will be attained before long: I am much better than I have been
since I returned from the North ; and there is no doubt that a little repose
here, with good eating and drinking, etc., and afterwards my travels by
land, will do still more for me. I may say the same of all my other
objects. A glorious prospect is set open before me, and I, thank God !
have spirits enough to think of availing myself of every advantage
and realizing every hope.

"On Monday or Tuesday (the 29th or 30th June) I set off upon
my journey to Paris, where I think of remaining until the latter end
of September. I intend to perfect myself there in the French lan-
guage— that is, to acquire the greatest facility and some degree of
correctness in the use of it ; for that is the whole force of the term
"to perfect,"when we speak of making, within any given time, a
progress in a language. Thence I proceed to the University of Got-
tingen, and so forth. But it is better to postpone for a further oppor-
tunity my account of these things, as I may see some reason, when I
arrive at Paris, to alter my plans a little.

"As soon as I settle myself there, — that is, in a week or ten days,
I will employ three teachers, who shall attend me at my lodgings

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

xli.

every day ; an Italian, a scholar who is thoroughly versed in Latin
and who will also assist me in French ; and perhaps a Drawing-mas-
ter* For I have already had cause to regret that I had not the use
of the pencil, as I passed along those enchanting scenes that adorn
the banks of the Garonne. In this last idea, however. I am by no
means fixed ; as I shall certainly not think of taking up with any
new pursuit, unless I see it is perfectly consistent with my old ones."

He proceeds in the remainder of the letter, to speak of the agreeable
manner of lodging and feeding in France ; of his friend Captain Baar
and the general love which he seems to enjoy in Bordeaux, though a
foreigner, and of his own agreeable companion of the voyage, Dr.
Raoul.

What immediate studies he sat about, we have already seen : for
we have shown what he designed ; and never did he fall short of any
intellectual enterprize that he had proposed to himself. French he
already possessed very perfectly, as a literary language ; but spoke it
(as *ve have known to happen in some other instances) in a style
which, by its very purity — beyond that, which any dialect has in mere
conversation- — marked the fact that it was not a native speech, but
one formed almost entirely from books.* He had, therefore, only to
accustom himself to the use of its more familiar and idiomatic dic-
tion— a task which of course cost him little. Italian, we believe, he
had not yet attempted ; but that, also, he mastered very thoroughly,
during his sojourn in Paris. We ourselves happen to know the de-
light which he ever after took in it, as the richest and far the most
beautiful of tongues, except the Greek, in its elegant literature. These
languages we know, too, he had pursued — as he had done and con-
tinued to do others — not merely with the usual loose idea of obtaining
access to the main mass of their authois, or still less for the variety
of tongues : he was obviously guided by a far higher notion, and saw
that languages, for the nobler purposes, were to be valued chiefly for
the great books, the works of genius which they contained ; and that
he who does not bestow upon these a fond and thorough study can
draw from the knowledge of a new dialect but an exceedingly com-
mon-place benefit, amounting to but little more than might be derived
from translations. The immortal performances, then, in each body of

* Mr. Preston says, in his "Eulogy," "The precision and elegance with which
he, even then, spoke the language, was the subject of frequent remark and com-
pliment. A very accomplished lady said to him ' That he was only too Attic to
be an Athenian.' " We need hardly remind our readers of the Greek anecdote
to which she alluded.
VOL. I. E

Xlii. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE,

literature, were his great object, that he might transfuse these into hts
mind, and ennoble and invigorate with them his own conceptions as
an orator or an author. The positive information which they opened to
him in definite pursuits ; as Law or History or Politics — he of course did
not fail to seize: but to their mere mediocrities — the world of books
that make up the middle-class or the common-people of Letters in
our modern libraries — he paid, on account of their merely being in a
foreign dress, no more attention than if they had come to him in his
vernacular. In a word, he knew the art of study, so little compre-
hended even among scholars themselves.

It will be recollected that the renewal of his literary studies of the
Latin was also a part of his present plan of labour, though heretofore
less his favorite than Greek. For the moment, as presently to be
the vehicle of his proposed course of civil law, it was necessary that
he should now prefer it. We know full well that already, amidst
his three years' prosecution of the common law, he had, in its daily
intervals, greatly enlarged and perfected his classical reading, passing
from the mere academic methods of

"What Gellius and Stoboeus hashed before,

Or chewed by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er,"

to the more rare and elegant cultivation of the ancient languages.

But, consulting, for the time, his tastes, he had probably, except
Cicero and a few others, occupied himself rather with the Greeks
than the Latins. With what effect he now turned himself to the
latter in especial will soon appear, in one of the incidents of his course
at Edinburg.

Meanwhile, as we have already intimated, his very relaxations were
turned to a system of continual self-improvemenU Besides an occa-
sional attendance upon the debates of the French Chambers, when
an eminent speaker (Foy, Manuel, Chateaubriand or the like) was to
be heard, the great libraries, the almost unequalled collections in art,
and the theatres, dramatic and musical, supplied him amusements
fruitful in the cultivation of his taste or the gratification of an en-
lightened curiosity Of this part of his studies (as they really were
in no small degree) we possess an account from his accomplished
friend (already more than once referred to) again his companion here ;
and as we cannot so authentically draw from any other source, we
shall, as to Legare's further pursuits in Paris and his residence al
Edinburg, follow closely his fellow-student's narrative,*

* In the "Eulogy," by Mr. Preston.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xllil.

The Louvre and other galleries of art furnished him a continual
delight for an imagination already filled with glowing, if less distinct
forms of the beautiful and the heroic. His sensibilities to whatever
can, either in marble or upon canvass, give a visible shape to what
poets or historians have told, were originally lively in the extreme and
had been rendered still more passionate by the abundant images of
art-like subjects and associations with which his mind was stored.
The Louvre was still rich, though diminished, since 1818, of a large
part of those Italian and Flemish treasures, the worthiest spoil of all
that Napoleon had ravished, and which poor Ausonia at least prized
beyond either the national independence which she had lost or the
"republican institutions" which she had gained. Except the collec-
tions of the Vatican and of Florence, it was still the finest in Europe.
'Twas here, in part, that the most classical of all actors* had caught,
from the animated works around him, action and majesty for the
stage ; and for Legare's art it Was capable of being equally a school.
The more regular theatre, too, — maintained by governmental policy
at such an excellence as might amuse into quiet a population always
either fierce or frivolous, — offered him the study of the mimetic art,
in great perfection He there could hear continually the unrivalled
declamation of Talma and Duchesnois, the graceful ease and spirit
of M'lle Mars' inimitable comedy. From these, when too weary
with extreme application to make any serious effort of attention, he
would turn to the minor theatres and shake with laughter over the
gross farce of the Variety's, the rich drollery of Potier, or the mum-
meries of the Vaudeville, much as, in our younger days, we have
often seen the greatest of our chief justices! do, in the Richmond the-
atre, over vastly inferior performances. Like him in the simplicity of
heart which beneath the austerest intellectual labours he preserved,
and into which he loved at times to unbend, Legare gave himself up
to such amusements, when they came, with all the gladsomeness of
a boy, or a rustic. Indeed, we have often seen him do the same
thing, in an intimate and joyous society, where, unchecked by any
presence of a fool or a stranger, he could abandon himself, among those
of a congenial humour, to the completest gamesomeness. At such
moments, the child-like glee and prank, that mixed and contrasted
with his customary shyness and with the richness and loftiness of his
understanding, were not less attractive and happy than was the play

* Talma, who studied the antique in particular, and often made his scenes and
attitudes so many classic pictures.
t Judge Marshall.

Xliv. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

of his mind, over its wide range of thought and allusion, brillianty
in more regular conversation. His talk, indeed, in whatever mood,
was admirable.

While studying in Paris, he had leisure to decide, with the best
information, upon the university at which he should prosecute his
proposed course of jurisprudence, and finally determined upon Edin-
burg, instead of Gottingen, to which he had originally inclined. For
the former place, then, apparently about the close of September, 1818,
he quitted Paris. Taking London in his way, he was there (as his
letters show) in October ; but, Parliament not being in session, re-
mained only long enough to survey the general objects of curiosity
in that city, and passed on, by that border-land where his stalwart
ancestry plied of old the spur, the lance, the battle-axe and the mace,
to the ancient queen of Scottish cities, where now reigned Sir Walter,
instead of a Bruce, and flourished Jeffrey and Leslie and Wilson and
Brown and Playfair and Alison, instead of the tough chieftains of
the olden time when that mighty Douglas surnamed Bell-the-cat
thanked heaven that, besides his bishop-son Gawain, no child of his
ever knew the alphabet.*

Here, he entered the classes of civil law, of natural philosophy, and
of mathematics, over which presided Irving, Playfair and Leslie ;
becoming, also, a member of the private class of Dr. Murray, the
distinguished lecturer on chemistry. Except upon the first of these,
however, he tasked himself to no reading : having already passed
over the ground in the others, he only desired to attend more masterly
professors. His main labour was given to the civil law ; and a fur-
ther course of Italian literature formed his chief relaxation. Mr.
Preston (his fellow-student there) says, "He gave three hours a day
to Playfair, Leslie and Murray, in the lecture room. From eight to
ten were devoted to Heineccius, Cujacius and Terrasson ; side by
side with whom lay upon his table Dante and Tasso, Guicciardini,
Davila and Machiavelli." Assigning to the latter from two to four
hours, we have him thus at his usual measure of some fifteen hours
of daily study.

"To this mass of labour," continues Mr. Preston, "he addressed
himself with a quiet diligence, sometimes animated into a sort of
intellectual joy. On one occasion, he found himself at breakfast,
Sunday morning, on the same seat where he had breakfasted the day

* The trait has no immediate authority except Marmion; but is quite in the
spirit of the age to which Scott applies it.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xlv.

before — not having quitted it meantime. Still, he made himself lei-
sure for society and for an extensive correspondence with his friends.

"The professor of civil law, Mr. Irving," continues the same au-
thority, "was a man of small talent and moderate learning in his
department, although not without general erudition — as is shown in
his life of Buchanan. He was, however, earnest and attentive. The
business of the class-room was conducted in Latin — the only vestige
of this ancient custom remaining in the university. The daily exam-
inations were, of course, very much confined to the technical language
of the text-books ; so that when any thing occurred requiring a more
copious vocabulary, the language, on the part of the student at least,
was a very lame and imperfect latinity. It happened, once, while Mr.
Legare was under examination, that some difference of opinion arose
between him and the professor, on the construction of a passage in
the Institutes. Mr. Legare maintained his opinion with warmth ; and
at length astonished the class and the professor, by the elegant facili-
ty of his diction aud the extent of his reading. Dr. Irving thought
the character of the discussion such as to require from him a written
exposition of the point in controversy, which he sent to a member of
the class, a friend of Mr. Legare."

Up to his Edinburg residence, he had probably but little designed
to give their subsequent magnitude to his studies of the civil law,
and had only sought such acquaintance with it as his learned curios-
ity suggested and his love of giving completeness to whatever know-
ledge formed an auxiliary part of his main pursuits. In his historical
reading and in the occasional elucidations borrowed from it in his
teachers of the common law, he had been only able to obtain distant
glimpses of its possible utility: but now, in its wide and regular
principles, the accumulation of such long-applied learning and ability,
it rose upon his sight as. a great and noble science, capable of being-
brought to enlighten, as had never yet been done, the narrower and
more dogmatic methods of our inherited or native jurisprudence. Its
exacter and more elegant vehicle and authors, and its close connection
with his favorite bodies of literature and history served also, no doubt,
greatly to allure him. It became henceforth, therefore, one of his
regular studies, especially as mixing so much with another — that of
law natural and national ; and finally grew (as we shall see) to be
one of his chief attainments, with a view to a very lofty and bold
juridical purpose.

During his stay in Edinburg, he visited Glasgow, to hear the justly
celebrated Dr. Chalmers. He was greatly struck with his abilities

Xlvi. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

as well as eloquence, and ever after looked on him as the first of the
living orators of Europe. It was in Edinburg, too, that his first ac-
quaintance, ripened afterwards into an intimate and permanent friend-
ship, was formed with the accomplished and amiable American scho-
lar, under whose roof and in whose arms he was destined to breathe
his last.*

Of his letters during this particular period, but a single one, ad-
dressed to his mother and chiefly remarkable for the filial devotedness
which it betokens, has come into our hands. Though touching not
a little upon her private affairs, at the condition of which certain im-
pressions in her letters (too strongly interrupted by his own proneness
to despondency) had filled him with ill-grounded apprehensions, yet
as marking his present purposes, plans and feelings to her from whom
he never concealed a thought, it cannot be read without interest.

Edinburg, \bth FcVy, 1819.

"I wrote you a letter, my dear mother, about a week ago, and had
put it into the hands of Arthur Buist, to forward to his correspondent
at Glasgow ; but, as it was not yet sent, I had it in my power to
withdraw it, upon receiving — as I have done with inexpressible pleas-
ure to-day — your letter of the 29th November, enclosing one from
Mary and accompanied by another from Mr. King. I say the receiv-
ing of them gave me great pleasure ; for I had passed two whole
months in that sort of sickness of the heart "which springeth from
hope deferred," and especially when that hope relates to an object so
deeply interesting as a letter from home to a poor solitary pilgrim in
such a distant land.

"But the emotion, as it happened, was by no means unmixed : this
little packet was sent me by Mr. Baar, Jr , from Bordeaux, enveloped
in a letter of his own, announcing to me the melancholy tidings of
his father's death ; which happened the 26th of last month. I was,
of course, deeply affected at it. He was, indeed, a most worthy man,
and had behaved in the most friendly manner possible towards me.
The event, besides, was quite unexpected ; for I never saw any body
at the age of sixty-four so fresh and vigorous as he was, or who pro-
mised so fair to live beyond three-score years and ten.

"This, however, was not the only circumstance that damped my
spirits : in reading your letter, I thought I could discover a sort of

* Professor George Tichenor of Harvard; at whose country-house, in 1841,
he received his appointment of Attorney General ; and, at whose mansion in
Boston, in 1843, by a singular coincidence, he expired, in his next visit.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Xlvii.

despondency that was diffused throughout it. My dear mother, I
should be very sorry ^-indeed could never forgive myself — if I thought
that, by leaving home, I had exposed you to a return of the same
troubles and embarrassments I found you in when I came from col-
lege. The whole happiness of my life is henceforth to make you
happy. Nothing of my future prospects is of the least importance
in my eyes, when compared with this paramount and holy duty.
Alas ! your whole life has been one series of the most noble struggles
against all sorts of difficulties. A widow in mere youth, your pro-
perty sinking every day in value, all prospect of external assistance
precluded, a broken constitution and almost a broken heart — such was
the weight that pressed upon you ; sufficient, no doubt, to have crushed
any ordinary constancy — but which only served to give additional
energy to yours. You have, I venture to say it, you have most com-
pletely triumphed : for by far thje most important business of life —
the rearing up a promising family of children — has been done by you
in a manner as perfect as possible in the present state of the country
and quite miraculous when compared with your means. If vanity
has any share in this avowal, I am not conscious of it : on the con-
trary, it is because I feel in all its vastness and sacredness the obliga-
tion I am under to you, and because I intend to make every effort to
discharge it as far as that is possible, that I do not hesitate to confess
it to you. Judge, then, what uneasiness it must occasion me to think
I am the cause to you of any sacrifice either of fortune or repose.

"I now regret that I have said so much to you about travelling in
Italy. As that would be quite inconsistent with the present state of
your affairs, it will only serve to excite unavailing regrets to mention
it. Besides, in the actual state of my own mind, I would not wish
to do it ; and I have come to a determination, upon reading your
letter and that of Mr. King, to return home next. fall. What I shall
do in the mean time is not yet entirely decided ; because other letters
or circumstances may change my intentions, within the next six
weeks. But if they do not, I propose to make, about the beginning
of April, a short tour in the Highlands ; and then return immediately
to London where I shall spend a few days, in order to see Parliament
in session, Richmond Hill, and a few other things which I had not
time to visit when 1 was there in October. Then I will take a packet
for Ostend or some other continental port, so as to travel through Hol-
land and see some of its principal cities, on my way to Berlin or some
other German university. There I shall spend May, June, July and
August. I then take up my line of march back again to the Rhine,

Xlviii. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

travel up that river as far as Basil, make a little trip through Switz-
erland, and return, by way of Paris, to England. The last step will
be to transport myself by packet to New-York, &c.

"This is, in all respects, the most profitable way I can devise of
spending the rest of my time in Europe. By becoming a member of
a literary institution in Germany, I shall of course get an insight into
the character of that important empire — not to mention that, although
the time I spend there will be extremely short, I do not despair of
being able to add theirs to the languages I already know. Besides,
theirs are the greatest — indeed, to a person of my age, the only fit
schools in the branch of education that I am now particularly en-
gaged upon. The advantages and the pleasures of the tour I intend
to make afterwards are sufficiently obvious of themselves.

"During my short stay in Paris in the fall, I shall provide myself
with a considerable stock of books, such as I shall need and as cannot
be had in the United States— principally Latin law-treatises. They
are astonishingly cheap there ; and I shall never again have so good
an opportunity of employing a small sum to a great advantage.

"I think it is not flattering myself, my dearest mother, to say that
the coming to Europe has made me, in every respect, a better and —
if I ought to use such a term when speaking of one who is so much
inclined to melancholy — a happier man than I was. My longings
will have been gratified ; my restless disposition will have subsided
into some sort of quiet— at least for a considerable time ; and I have
seen so much of the vanities of life, that I really believe I am begin-
ning to be a little philosophical in practice, as I have always pretend-
ed, you know, to be in speculation. I have rid myself of some bad
habits, and am in a fair way to overcome others — particularly that
detestable one of swearing, that used to five you so much uneasiness.
Besides all this, I have learnt to be an American^ to feel an interest
in my country, and to be proud of my privileges as one of its citizens.
My ambition, too, (fine language for a philosopher) to make some
figure in her history has been greatly excited of late ; and I shall sit
down to what is to be the business of my life, if not with the most
hearty «eal possible, at least with a great deal of resignation and
good will. Still, (I must not deny it) I feel my old hankering after
quiet and solitary studies ; and it will really be painful to me to bid
adieu to them forever. This, I shall only find courage to do, by
plunging myself at once into the midst of interests of an entirely dif-
ferent kind, and endeavoring to excite in me that spirit of competition,
which does so well to supply the place of a real taste for what one is

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xlix.

engaged in. I believe, too, upon the whole that it is my true vocation ;
and the novelt}7 of the thing itself will serve to keep up my ardor,
for some time.

"I shall enter upon the study of the law and such others as are
more intimately connected with it, as soon as I return. But, as it
will not be necessary to go immediately into an attorney's office, I
shall have the happiness of spending one more winter (it will be, with-
out doubt the last) upon John's Island and endeavoring to set every
thing to rights there. Alas ! my dear mother, this brings your letter
to my mind, and afflicts me beyond measure. I shall be the most
unhappy of men, if your subsequent letters do not console me for the
last. I have received my dear M's letter," &c.

The winter's course in Edinburg finished, he appears to have execu-
ted all but the German part of the plan sketched above. From that
portion of his design he may have been deterred, as originally in
Paris, by the disturbances with which "Young Germany" was then
somewhat rife in the universities. The occurrence of one of these at
Gottingen had probably had its share in deciding him to accompany
his friend Preston to Edinburg. He may have felt, besides, that too
much study is, like too little, an unsafe preparation for action ; that to
be the recluse of colleges, or immured all the while in vigils out of
them, was to renounce one of the benefits of travel of which his past
life had given him the greatest need ; that lucubration would ever be
in his power at home ; but never again, perhaps, the opportunity of
studying men and things, institutions and arts, where these have had
their most permanent glory and yet retain their greatest eminence,
and where the society itself, whatever its forms, is most luminous of
all the knowledge he was seeking. He may have remembered the
words of his favorite poet:

"Consider,
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns
And once a year Jerusalem, few days'
Short sojourn; and what thence could'st thou observe %
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires and monarchs and their radiant courts>
But school of best experience, quickest insight
In all things that to greatest actions lead."*

At any event, it is certain that his remaining stay of near a twelve-
month in Europe was divided, not between academic and private study,

* Paradise Regained, Book HL
VOL. I. F

i. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE,

but between the latter and the survey of those things which he
thought worthiest to be observed. After making the excursion in
Scotland which he had designed, he passed into England, and visited
its most interesting points, ending with London, where he remained a
part of the summer. Thence he crossed once more to France, and
occupied the autumn in seeing that country, Belgium, Holland, the
Rhine, and the Alps. At the close of the year, he set out home ;
sailed to New- York ; and thence made his way to Carolina over land,
through Washington ; where he made some stay, contracted many
important acquaintances, and excited much attention by his fine parts
and remarkable attainments. That might well happen, indeed, with
one whom Edinburg, Paris and London had admired and caressed, as
far as his more earnest pursuits allowed him to mix with their intel-
lectual society. We do not believe that young travellers from this
country ever excited such admiration as he and his friend Preston left
behind them there.

Thus, in the earlier part of 1820, after an absence of near two
years, he re-appeared in Charleston, with an education admirably
complete, an experience greatly enlarged, and a reputation singular to
have been achieved by one yet untried in active life. Few have ever
been more fortunate in the personal or domestic impulses and aids
that directed them on to knowledge ; fewer still in its public or for-
eign opportunities ; and no men had ever employed them all more
nobly.

It was, then, not as the travelled exquisite, but as the returning
scholar, — accomplished in the highest arts, as the able lawyer and
statesman already largely formed, that he came from abroad. There,
he had made no step but towards some well-chosen addition to his
knowledge, the command of some fresh professional attainment, or of
those purer and more vigorous parts of absolute learning and taste
which he sought, not merely as accomplishments, but as graces
scarcely less necessary than strength itself to that high career which
he was preparing himself to tread. He returned to Charleston some-
what as Milo the wrestler might have done to the public games of
Italy from the palaestra of Greece — not an effeminate wanderer, un-
nerved by foreign delights; but an athlete of skill almost as formi-
dable as his strength was terrible.

His arrival was of course met with all that expectation of his
friends and of the public which his reputed genius and his known
habits abroad were fit to excite. Each gayer traveller, too, that
came or wrote home, had been constantly marvelling at the progress

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Hi

of his mind and announcing some acquirement mastered, some fresh
one set about, the ardour and the skill with which his wide studies
were pushed. It was felt, then, on all sides, that here was a man of
rare natural powers so perfected by the severest discipline and ani-
mated with such vigorous purposes, as made certain his achievement
of great things.

Instead, however, of pausing to enjoy, in the elegant circles of a
city whose suffrage was so dear to him, the foretaste of that broader
reputation which he must now have felt himself capable of grasping,
he flung himself at once upon the filial duties that stood in his heart
foremost of all things : he applied himself to retrieving his mother's
affairs, suffering from the want of a more active management, than a
lady, even the most efficient, can give to the operations of an agri-
cultural property. With these cares, he immediately joined the
renewal of his common law studies : for still, however amply quali-
fied for the bar, he was in no haste to engage in practice, and chose
to continue his legal reading, as long as he found it necessary to
attend in person to the government of the patrimonial estate on John's
Island ; where (as he had so fondly promised himself in his letter
from Edinburg) he now took up his abode with his mother and younger
sister, as a planter for two years.

There, his personal worth, his talents felt in every thing, and the
hereditary respect which his family enjoyed, obtained for him at the
elections of that fall, the offer of a seat, in the State Legislature, from
his parish.* His agricultural duties did not forbid the annual absence
of a winter month : the charge itself placed him at once (to use a
military phrase) in position for his destined course of life ; the obtain-
ing it implied no necessity of submitting to the annoyances of a
canvass; and feelings on his own part answering to those of the
constituency claimed his acquiescence in their wishes ; so that he
acceded, and was accordingly returned to the Lower House of the
General Assembly of South-Carolina, for its biennial term, from 1820
to 1822.

We need scarcely say that his was not, upon a theatre like that in
which he now assumed his part, the vulgar mistake of that sort of
genius which — destitute of the great distinguishing gift of genius,

* That of John's Island and Wadmalaw. These ancient constituencies of
lower Carolina, still formed chiefly of a population of planters, retain their old
Episcopal designation of parishes. Their white population is small ; their wealth
considerable. They are looked on as rotten boroughs, by the political arithmeti-
cians.

1U. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

the instinct and the power of labour, that makes all other gifts tell —
thinks that greatness has little else to do but to shine ; and that to be
soberly and even humbly useful in the entire body of public affairs is
quite below its care and out of its vocation. Graced as he already
was with all the power to please or to command in speech or by know-
ledge, he did not for one instant fancy that it was the first business of
his future greatness to pour out the useless flood of an eloquence as-
yet unacquainted with the duties before it, and to be little better than
a cascade of words, that shall flash idly to the sun, in a holiday
display, and leave to streams less picturesque the care to grind the
corn of public business. To the serious work of legislation or of
that personal eminence which is to be won in it, eloquence can be
only occasionally instrumental. Legare began not, therefore, where
others, considered for a while brilliant, not only begin, but end — by
setting forward, per sallum, on the single foot of oratory, and holding
up that other leg of silent application to details, on which a man
must jointly go, if he would go far. In a word, he gave himself,
first of all, to committee-work, to the preparation of business, to the
mastering and shaping of particulars towards legislation — content to
be felt in these, to become by practice a capable man, to be known
among his associates and competitors as a useful man, before he set
up to be a great one. Yet when, in matters to which experience had
made him competent, the occasion offered itself of employing the
powers which he had mastered, he of course did not shun it : so that,
upon this liberal field, where intellectual resources could take their
full scope, he early placed himself in the highest rank which one not
a veteran in deliberative bodies, unskilled in their legitimate manage-
ment, and utterly impatient of their mere tactics, can attain.

About the close of his term as the representative of this rural con-
stituency,— that is to say towards the end of the year 1822 — he
ceased to be an inhabitant of John's Island. His professional prepa-
ration— already lengthened to a period of five years, — had become
complete enough to satisfy him : to pursue the practice of the law, it
was necessary that he should reside in Charleston : he could neither
reconcile himself to a regular separation from his mother nor to the
seeing her resume the difficult management of their common property :
and a favorable opportunity presenting itself of disposing of their
plantation on the Island, it was seized ; and the family once more
took up its old abode with him in Chaileston, where, admitted now
to the bar, he set to work as an advocate.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Hii.

Here, in whatever of opportunity can well come to a junior lawyer
at his mere outset, he at once took, by the richness and force of his
oratorical powers, his ample command of the theoretic and historical
parts of his profession, and the variety and splendor of his general
attainments, an easy superiority over all rivalry of the young-, and a
high place in everything but what practice alone can give, among a
bar numbering the strong veteran names of Petigru, King, Drayton,
Hayne and Grimke.

In short, the very brilliancy with which our young jurist burst out
from the first was, amidst the general suffrage of the better sort, abun-
dantly attended with what he bore about him nothing else to provoke —
that vulgar malignity of unworthy competitors, who, spiteful and many
as they are puny, muster, like Lilliputians, against a Gulliver landed
on their shores ; dread in him the subverter of their pigmy empire ;
and rest not, intermit not their small annoyance, until they expel him
from their island. 'Tis but the old history of bright parts : it was
Sheridan's, before it was Legare's.

Guileless in his entire character, simple but reserved in his manners,
secluded by his tastes ; destitute — even if he had not scorned them —
of the arts of mere popularity, and without an idea of rising except
by absolute merit, he opposed to this sort of cabal nothing but that
which, if it vanquishes it at last, must get the better of it slowly — a
calm constancy, a severe application to whatever business came, a
steady attention to the completion of his technical knowledge. A
very remarkable degree of reputation, he had at once created : but
employment, which nothing but time can bring about at a bar thronged
with competitors and in the possession of able and established plead-
ers such as we have mentioned, came slowly and (as we have said)
with even serious impediments from those qualities as a speaker and
a scholar, of which the very lustre often serves, without the aid of
envy, to spread a common impression that he who shines in such
bright things must be too fine and too lofty ever to make a skilful,
attorney. That sagacious thing, established opinion — sister to an-
other of equal wit and liberality, which calls itself march of mind —
has, in a word, fixed its standard of what the black-letter lawyer shall
be permitted to know ; insists upon punishing him who visibly exceeds
it ; and yields not its intelligent repugnance, except most slowly to
the compulsion of a powerful will and high parts.

Yet the leading legal examples before the eyes of the crowd thus
shutting or made to shut them to the professional merits of Legare,
were sueh as might have taught them a better judgment. Not only

Hv. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

was his singular ability recognized, among his compeers of the bar,
by each much in the proportion as he had ability himself, but it should
have been seen that the juridical eminence of the chief of them was
almost precisely in the rate of his elegant attainments.

It will have been seen that, besides his admirable training in all the
higher auxiliar arts and studies, Legare had not chosen to appear in
the tribunals until he had devoted — without reckoning his severity of
application — some two or three or four times the usual space to direct
preparation, aided by advantages of instruction as unusual. Sad
must it be to have toiled, as he had done, perfectly to qualify one's-self,
and then to find that the very fact of that toil and its noble but pain-
ful fruits creates a prejudice against one and condemns him to a tar-
dier success. To him fervid with every lofty aspiration, enamoured
of genuine greatness and filled not only with the original powers but
the attainments that claim it as their due, there cannot well, we
imagine, be any keener pang than to be forced to feel that, for him
who has need of his times, nature has no more unhappy gift than
that of genius, and art no greater curse than an education that places
him beyond the sympathies and the ideas of the country in which he
is to act. This sad disadvantage of an entire over-education came,
we know, to be one of Legare's most gloomy thoughts, in those pe-
riods of depression to which he was constitutionally subject. He
saw that if, with nothing but his native strength, he had cast himself
into the public arena, the powers he had shown would have been
hailed with a much greater favour : that the crowd viewed him as it
does some perfect work of the chisel, of which the severe and noble
beauties are foreign to all its notions : that it is dangerous to be too
superior, too unlike, to the common-place of men : that he had liberal-
ized and elevated himself into what those, of whom he had the
greatest need, rather wondered at than enjoyed : that in his lofty self-
formation, he had too much dissociated himself from the public about
him, risen too high above its ignorance, broken too much from its
false and narrow ideas : that, in fine, it is happier and more profitable
to be of a commoner cast, to share in some of the vulgar conceptions;
for it is to a great extent upon these, and even with them that one
must work ; and since one must either have or feign them, the former
is the better, as well as the easier. Indeed, the poor fellow had, rather
unadvisedly, heaped up, in the treasury of his mind, ingots of rubies
and diamonds and thousand-pound Bank of England notes ; but not
half-pence and farthings and small change for the commerce of the
crowd and to go to market with. These he had yet to acquire.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lv.

His nature was, however, too firm as well as wise, to yield either
to any alienation from his country or from his studies. Momentary
fits of dejection might shake him : but his mind soon recovered its
calm serenity, its confidence in his ultimate triumph over inferior
things and momentary misconceptions. Perhaps the war of the un-
worthy upon him which we have glanced at only stimulated him to
that study of which it made a reproach : the blockhead hostility was
just fit to rouse him to the stronger vindication of learning and him-
self. He strove to make himself more practical and to attain all
the necessary arts of his profession, that are worthy of it. Its greater
arms, its ordnance (so to speak) he knew how to wield ; the foin and
fence of its lighter weapons, he made haste to learn, as it can only be
learnt, in encounter. Grave, sincere, with an unconquerable love of
rectitude, he depended on strength of reason and learning to convince,
eloquence to persuade, and averse to the tricks by which a pannel is
to be mis-led, was always fitter to plead before higher tribunals, unless
in difficult cases, where every thing was to be decided by strict inves-
tigation, or where the passions were to be moved.

In this earlier part of his practice, while business, deterred by the
suspicion of too much scholarship, came thin and sometimes rather
as a benevolence, we remember with amusement the account which
he gave us of the progress of that professional success, which none
that knew him well ever doubted. "Sir," said he, "do you ask how
I get along % Do you enquire what my trade brings me in ? 1 will
tell you. I have a variety of cases, and, by the bounty of Providence,
sometimes get a fee : but in general, sir, I practice upon the old Ro-
man plan ; and, like Cicero's, my clients pay me what they like —
that is, often, nothing at all."

Still, his general reputation being out of all proportion to its legal
rewards, he was, during the first two years of his resumed residence
in Charleston, chosen without solicitation, one of that city's represen-
tatives in the State Legislature. He accordingly re-appeared in that
body in November, 1824, not again to quit it until, by its election, in
1830, he assumed the post of Attorney General of his State.

It was the first rise of that agitation, almost ever since tormenting
his State and the Union, which Legare met, at his return to the
Legislature in 1824. The share which he bore in it, honorable as it
was to his talents and his intentions, was rather that of the able
speaker than of the busy actor. As to the main events, however,
we need no more than glance at how the fight began, in 1824, with
the famous Anti-Bank, Anti-Internal-Improvement and Anti-TarifF

lVL BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

Resolutions of Judge William Smith, the old leader of the Crawford
party of South-Carolina, and of course the stiff State-Rights oppo-
nent of Mr. Calhoun, at whom was aimed this whole original move-
ment. For the time, it was completely successful, and gave Judge
Smith the party predominance of the State. That being his chief
practical aim, the leader paused there ; for, beyond the incidental
effect of carrying back into popularity and restoring him to a seat in
the Senate of the United States, he had not much idea of being logi-
cal, and of pushing to their legitimate consequences his own legislative
declarations. He would, in a word, have had the matter go no far-
ther ; but he had set a stone rolling which was fated to crush him.

What followed, beyond these earlier marches and countermarches,
we need not tell. In the earlier contest, Mr. Legare had, in obedience
to that general theory of the distributive powers of the several parts
of this federative system which he through life retained, taken
part with Judge Smith; but without any purpose of an ultimate
remedy, such as Mr. Calhoun afterwards contrived to deduce from his
adversary's own principles. Indeed, conservative in all his ideas of go-
vernment, Legare no sooner saw the conclusions to which Dr. Cooper
and others were bent on driving the movement in which he himself
had originally taken part, than he recoiled from that urgent and sharp
form of civil controversy, which left, he thought, nothing to the general
government but an alternative fatal to either its own or state author-
ity— the alternative, or rather the dilemma, of subjugating or of being
subjugated He had, in a word, considered not only warrantable, but
highly proper, an opposition of quite a strong character to the gov-
ernmental usurpations (as he thought them) against which were
levelled the South-Carolina resolutions of 1824-5; but a direct con-
flict of state and federal authorities he looked on as incapable of being
reduced into a state remedy, a constitutional, and least of all a peace-
ful resort. He eloquently and ably resisted, therefore, the movement
of Nullification, as soon as it began to declare the purpose of resis-
tance. The evil itself complained of, he thought was, (as all have
since — except, perhaps, Mr. McDuffle — been brought to perceive)
greatly exaggerated. At worst, he thought it must speedily yield to
what he considered the great curative powers of our system, a little
time and much discussion. Reasonable as all these opinions now
appear, they were nevertheless, for the time, not those which long
prevailed ; and the majority with which he at first voted them, in
1828, passed within a few years after, into a minority.
Within the period, however, of Legare's legislative career in his

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, lviL

o\vn state, a literary episode intervened — that of his collaboration in
an important politico-literary journal of the South.

As we have said, his general political theory was that of the South,
State Rights and anti-consolidation; so that when, at the close of
1827, the idea of a literary organ of these opinions was started, under
the form of a Southern Review, he lent it at once the zealous aid of
his high scholarship and abilities ; contributing to it, indeed, a large
portion of the masterly articles which adorned it, and which won it,
while it continued to exist, a more brilliant reputation than any like
publication ever obtained in this country. On more than one occasion,
nearly half the papers of the Review were of his composition ; and
his, (let it be recollected) was none of that shallow facility, born for
the encouragement of the rag and paper trade, which writes fast in
proportion as ill, and which need never stop, simply because it had
no occasion to have begun.

Other powerful hands, however, upheld with kirn the honors of the
Review — the various, the astute, the sententious Cooper, master of
almost every part of science, of a great amount of literature, and
giving life and force to every thing he touched, by the epigrammatic
conciseness and liveliness of his style ; the ingenious and able Elliott
the elder ; the curious and elegant skill of the accomplished and
lamented Nott in literary antiquities and history; these, with the
occasional efforts of the vehement McDuffie, of the rare legal ability
and wit of Petigru, the mathematical analysis of Wallace, the heavy
scholarship of Henry, with now and then a paper from more youthful
or less marked contributors, whom we need not name, made up togeth-
er an array of talent such as the South has never, on any other occa-
sion, thrown upon any literary undertaking-. Able and elegant writers,
however, as those whom we have named were known to be, it was
continually felt that the contributions of Mr. Legare were, beyond all
competition, the most brilliant that graced the work.

Among his papers in this periodical, those on classical subjects
were marked with a richness and breadth of scholarship, which cer-
tainly no performances of their sort in this country have at all equalled.
His defence of ancient learning against one of those (Mr> Thomas
Grimke) who urged its banishment from education and the substitu-
tion of a less Pagan erudition in its place, was the first of these, and
argued with as much dialectic force as classic enthusiasm. Papers
equally elegant and erudite on Dunlop's "History of Roman Litera-
ture," on Featherstonhaugh's translation of Cicero "De Republica,"
on "the Public Economy of Athens," followed • and afterwards found
vol, i. — G

Ivili. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

their learned and able sequel in papers on cognate subjects in the
"New-York Review." With these in the Southern Review were a
survey of Kent's "Commentaries," a critique of Hoffman's "Outlines
of Legal Study," "Bentham and the Utilitarians/' "Codification," "the
Works of the great Chancellor D'Aguesseau," and a whole body of
admirable articles in General Literature, the chief of which find their
place in the present collection.

Agreeable as were to him these excitations of his taste and learning,
he had felt, when zeal to uphold the honor of his State in this literary
enterprise drew him to lend it his abilities, that these were, as to the
severer purposes of life such as he had destined himself to, mere
wanderings in the maze of fancy ; that they occupied him too much,
and must detain him too long. His growing legal reputation, and
finally his advancement to the post of Attorney General of his State
compelled him to cease his contributions. Even with them, the enter-
prize — managed by literary men only, as to its pecuniary and admin-
istrative part-^had barely been able to live ; and without them, it
almost at once ceased to exist, though in the hands of — one destined
soon to rise into a very superior person — 'the younger Stephen Elliott,
now the learned and excellent Bishop of Georgia,

The post to which we have just said that Legare was now, in 1830,
advanced, was not only an eminent one for a lawyer so young, but
made still more honorable by the fact that it was conferred upon him by
a legislative body containing a majority of the excited political party
which he opposed ; and that it was given almost without a solicita-
tion : a rare instance of the triumph of personal merit over party
animosities. These, however, the candour, the amenity, the Tightness
of his own temper as a public man had scarcely permitted him to
incur, among adversaries a great part of whom personally loved him,
looked on him as one of the chief ornaments of the State, and knew
that while there was nothing in her gift beyond his abilities, there
was equally no employment in which all men themselves meaning
well for the public service might not trust him, no matter with what
temporary political faith connected. He at once justified this honor-
able confidence. The office presented him a field of distinction such
as could no longer be disputed ; and he at once displayed in it powers
that placed him in the highest rank of those who had heretofore
graced it,*

* In this and in the details that follow, as to the origin of his Belgian mission,
we have preferred to adopt largely the testimony of Mr. Preston, who speaks of a
personal knowledge not possessed by us.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Ux.

"While he held it, he was carried, in the course of his profession,
to argue a case of much expectation, at the bar of the Supreme Court,
in Washington. His argument obtained the most flattering com-
mendation from the members of that high court, and especially from
that illustrious sage, who yet shed his glory upon it, and never spoke
but from the impulses of a heart warmed only by what was great
and good, and the dictates of a judgment which was never clouded.
Such was the extraordinary success of the effort that it became the
subject of conversation in the circles of Washington, and procured
for him the most flattering attentions from Mr. Livingston, then Secre-
tary of State, who had been struck with the general merits of the argu-
ment, as detailed to him by a member of the court, but was more
interested by the unusual display of civil law erudition, being a branch
of learning to which he himself was much devoted, and in which he
had made great proficiency. This accidental contact, by congeniality
of tastes, habits of thought and intellectual occupations, rapidly
ripened into an intimacy, which exercised a decided influence upon
the subsequent course of life and purposes of Mr. Legare.

"The profession of law had, about this time, partly from the
political condition of the country, and partly from his brilliant success
in it, begun to rise in his mind from a secondary to a primary object ;
and his growing admiration of the civil law was augmented by each
successive advance of knowledge, and greatly stimulated by the
exhortations of Mr. Livingston, that he should prosecute the study of
it for great national purposes.

"Mr. Livingston thought, and subsequent reflection and study
brought Mr. Legare to the same conclusion, that it was practicable
and desirable to infuse a larger portion of the spirit and philosophy of
the civil law, and even of its forms and process, into our system of
jurisprudence. The peculiar condition of our country, in which so
much is new, and such essential modifications of pre-existing systems
necessary, seemed to be adapted to the introduction of an eclectic
system of municipal law. Our political institutions, our republican
habits, and even our physical condition, have forced upon us great
changes in the system of common law, and seem to open the way
for further alterations, with less difficulty and danger than would
attend such an attempt in England. There, the noble and venerable
system exists; as a whole, interfused into the universal fabric of socie-
ty, compacted and connected with the whole moral mass, with so en-
tire a consubstantiation, that the attempt to derange it, or essentially

I*. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

to modify it, would be characterized by rashness, and fraught with
danger.

"And, indeed, when we consider the common law in its minute
adjustments and comprehensive outlines, how scrupulous of right,
and how instinct with liberty — how elastic and capacious to expand
itself over the complicated transactions of the highest civilization,
yet strong and rigid to bend down within its oibit the most audacious
power ; when we consider all the miracles that have been wrought by
its spirit, from Alfred to Victoria, we cannot but regard it with love
and veneration.

"It is true also, of the other system, that it is a stupendous embo-
diment of the wisdom of ages, arranged in an admirable method,
and pervaded throughout by a philosophical spirit, which combines
all its parts, and harmonizes all its dependencies into a beautiful iden-
tity. As each is the result of the thought and experience of the
wise of many ages — the difference between them, has, perhaps, arisen
from the different manner in which the wisdom of those who made
them has been brought into action. The one has been the result of
philosophical speculation and closest study of what is right and fit :
the other is the successive judgments of equally wise men, pro-
nounced upon real cases, under public responsibility, after discussion,
stimulated by private reward and the ambition of public applause.
Whatever advantages our system might be supposed to possess in
the aggregrate, Mr. Legare determined upon a diligent and extended
prosecution of the study of the civil law, that he might distinctly
understand what, if any portion could be advantageously adopted —
and he came to the conclusion, after several years of severe applica-
tion, that much might be effected.

There were few among us fitter than Mr. Livingston to estimate
the admirable studies of Legare towards this lofty conception of his ;
and, struck with the greatness of the idea and the singular capacity
of the man to execute it, he devised and at once offered the means : —
a diplomatic mission which should place him, for some years, in the
very centre of this great department of legal science : he tendered
him the station of American Charge d' Affaires, at the minor but
most agreeable court of Brussels. The gloomy aspect of affairs in
his own State — where now (in 1832) was manifestly approaching
one of those civil contests in which no party or both parties must be
greatly in fault, and the good and wise scarcely know what views to
form — concurred with the peculiar labor which he proposed to him-
self; and he accepted the station,

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxi.

Thither, then, he at once repaired, as to a charge the easy duties
of which replaced him amid the delights of European scholarship,
with a dignity that gave him access everywhere, and with leisure to
turn that access to account. Already intimately versed in the noble
study of National Law ; rich in the histoiic lore which is its basis
and commanding nearly all the diplomatic tongues of Europe, he
needed nothing, except some little practice in the routine and ceremo-
nial of his place, to be the most accomplished Minister that we have
ever sent abroad — a praise by the by, which is rapidly growing to be
an exceedingly inconsiderable one. His public functions sat lightly
on him at a Court with which our National relations are usually
commercial rather than political. Voluntarily, he is known to have
addressed to his government a very masterly series (part of which is
given in this collection) of regular reports embracing a continual
survey of all the main movements of European policy. Placed,
however, with a large command of his time, in the midst of a coun-
try where learning has always flourished, where great and ancient
libraries have been accumulated ; Paris within easy reach, Gottingen
at hand, Berlin not far off, and the learned bodies of Northern Ger-
many (the most erudite country in the world) ready to lend him their
vast stores, he flung himself afresh into study, with all the ardor of
a scholar whom no amount of toil could tame, and with a genius
strong enough to take any load of knowledge on its back and walk
lightly under it. Heretofore he had chiefly cultivated, as to literature
that of the classic tongues and of the languages of Southern Eu-
rope— dialects of which the sweetness and their wealth in elegant
letters drew his preference: now, however, he fell upon German,
with which his acquaintance was slight — determined to master that
empire of learning which its writers may be said to form of them-
selves. This, with the acquisition of Low Dutch and (to round off
his Greek,) Romaic, made up the main philologic occupations of his
second stay abroad, from which he returned in especial a thorough
German scholar. That other part of his residence, which he dedi-
cated, (as he had designed,) to a fresh course of Ancient Jurispru-
dence and of Roman and Civil law, was given to the science under
perhaps the greatest ornament it has ever possessed — the illustrious
Savigny — of whose extraordinary learning and abilities he has often
told us with such delight, that, amid his enthusiasm, he would even
forget how little we were in a condition to take lessons of the great
master, and would lament that we had not yet heard his lectures."
Of the portion of his life formed by this Belgian residence, the

lxii. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

papers now published (his journals, letters, and a part of his des-
patches) afford an unstudied autobiography, highly agreeable and
striking, which flings us, with all the distinctness of a mirror, the
moral and intellectual lineament, the feelings, the avocations, the pur-
poses, the personal intercourses, of which our imperfect account makes
but the shadow. These unguarded personal records are but little
more than enough to teach one to lament that so small a proportion
of his communications with his friends has yet been yielded up to
the public curiosity. At least however, exhibiting the faithful pic-
ture of four years of his life, they will serve to show that our sketch
of the rest is a truthful conception, however inadequate the delinea-
tion. His shining and his attractive qualities ; the vigor of his parts
and the extent of his learning ; the masculine purposes of his mind,
the simplicity and lovingness of heart; his lofty power of continuous
labor and the gladsomeness with which he gave himself to congenial
society ; the solid and severe cast of his understanding and yet the
poetic ray that breaks through, in spite of him, like lights through
the close pillars of some perfect Grecian pile ; these, his probity pub-
lic and private, his vigils, and his amusements, the singular esteem of
scholars and courtiers alike which he so obviously won, his great
aspirations and the frequent and profound gloom which haunted him,
without however, casting one shade of bitterness upon his intercourse
with others — all these must be seen in the surviving memorials of
this period. To them we trust that readers will turn ; and from
them supply in fancy all that would have been equally delightful in
the rest of his life, could we have commanded like remains, animated
with himself, that would have only needed a slender thread of nar-
rative to connect them, or an occasional annotation to elucidate. But
while such things as these tell their own story, and while the greater
public labors through which Legare was afterwards to pass remain
upon the general memory of his co-temporaries, his oratorical per-
formances, his literary and his professional labors, and, above all, the
long and silent toil of self-formation, from which flowed all the rest,
needed, as they merited, a commemoration that should make them
an example and a guide.

The reputation of his singular abilities, attainments, and personal
worth — always sure to confirm themselves on acquaintance — had
preceded him abroad ; so that, when he passed through the French
capital, its able sovereign manifested to our Minister, Mr. Rives, a
special desire to know him. He was accordingly presented ; and
made upon the monarch a very advantageous impression ; which

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxiii.

Was no doubt transmitted to his son-in-law, the prince near whom he
was to represent us. Certain it is that he was received with great
kindness and speedily secured, in a very high degree, the personal
confidence and regard of Leopold and his queen. Abundant proofs
of the pleasure which they took in his society may be found in the
notes of his private journal kept at Brussels. But a token of the
affection (so rare in royal bosoms,) in which he continued to be held
there, reached his friends, through our government, when- he was no
more. During Leopold's visit to England, in the summer of 1843,
our resident, Mr. Everett, was charged by him with a particular mes-
sage for Mr. Legare to say that not only did they continue to remem-
ber and to esteem, but sincerely to love him. He clearly appears to
have enjoyed, on the part of the diplomatic body there and the min-
istry, a deference constantly marked, and indeed but such as must
have been yielded himj at any court in Europe, as one of its most
superior men. We have reason to know, too, from other sources,
that his accomplishments and wrorth are yet recollected and regretted
in Brussels.

Amidst the crowd of enlightened remarks or incidents agreeably
told in these letters and journals, the diary will be found to contain
many affecting traces of his peculiar habits and feelings — the records
of his studies, — of his unwearied longings for home, — of the visits of
that blacker melancholy which, rising up from organic causes, so
often darkened his blameless life— and perhaps the indistinct stirrings
of some gentler feeling, which prudence bade him repress. The
notes of his studies are but a slight part of the memoranda of that
sort which he had, from his boyhood, habitually kept. Whether he
had early read Gibbon and been struck with his method, as he was
certainly fired by his example, we know not ; but among his earliest
MSS. is found a regular diary and analysis of the books he read ;
and such abstracts of each day's labours and of the methodizing and
partition of his time, he continued to multiply, until, probably, the
excess of business no longer permitted it, even to his invincible dili-
gence.

Towards the close of his stay in Belgium, he received from his
own State an invitation to place himself at the head of an effort set
on foot there, by all its leading men, to revive the extinct Review, of
which he had been the main support, while it lasted. In this view,
very liberal offers were made him by a state society formed with this
for one of its main purposes. He refused it, however ; for he had by
this time gone far in the great professional object for which he had

lxiV. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

come abroad ; was bent on that as the main aim of his future life ;
had resolved to mix in politics only so far as the influence and celebri-
ty achieved in these might assist him towards the other higher and
more solid purpose ; and had especially decided that, in an age of
Bozzes and Benthams, of novels and utility, pure letters and true
learning were, particularly in his own country, the saddest of all
pursuits. Under the same general persuasion, he had already dis*
couraged the intimations of his friends that, if he desired it, the State
would gladly have him at the head of her college. A like overture was
made him, some few years later, on the part of the State-establishment
of Kentucky, and was equally declined. Four years of admirable study
and observation abroad had now, however, prepared him for a new
and a greater career; and in the summer of 1836, he took his mea-
sures for returning home. That autumn, he made an excursion among
the seats of learning in Northern Germany : a tour of which a suc-
cinct but highly interesting journal is preserved among the papers
now given. That parting look taken at European erudition, he bade
farewell to Brussels, and set out home.

In New- York, at his landing, he was met by the instances of hi3
friends to allow himself to be put in nomination to Congress for the
Charleston district. He received the cordial support of his own old
political friends, and with it the suffrage of the better part of the
Carolina opposition, who knew him worthy of that which can alone
render a man safe, but is now so little consulted in public affairs, —
a complete personal confidence in his rectitude and his abilities. At
his arrival in Charleston, therefore, he had little to do but to speak a
speech, and to be elected a member of the new Congress that was to
come in with the accession of Mr. Van Buren, in the following March.
He went in as of that leader's friends in general ; but not as of his
indiscriminate followers.

To his friends, among whom he now passed some time in re-fami*
liarizing himself with the state of things throughout the country —
for four years, seen but indistinctly from abroad — his character and
his mind now offered themselves in aspects much more imposing than
before. He had greatly ripened not merely his intellect, but the
qualities which incessant study scarcely permits to form themselves—
his knowledge of affairs and men such as they will (not should) be ;
his fitness for practice ; the great gifts of common sense and of per-
sonal judgment, without which all others are nearly vain. He had
gone an able man ; he came back a very wise one : but still not wise
(as men so generally become) at the expense of diminished feeling

13I0GRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxV.

or ingenuousness. He had only learned better to conduct them. He
had not learnt that saddest of all lessons, to disbelieve in the virtue
of others — which when we do, all our own is gone : but he had learnt
to distinguish and to know how far to trust either others or himself.

In the month of September following, he took his seat in Congress,
at the extra session, called by the new administration, to deliberate
on the measures necessary to remedy the wide and terrible financial
disasters which an unwise tampering with the currency had brought
about. In the debates that ensued, his principal speech was, for the
wide and high views which it took of our financial condition, the
solid yet comprehensive manner in which he treated the subject, the
variety and nobleness of knowledge with which he illustrated it, and
the force as well as splendor of his entire discourse, felt to be a truly
masterly effort, fit to rank him among the very greatest speakers of the
day. It placed him, too, openly in the opposition, as of that seceding
portion of the old Jackson party who, against the financial policy of
the hard- money men, took the name of Conservatives — a mode of
opinion to which we have already intimated the mind and feelings of
Mr. Legare tended in general.

Brilliant, however, as was the figure which he made throughout
that Congress on all questions in which he took part — except, perhaps,
that of the contested Mississippi election, where he certainly got upon
the wrong side — he was thrown out at the next election, by the coali-
tion which had in the meantime ensued in Carolina between the Cal-
houn and the Van Buren parties.

After this, Mr. Legare determined to devote himself entirely to his
profession ; and he at once put on all its harness. He was immedi-
ately engaged in several of the great causes depending in the courts
of South-Carolina. The first of any magnitude which he argued
was in conjunction with his friend Mr. Petigru, and was one, not
only affecting in its incidents, but singularly calculated to call forth
his legal strength and learning. It was the case of Pell and wife
versus The Executors of Ball. The circumstances of the case were
these: A Miss Channing, daughter of Mr. Walter Channing, (a
merchant of Boston,) had married a Mr. Ball of South-Carolina, and
carried him a large fortune without any settlement. Mr. Ball, by his
last will and testament, bequeathed to his wife all of this fortune.
Embarking, at Charleston for a visit to the north, on board the ill-fa-
ted steamboat Pulaski, which blew up at sea, on the coast of North-
Carolina, in 1835, they both perished in that awful catastrophe. The
question in the cause was, which survived the other : if Mrs. Ball,

VOL. I. H

Ixvi. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

then the legacy vested in her, and was transmissible to her sisters ;
if her husband, then the legacy had lapsed, fell into the residue of
the estate, and went to his family.

Mr. Legare was engaged on behalf of Mrs. Ball's sisters. On the
one side, it was contended that the husband, being the stronger, must
have survived ; and the doctrines of the civil law on the subject of
survivorship were relied on. Here, however, Legare was a master
and showed that all these presumptions must yield to positive testi-
mony. After the catastrophe, Mrs. Ball was seen flying wildly
about the wreck, her voice heard above all others, calling for her
husband. Availing himself of this single but affecting fact — all that,
in the wild terror of such a scene could be known — Legare converted
it, by the tragic powers of his eloquence, into an irresistible proof
that the tender husband, whose name the wife shrieked forth so dis-
tractedly, must have already perished. Upon the narrow theatre of
that shattered deck, there was enacted, he said, a scene to paint which
all that the imagination or poetry could invent of the most pathetic
must fail. "She called upon the husband upon whom she had never
before called in vain — upon whose arm she had ever leaned in danger —
her stay, her rescue ! She called — but he never answered : — no, sir?
he was dead ! he was dead !"

Mrs. Ball's sisters gained the suit, as also another point in the case
which he argued — that the legacy was general, and not specific.

He was also engaged in another of the great cases of the Charles-
ton Circuit — (Cruger versus Daniel) — respecting a plantation on Sa-
vannah river. Here his skill as a real-estate lawyer shone conspicu-
ously, and here he was again successful. There was another case —
(of ejectment, Talvande vs. Talvande) — a notice of which is worth
preserving, from an incident in the course of the trial. The late
Bishop England had written an affecting sketch of the life of Madame
Talvande, the defendant, and given it to Mr. Legare. In the
course of his argument to the jury, Mr. Legare read this sketch with
so much pathos that the good Bishop could not refrain from shedding
copious tears. Familiar as he was with the facts, and though the com-
position was his own, the hearing Mr. Legare read it, moved profound-
ly him who had been unaffected in writing it. Madame Talvande
gained her case.

The increasing celebrity which these and other ably conducted
causes won him, and the strong growth of his professional success,
did not withhold him from taking active part in the canvass which
brought about the great party revolution of 1840. To this he lent, in

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxVU.

various parts of the country, the aid of his commanding eloquence,
than which nothing could be fitter, either to direct the public reason
by its weight, or to rouse the popular passions by its vehemence. His
harangue at Richmond will be long remembered, on that theatre
where Webster, about the same time, girded up his loins to win a
Southern reputation, and where Clay has more than once tasked him-
self. Legale is remembered there as possibly a more extraordinary
speaker than either, so far as could be judged from a single effort.
To the same period belongs his magnificent speech in the city of
New- York, in which he drew the most masterly picture ever sketched
of the arts of demagogues and of the disastrous passions with which
they fill the multitude. For truth, for force, and the picture-like dis-
tinctness with which this long and admirable passage was worked
up, it would be difficult to find in modern oratory any thing finer.

About the same time, to indulge the reverence in which he held
him whom he had learned to esteem the first statesman, as well as
the first orator of antiquity, he flung into the New -York Review an
admirable article on "Demosthenes, the man, the orator, and the
statesman." A second, on the "Athenian Democracy," formed its
companion and complement. In a third, he gave, upon a yet more
favorite subject, a still more elaborate paper — a survey of the "origin,
history and influence of the Roman Law."

In the next year, the resignation of the original Harrison cabinet
led to the selection of Mr. Legare for the Attorney Generalship of
the United States. Of the circumstances under which he received
it, and the manner in which he discharged its duties, we can call up
again distinguished testimony — that of one who personally knows the
facts which he affirms— Mr. Preston. He says:

"When he was called to the office of Attorney General, there was
an universal acquiescence in the propriety of the appointment. It
was given to no intrigue, no solicitation, no party services, but con-
ferred upon a fit man for the public good. It was precisely that,
office for which Mr. Legare was most ambitious. He had endea-
vored to qualify himself for it. He thought himself not unworthy of
it, and he desired it as a means of effecting, to some extent, his great
object in regard to ameliorations in the jurisprudence of the coun-
try— and as a means of placing him eventually on the bench of the
Supreme Court, where he would be able still farther to develop and
establish his plan of reform. His practice as Attorney General was
attended with the most conspicuous success. Many of the judges
expressed their great admiration of his efforts during the first term,

Ixviii. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

and the whole bench awarded to him the palm of exalted merit. His
official opinions, delivered on questions arising in the administration
of government, were formed with laborious deliberation, clearly and
ably argued, and have been sustained without exception. On the
very important question — whether upon the expiration of the compro-
mise act, there was any law for the farther collection of revenue, he
differed from a great majority of the bar, and from most of the lead-
ing politicians in Congress, of both parties — it was supposed, too, from
a majority of the Cabinet — but his opinion has been ascertained to
be correct."

The fame which this eminent man chiefly sought — the fame for
which he had ever sought the attainments that drew him a different
reputation — was wisely that of his profession. A few notices, then,
of the chief causes which he argued after he came to the Attorney
Generalship, and we shall close this imperfect memorial of his merits
and of our affection.

It was in September, 1841, that he took office. In the January
following met the Supreme Court, before which he was now to ap-
pear in a character such as made it to him a new arena. The first
case that he took up was that of Watkins vs. Holmarts Heirs, re-
ported in 16 Peters; a case that had been agued in the previous term,
but which the judges had ordered to be heard a second time. A
gentleman who walked up to the capitol with him, on the morning
when he spoke, tells us that Legare said to him: "It has been said
that I am a mere literary man ; but I will show them to-day whether
I am a lawyer or not." The question was one to call for all his
strength, and well did he sustain the expectations of his friends ; for
a greater argument was never made in the Supreme Court. The
question involved the right to property of great value in the city of
Mobile. Holman, at the time of his death, owned this property.
His widow took out letters of administration in Massachusetts, and,
acting under them, procured an act of the Legislature of Alabama
to sell this real estate for the payment of his debts. The property
had been accordingly sold, and streets and houses had been made
and built on it. The heirs of Holman now brought an action of
ejectment against the purchasers, on the ground that the act of the
Legislature was unconstitutional and void, as being an interference
with the judicial power — the legislative and judicial power being
distinct in the Constitution of that State. Mr. Legare maintained
the constitutionality of the act, and that this was a mere advance-
ment of the remedy. The Court sustained this view of the case.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxix.

At the same term, he argued another private case — Hobby vs. Kelsey;
and was successful in it also. He argued eight cases on behalf of
the United States, the two principal of which were, The United
Stales vs. Miranda, and Wood vs. The United States. The first was
the case of a Spanish land-grant, under which was claimed 368,640
acres on the waters of Hillsboro' and Tampa Bays in Florida. The
grounds maintained on behalf of the United States were that the
grant was a forgery, but if that should not be made out, then, that it
was void from uncertainty. In a jury trial in the court of East Flo-
rida, the jury had found the grant genuine, and the judge had also
declared it valid ; but not to the extent claimed. Here again he was
successful, and upset the grant. Miranda, the grantee, had been a
rower in the pilot launch of the bar of St. Augustine ; and yet a
man in his condition of life, it was pretended, had received this
princely grant. Legare's knowledge of Spanish was of the greatest
use to him in this case, and in all the Florida land cases. The other
great government case of that term, Wood vs. the United States, had
relation to the great frauds that had been committed on the revenue
by false invoices. This was the first of these cases that came up to
the Supreme Court, and settled the principles applicable to cases of
this character.

The next year he argued a case involving the right of ferry be-
tween the cities of Louisville and JerTersonville, and was successful.
But his great argument that year was in the case of Jewell vs.
Jewell — a case involving the question, What was the law of''mar-
riage in the United States ? For historical research, and noble and
elevated views of the interests of society, with reference to the matri-
monial contract, it was unequalled. It is to be regretted that this
argument has not been reported ; for all who heard it admitted that
it was one of his greatest efforts. As an instance of the care with
which he prepared himself, a friend informs us that he sent to Vienna
for EichorrCs Kirkenrechts, for the purposes of this argument.

While occupying only the function to which he had been at first
called — that of the law-member of the cabinet — his wide and mas-
terly skill to direct, in the very various and high legal and constitu-
tional questions which were submitted to him, gave him (as may be
judged from what we have already related) a very high authority in
the administration. Nor did that authority ever fail, in discretionary
matters, to be exerted on the side of just and moderate counsels, as to
both party and the public. The integrity and the elevation of all his
aims ; the liberality and the calmness of all his views ; his catholic

1XX. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

spirit towards his country and his countrymen of whatever section
and of whatever doctrine that was respectable and sought or was capa-
ble to effect the common purpose of good — (attainable with all doctrines
alike, since doctrine has very little to do with it)— preserved for him,
even amidst a most unpopular administration, the general confidence
and relations the most kindly with whatever he met of worth and
eminence, among either opposition* whether in official duty or in social
intercourse. Some of his most intimate friends— two in particular of
the most devoted— were among the most determined and even bitter
opponents of the administration to which he belonged. Indeed, re-
markable as that administration was, as fatal to the reputation (where
there was any) of every other that it drew to it, Mr. Legare stood an
exception, and won quite as much on the national esteem as the rest
lost If he thus gained upon the public, it is much to Mr. Tyler's
honor that, by his abilities, his rectitude, and the firmness with which,
as an adviser, he resisted many things of wrong, he equally gained
upon not merely what could not be withheld — the President's res-
pect— but his affection. The influence which he had obtained some-
time before his death is yet little known, because altogether legitimate,
and quietly exercised for good, upon important occasions only : but it
was at last probably greater than any body else possessed.

This extreme confidence in his intentions and admiration of his
abilities induced President Tyler, upon the withdrawing of Mr. Web-
ster from the cabinet, to confide to Mr. Legare, in long ad interim, the
care 't)f the State department, in heavy addition to the laboriously-
performed duties of his own. Besides the older proofs of his fitness
for the diplomatic functions, he had given such important aid in the
conduct of a part of the Ashburton treaty! as manifested his eminent
qualifications for the new trust. He discharged it, accordingly, ad-
mirably : but perhaps with a fidelity which, amidst the mass of his
other labours, abridged his life.

In July, 1842. he suffered the severest personal affliction that his
life had yet known — the loss of his sister, Mrs. Bryan ; a lady of
such virtues as a heart like his might well deeply regret, since few
have been deplored by a larger or more attached circle of friends.

In the following January came a still severer calamity — the death
of the admirable mother to whom he owed so much, and whom he
repaid with such an extreme filial devotion. After the loss of her

* For there were then two.

1 That part of it involving the question of the Right of Search.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. lxxi.

elder daughter, she had yielded to his earnest entreaties, and came to
receive beneath his roof the tender cares of which her declining age
began to have need. There, watched over as fondly as she was
piously deplored, she soon breathed her last in his arms. He seems
in communicating the event to their common friend, Judge King, of
Charleston, to have burst out into a lamentation and an encomium
such as he might well utter and she receive. She died, however, full
of years, her duties of life admirably done, her hopes as much crown-
ed in the merited eminence of her son as her affections in his exem-
plary love.

The severe bereavement saddened only, but was permitted not long
to interrupt public duties so grave as those that bore upon him. He
went on to perform, with unbroken application, his double offices.
But his own fate was now almost at hand. Powerful as seemed his
constitution, there was clearly in him some structural cause of dis-
ease, some latent infirmity which, excited by his habits of exhausting
and intense work, not even his methodical mode of living could baffle.
In the autumn before his death, he had been in extreme peril from an
attack of visceral derangement such as finally carried him off. Very
skilful medical assistance had then saved him, but not without bodily
sufferings so terrible, as made him tell his sister, that if it pleased
God, he would rather die than again encounter such to live. But on
a visit to Boston with the President, in the next June, to assist in the
Bunker Hill celebration, he was seized, on the day of his arrival
itself, (Friday, the 16th,) with a return of the same malady. On the
next day — that of the ceremonials — he was too sick to take any part
in them. In spite of all medical aid, though called in at once, he
grew rapidly worse, suffering, meanwhile, intensely, and convinced of
his danger, but perfectly calm and preparing himself for the event.
On Sunday evening, manifestly in much danger, he yielded to the
solicitude of his alarmed friends, Professor Ticknor and his amiable
wife, and suffered himself to be removed from his public lodgings to
their house in Park street. There, in spite of every care of friendship
and every effort of skill, he breathed his last, at 5 o'clock, on the
morning of the 20th. He had sustained his advancing disease with
entire courage and cheerfulness, and met his expected fate with a
manliness such as became a life so good. The intervals of violent
pains, during the day preceding his dissolution, were spent in giving
directions as to the disposal of such public duties as needed that final
care, and in putting in order his own private affairs. All this was
performed with admirable clearness and composure, an mixed only

lxxii. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

with tokens of the feelings which, at such a moment, fly to the dis-
tant embrace of friendship and of love, and, agitating the heart for
the last time, can yet not shake the firm soul. His last murmured
words were, as had been his latest written sentence, of his surviving
sister; and, affection and consciousness ceasing only together, he ex*
pired so calmly in the arms of his friend Mr. Ticknor, that the latter
scarcely knew when that noble mind had passed away.

A man far the most remarkable that our country has seen, in all
accomplishments of public life, he left nothing to be lamented in his
career, except its early close. The general burst of concern — deepest
where it did him the most honor — which, over the entire land, fol*
lowed his death, testified but too weU how widely was spreading the
quiet but sure force of his reputation, and how much, in the full
twenty years of life due, he would have achieved of useful to his
times and memorable to others. The vast plan, the peculiar civil
labor for which he had cast himself, daring as it was, was beginning
to be within his reach, as it was within his faculties ; but has perish-
ed with him, in a time that can no more, even by accident, breed such
men. As for the formality of summing up his character, we shall
not attempt it. If we are able to do it, it is already sufficiently
done, without the pomp and elaboration of set praise.

Valued, as he should be, by not merely what he lived to complete,
it may be said of him, with nothing of exaggeration, that while, as
an orator and a politician, he rivalled the splendor of Burke and his
flashing reach of thought, as a scholar he entirely equalled Gibbon
in labour and in learning, and would have placed himself in parallel
with Mansfield as a lawyer. Brief as was the term which Heaven,
so bountiful to him in all else, permitted, he had filled it with singular
honor, and, in the sight of the well-judging,

"Had reaped what glory life's short harvest yields."

E. W. J.

Washington, (D. C.) Feb. 27, 1846.

WRITINGS

HUGH SWJNTON LEGARE.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Braxelles, 16th May, 1833.
As I have found, by experience on former occasions, that a
diary is a very amusing thing, and not altogether unprofitable
to him that keeps it, after the lapse of a few years, I am deter-
mined to struggle with my most supine indolence, so far as to
fill up such a daily record of my actings and sayings. Forsan et
hcec olim meminisse juvabit I can go no further back than the
first of the fifth month, and even then, for the fortnight past, my
notice of things will be very general and inexact.

\st May — St Philip. The ambassador of France, who is
lately moved to a fine hotel at the corner of the Rue Ducale,
opposite to that of Prince Auguste d'Arenberg, celebrates the
fete of His Majesty, the King of France, by a grand diplomatic
dinner in costume. Thirty odd persons are present, — all of
them functionaries, civil or military. The English minister, Sir
Robert Adair on the right, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
M. le General Goblet on the left of the Count de Latour-
Maubourg ; opposite to whom sat the newly-arrived Secretary
of the French legation, Casimir Perier, son of the famous juste
milieu Minister of State, feu. M. Casimir Perier. I sat, by M.
de Latour-Maubourg's request, at the right hand of the Secretary.
Table crowded, — salle-a-manger, like most of the other rooms
in this part of Brussels, (at least) not large or long enough for a
gala day. Service at table, though waiting-men (some in gala
livery) sufficiently numerous, not very ready. Every thing I
ate as cold as at a royal banquet. Talked a good deal with Mr.
vol. I. — 1.

2 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Perier, who has been three years in England, attache to M. de
Talleyrand, and with General Desprez, Chief of Etat-Major-
General, and, I believe, at the head of the army here in all
respects. He is (par parenthese) a French officer, and, because
a child of the revolution and empire, has seen the manners and
cities of many men, and, although a child, etc., is tres instruit.
He understands his own business, they say, thoroughly, being
quite a scientific engineer, etc.; but, besides that, he is, for a
Frenchman of his day, extremely well-informed in other matters,
and even quotes Tacitus apropos. He speaks English comme pa,
and speaks it without the least diffidence. M. Perier speaks it,
of course, much better. This young gentleman has great expec-
tations. He is about twenty-two or three years of age, — has
80,000 francs a year of his own, and a mother with the same
income, — and the eclat of his father's name to help him forward
to the high places which, no doubt, await him. He is very
amiable, and does not seem too much pleased with London. J
told him our English circle here was almost our only society,
and a very charming one, — English on the Continent being
more English, (that is, less stupidly artificial and pedantic,) and,
therefore, more estimable and agreeable than in the fashionable
circles of their metropolis, — where one sees nothing but glare
and glitter in the materiel, and envy, hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness, taking the antic shape of systematized rude-
ness and coldness, under the name of "the thing", (bon-ton,) as
to the moral.

Tn the evening, a little party at Mr*. Durham Calderwood's, a
sweet little Scotch- woman, — a good house, — married to a naval
officer, and now residing here a few months. All English.
Marchioness of Hastings and two of her daughters, Lady Flora
and Lady Adelaide, here. Have a long conversation with Lady
Flora, who is a charming person, — tall, with blue eyes and fair
hair, very much given to reading, perfectly acquainted (as far as
a young lady can be) with the world, which she has travelled
all over, and having the sort of manners befitting her birth and
station. Lady Hastings herself was Countess of Loudoun in
her own right.

Hotel of the French embassy illuminated. I ought to have
mentioned that, by way of accompaniment to the dessert at
dinner, M. Goblet proposed the health of the King of France,
with some words expressive of the services he had rendered to
the cause of Belgium ; and that, some time after, M. de Latour-
Maubourg returned the compliment, by proposing that of King
Leopold. No more toasts were drunk, and tant mieux.

2d May. Rose at my usual hour, — read until half-past 8, —
shaved, — took tea and dry toast, etc. Nothing unusual about

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. &

me, and as I had recently gone to Antwerp and back again,
spending three days after the fashion of travellers, I had some
reason to expect that I should be pretty well for some time, until
hard study, free living, etc., should make it necessary for me to
change the air again. Mens caeca futuri ! At half-past 11,
while I was reading Pindar in my salon, I was seized, with the
suddenness of a flash of lightning, with a most violent pain in
my breast, piercing me through and through, but especially
under the right shoulder-blade. Evening, still worse. Night,
sleepless. Small party at Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald's. The
Lady Hastings' there. Had a long conversation with Captain
Hamilton, brother of the English Secretary of Legation, whom
I had met with before, especially at Court, (dinner) on the 30th
April. Very sensible and worthy man, of the conservative school.
Tells me he hopes to see me again at Prince Auguste's, on Satur-
day,— the last day of his present visit to Brussels.

3d May. Horrible pain continues. I study through it, and,
at night, to ensure my repose, take a few drops of laudanum.
Well I do, for in spite of the narcotic, I repeatedly wake in pain,
though the "slumbrous influence" of the anodyne prevents my
sufferings being prolonged at any one time. Remember nothing.

Ath May. Pain still acute. Study as usual ; finish Pindar
and the diplomatic correspondence of the Revolution. Dine at
Prince Auguste d'Arenberg's. Capt. Hamilton not there, — had
been attacked much in the same way as myself. I mention this
to his brother, who says he has suffered from some such thing
himself. Tells me, when I express a regret at the Captain's
absence, that it is mutual. Very warm to-day. The weather
had hitherto been disagreeably and most unseasonably cold.
The sudden change creates great complaints, but I tell the com-
pany it operates on me like the liveliest champagne.

5th May, — Sunday. Nothing particular. Write letters to
America, against my next despatch day, (next Sunday).

Evening. Call at Mr. Seymour's. On my return, see the
card of Mr. Davezac, brother of Mrs. Edward Livingston, and
Charge d' Affaires of the United States at the Hague.

6th May. From this date, the order of my studies changed.
Read Greek, henceforth, before breakfast. After, law of nations,
civil and common law, politics, etc., etc. Begin the Odyssey,
Vattel, Letters on English Chancery. Translate diplomatic
pieces out of French into English, in order to re-translate into
French. At 11, Mr. Davezac comes in. I invite him to dine,
which he consents to do. Long conversation ; find him a very

4 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

sensible, well-informed man, with decided marks of usage of
the world and literary taste united. After he goes away, and
just as I am about to send for two Polish officers, one of whom,
Count Lenowski, having been attached to the Russian legation
at the Hague, is an old acquaintance of Mr. Davezac's, a young
American gentleman, Mr. Ritchie, sends up his card. Receive
him, and find that he is the son of Mr. Ritchie of the Richmond
Enquirer. Invite him to meet Mr. Davezac, at 3 o'clock. Call
on him in my caleche, and take him to see the toion, the Boule-
vard, and the AlUe Verte. Dinner at half-past 5. Count Le-
nowski there. Davezac extremely entertaining. Upon my asking-
how he got on here and at the Hague with his former principal,
Mr. Preble, (whose Secretary of Legation he had been,) gave us
a most lively and diverting sketch of his character and manners.
I told him, after he had done, that he deserved the eternal grati-
tude of his country, — that I had conceived a very inadequate
idea of what he had suffered in her service, etc., etc.

7th May. Non mi ricordo : only ill of a cold and the old
rheumatism.

8th May. Very indisposed still. Dine at Prince Auguste's.
Ask him, at dinner, if he has read Mr. Nothomb's (Secretary
General in the department of Foreign Affairs) Essay on the
Revolution. Answers by asking if I have read the preface. 1
reply affirmatively ; whereupon he tells me I am able to judge
of the whole work from that precious specimen of garrulous
egotism and superficial pretension. The Prince, however, is
sometimes morose, always cntete, and most thoroughly antedi-
luvian in his politics, — by which ingenious epithet I would have
all, who have neither learned nor forgotten any thing since the
debordement of '89, to be designated. He is an excellent speci-
men, by the way, of la vieille cour, — active mind, quick percep-
tion, love of reading, — conversation lively, diversified, piquante
sans emphase, — taste for the "news of the day," (chronique
scandaleuse,) — perfectly versed in the forms of life and manners
of the world, and apparently acquainted with the history of
every prominent person in it. He is now octogenaire, but in
most perfect preservation. Lives "like a prince"; gives dinners
perpetually, but never accepts an invitation. Has the best of
cooks, service of silver plaque, and half a dozen serving-men, in
brilliant livery, with two valets — but no other fuss or show about
his table. Seldom invites as many as 16 — sometimes 12, gener-
ally 10, and the same set (with occasional variations as to some
of the individuals that compose it) always. The English Am-
bassador and his Secretary of Legation, (Sir George Hamilton,
the reigning and all-prevailing favorite of the Prince,) consider

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 5

themselves as regularly "abonnes", and refuse all other invita-
tions on the Prince's days, (Mondays, Wednesdays and Satur-
days,) and the invariable guest is Sir Henry Seton, the King's
Secretary, — a dry, sly, droll, diverting Scotchman, blase in the
circles of London fashionable life, and bearing its stamp in his
manners and character. — But the Prince. Speaking of him the
other day at Madame Latour-Maubourg's, with Count Henry de
Merode — (apropos, I had heard the Prince talk, more than once,
with great freedom and some severity, of the busy-body readi-
ness with which certain members of this old and prominent
family (they are connected with M. de La Fayette) presented
themselves, wherever they heard of a row in any part of Eu-
rope,)— this very amiable gentleman remarked, with his usual
douceur and diffidence, "he (the Prince) has at present a great
horror of recollections, but it was not always so. In '89, (the
Prince was, at Paris, a favorite of Maria- Antoinette, as Count de
la March, — see Gouverneur Morris' correspondence,) he was not
a little affected with the reigning maniaP However, all this
by the way. — I only mean to record why I received his placitum
as to M. le Secretaire-General's (a creation of the late convulsion,
who, besides being as self-complacent as if he were well-born, is
an avocat, wears a dirty shirt, unwashed hands, etc., etc.) cum
grano salts. After dinner, shews me the work inter-leaved,
and garnished cum comme?itario perpetuo, in MS., the said
commentary being what the Prince had dictated to his secretary
in reading it. Run over some pages of the MS., and find them
worthy of more deliberate attention. The Prince, after some
time, calls out to me to have done ; that he did not mean to im-
pose a task upon me, etc. Besides, if T be so inclined, he will
lend me the whole when it shall have been finished. I shall not
fail to ask for it, for I was interested in what I read.

Sir R. Adair comes up to me and says, I have a design upon
you. The Prince has been talking to me of a work of Tacitus
I never heard of, — a discourse on Eloquence. O yes, say I ; a
dialogue of orators, or, as it is more appropriately termed, de
causis corrupts eloquential, an admirable piece of criticism,
sometimes attributed, though I never could understand why, to
the great historian of despotism. In my opinion, the pretensions
of Gtuinctilian, or Pliny the younger, or any body else, etc., are
much more plausible. Afterwards, Sir Robert states what I say
to the Prince, who seems pleased at it, and refers to a passage
about the necessity of disorders in a State to the existence of
true eloquence, which soars highest, like certain birds, (I had an
eye, to confess the truth, to our own dear Carolina buzzards,)
upon the wings of the tempest. I cite in the original the pas-
sage referred to : Magna ilia et notabilis eloquentia, alumna
licentia, comes seditionum, etc., etc.

b DTARY OP BRUSSELS.

9th May ', — Thursday. King on a tour in Flanders. No din-
ner at Court to-day. As to the rest, non mi ricordo, except that
I continue very much indisposed, and resolve to starve out my
ailings, whatever they be.

My valet de-chambre, a Spaniard of the name of Fulano Fer-
rari, has an audience of me, to-day, to explain his long absence,
which had made me set him down with Scipio and other valets
of the same stamp in my favorite Gil Bias ; since, after he had
exceeded his furlough more than a fortnight, 1 asked my foot-
man whether he had taken every thing of his with him. The
answer was in the affirmative, extending even to the black coat
he wears ex-officio as my ayuda de camera inclusive. Having
been led by false appearances (but through his own indiscretion)
to think him capable of theft and petty treason, I felt bound, in
justice to him, to take him back, the more especially as fame,
which, in a small city and a court circle, never spares any body,
especially single gentlemen and ladies and their servants, was
beginning to make rather free with his reputation, — but I am
satisfied, from other evidence, that he is not worthy of the confi-
dence I once reposed in him, and, whilst I admit him again to
my service, I take care it shall not be on the old footing, — espe-
cially as to the powers of a paymaster-general.

10th May. Fast again, and don't go out at all. Eyes bad.

11th. Dine at Prince Auguste's. Company small, owing to
a dinner which Mr. Perier gives in the country to a party of
ladies, which takes him away, with the Hamiltons, and Lady
Wm. Paget and her mother. Present, Sir R. Adair, Sir H. Seton,
Mr. and Mrs. Seymour with their two daughters, M. Baillet and
myself. At dinner, ask the Prince if he is acquainted with
Goinon's Memoires. Answers affirmatively. Conversation turns
on what he says of the first incidents of the French Revolution.
I mention a pun, — parler bas et opiner du bonnet, — shewing
that he had taken notice of the motley of the first assemblies.
Allude to what he says of the prodigious run of the Marriage of
Figaro. But times are changed, says the Prince, and few are
the works of men that do not change with them. The other
evening they acted this same piece, the impression made by
which, half a century ago, I so well remember ; on our boards,
it fell lifeless as it were. The subject was out of date. What
was bold then, is now banal, — what hit most forcibly, is,
through subsequent changes, become inapplicable, etc., etc. In
short, nothing could be more flat. The famous monologue of
the great barber was received without one token of effect.

\2th May. System of diet kept up. Take a drive in the

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 7

Allee Verte after dinner ; find it crowded with equipages of one
sort or other ; none brilliant ; great deal of dust. Evening at
Mr. Seymour's. Return at half-past 10. At 11 received a card
from the Marchioness Dowager of Hastings, bidding me to her
house, or rather lodgings, on Monday evening.

YSth May. Spare fast still. Eyes so bad am compelled to
give up the Odyssey, and to read nothing, indeed. Valet-de-
chambre reads for me the newspapers, Gil Bias, etc., and certain
letters on the English Chancery, published by M. Royer-Collard.
About 11, Mr. Ritchie comes in. Invite him to dine next day.
Delightful weather. Lady Hastings' party, all the English of
note here. Talk principally with Lady Flora ; presented to
Lady Sophia, whom I did not yet know. Find her like the rest,
very intelligent, lady-like and agreeable. The Rev. Mr. Drury
slips into my hand a letter from Basil Hall, who, it seems, left
Brussels this morning. Mr. D., who met with him the day be-
fore, casually, in coming from church, and made his acquaint-
ance, in the course of conversation mentioned that he had in his
possession an American review of Hall's Travels, which, if Capt.
Hall had any curiosity to see it, was very much at his service.
The tourist, at first, rather declined the offer, saying that he had
laid it down as a rule to read nothing written about him in
America; however, he ended by saying, that if Mr. D. would
send it, he would cast his eyes over it. The book was accord-
ingly sent, and the letter now handed me embodied the impres-
sions which my article on Capt. Hall's Travels had made upon
the author. He speaks highly of his critic as a man of sense,
honor and fairness, but seems hurt that the tourist should be
regarded as one under the influence of strong pre-conceived
opinions ; in short, as a perfect homme a systeme. I shall ask
for this letter and send it to Petigru, Hall's great champion, who
found fault with me for that very article. Nota — Hall asked
Sir G. Hamilton, very particularly, what my address was.

Had a conversation with Dr. Tobin, physician of the British
embassy here, to whom Mrs. Seymour introduced me on account
of my inflamed eye. Intelligent man ; speaking highly of Amer-
ican physicians, and somewhat (I think) of a democrat. Tells
me, for my comfort, that many people are suffering in the same
way, Lady Arundel especially, whom he is now attending ; that
Brussels, and, indeed, all this country, is noted for the prevalence
of this disease, which may arise from the fine white dust, and
is, without doubt, greatly aggravated by the ignorance of the
physicians, — the most ignorant, he affirms, of all the disciples of
iEsculapius. But what, he adds, can be expected of men whose
fee is two francs ? I assent, and add that, if I be not better next
day, I shall send for him ; but as I suspect my eyes to be sym-

b DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

pathizing with an irritated stomach, I have been trying what
low diet would do to appease the hostile coalition.

l&th May. Rather better. Mr. Ritchie dines with me, and
I venture to eat a little. After dinner we take a long drive,
going out of the town at the gate of Flanders, and returning by
way of the Allee Verte, having made the tour of the Chateau
and its wood, heard the nightingales singing in its shade, and
enjoyed, altogether, a most enchanting evening. Did not get
home before 9 o'clock. The view of Brussels, from the road
that leads from the great highway to Flanders, to the village of
Lacken, under so fine a sky, was quite beautiful, and one of the
best I have seen from the many points I have looked from. Mr.
R. takes leave, with many thanks.

Wth May. Dine at Prince Auguste's. Meet there two stran-
gers,— Mr. Abercrombie, Secretary of the British embassy at
Berlin, and Lord Valletort, eldest son of Lord Mount-Edgecombe.
Nothing particular. All the diplomatic corps present, except the
new attache to the English legation, just arrived, (who promises,
Sir Robert assures me, smiling, to be a working, and not a fish-
ing, Secretary,) Mr. Des Voeux. King arrives this evening.

16th May. Dinner at Court. I sit on the left of His Majesty,
Lady Valletort, who had walked to dinner with Sir R. Adair,
being on my right, (between the king and me,) and the barronne
d'Hoogvorst (whom I had led in) on my left. This young Eng-
lish lady was, about eighteen months ago, a Miss somebody,
daughter of a Captain in the British navy ; she is now likely to
be a Countess, and will grace her coronet with a great deal of
beauty of a high style. I talked with her a little at dinner, and
found her, like all the English, enthusiastic about Italy, and, like
herself, still more so about Greece. Her hair was dressed a la
Grecque, and this charming simplicity heightened the effect of
the fine contrast between its own blackness and her very white
cheeks and gorge. She talked in that low tone, and rather min-
cing, precieuse manner, which some English think the perfec-
tion of the ton. Short soiree, on account of the queen's preg-
nancy, no doubt.

Party at Mr. Freke's, brother of Lord Carberry, who has two
daughters, nice, frank, good-natured, lively Irish girls, and a son,
heir-presnmptive of a peerage and 40,000 a year, who is both
deaf and dumb. Yet he goes to every ball, etc., dances, and
seems the happiest man in the room. I am told he has been
(and more than once, I think) engaged to be married, but con-
trived to be off when it came to the pinch. Lady Valletort, Lady
Wm. Paget, etc., but not the Hastings', who have just lost a

DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

relation. Party numerous, and very English. Ladies all seated
round the principal salo?i, looking at each other with that air of
uneasy, though subdued and grave mutual distrust, that belongs
to that sort of armed neutrality. It was very warm, and so, as
I found myself rapidly becoming nervous, I slunk away into a
small apartment adjoining, where, to my great relief, I found a
window wide open, a small society chattering and noisy, and
Miss , my special favorite and a sweet girl, sitting en-
trenched in a corner, with an evident determination to defend
the position to the last. Here I established myself for the eve-
ning, never having plucked up courage enough to cross the other
room, even to speak to Mrs. Seymour, my most familiar acquaint-
ance here. Singing by Miss Freke (very passable) and two
gentlemen. Still, the dullness of the hour oppresses every body.
At length, things being fairly at extremities, a waltz or quadrille,
to the piano-forte, is got up. I avail myself of the first confu-
sion to make my escape, which I effect, without further damage,
about half- past 11. Sic me servavit Apollo.

17th May. Having eaten a little yesterday, I am sensibly
better to-day, for abstinence makes me ill for the present, what-
ever its ultimate effects may be. Determine to break my long
fast. Mr. Serruys, Vice-Consul at Ostend, comes in. Hands
me the commission of the Consul, and requests I will get an
exequatur. Tells me he had seen the King at Ostend, and
heard him say, (nay, said he, His Majesty even addressed the
parole to me,) apropos of the projected rail-road to the Rhine,
that the objections made to the port of Ostend as one of its ter-
mini, had not been answered, and, therefore, were believed. Yet
you know, said the King with a significant look, that the press
is free, and very free. Mr. S. tells me, at Ghent the Orangists
did all they could to insult and mortify Leopold. Thus, they
hired the boxes at the theatre in front of the royal box, and left
them vacant. On pretence of presenting him a petition, some
one forced upon him a number of a paper filled with abuse of
him and the queen, etc., etc. But, at Ostend and other towns,
he found some compensation for these outrages. Apropos of
this, — driving out this evening, Mr. Seymour, whom I took up,
tells me that Capt. La Goletterie, (officier d'ordonnance,) a French
officer of our acquaintance, whom I met last night at the Frekes',
had fought a duel yesterday morning with some malcontent
here, in consequence of his hissing (the said patriot) at a seren-
ade offered to His Majesty on his return, by the Societe de la
Grande Harmonic The worthy siffleur was not favored by
fortune, having been very dangerously wounded in the body.

Spend the evening at Mr. Seymour's. While I am there, a
loud peal of thunder (for this climate) announces the much
vol. i. — 2

10 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

desired probability or approach of rain, of which, indeed, a few
scattered drops do fall, but far too few to correct the dusty-
drought.

ISth May. Dinner yesterday restored me a good^eal. Take
a warm bath — the second this season — at 2 o'clock, and remain
in it half an hour. Dismiss my fille-de-quartier, — mistress, it
seems, of Mr. Ferrari, my valet-de-chambre, who does not choose
that she shall be at too much pains to put the house to rights,
and kicks up a tremendous row because the other servant will
not put down the stair-case carpet until the stairs are washed
clean. He ought to be sent off with her, and shall soon follow
her, if he continue to mistake the valet for the roi here.

19 th May — Sunday. Feel almost well to-day. Walk in the
park before breakfast ; the fresh verdure of the foliage, the re-
treat, the stillness, broken by the voices of numberless birds, —
all delightful.

Bring up this journal to the present date. Write to the Min-
ister of Foreign Affairs on the subject of the Ostend consulship,
and the "style" proper to be used in addressing letters of notifi-
cation to the President of the United States ; (they have gener-
ally kept up that of the old confederation, to "the President and
Congress", which is obviously wrong). Read (my habit of a
Sunday) Bossuet's variations des Eglises Protestantes. He
passes over Cranmer, Somerset & Co., with tremendous force :
all the subtlety of controversial dialectics, combined with strong
downright sense, the sincerity and earnestness of deep convic-
tion, and the severe, masculine, sublime simplicity of style, for
which that great master is remarkable. His summing up of
Cranmer's character and conduct is inimitably well done.

Sally forth en voiture, and make some calls. Dine at 6, and
take an airing, after dinner, to my favorite resort in the forest, —
the sweet remnant of the haunted Ardennes. My head was
particularly full of "As you like it," etc, this evening. Return
at half-past 8.

Take a walk : meet Mr. Seymour and his charming daughter,
Emily ; invited to go home with them ; do so. Look again at
her admirable sketches. One of the Last Supper, and another
of a Prince of Orange at the head of a troop of horse, struck
me as displaying talent of a very high order. All good, how-
ever, and as I looked alternately at these master -pieces of art,
and at the fair creature who executed them, (she is little more
than 18 now,) *****

While I am there Gen. Des Prez comes in, telling them I had
informed him they were usually at home on Sunday evenings.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 11

20th May. Resume Greek; read half the 4th book of the
Odyssey before breakfast. Take a short walk ; find myself
quite well. Weather very cool ; too much so for me to venture
to bathe. About 1, the Minister of Foreign Affairs calls, and
begs me to furnish him a copy of the treaty lately negotiated at
Washington, by and between Mr. Livingston and the Belgian
envoy, Mr. Behr ; the one sent him by the latter not having
come to hand. Tell him that explains what had puzzled me
very much hitherto : viz., the profound silence about it, and,
indeed, the ignorance in which Mr. Lebeau, Minister of Justice,
was, as late as the last time I met him at Court.

Speak of the elections. Mr. Goblet thinks himself and Mr.
Le Hon, (now Minister at Paris.) in some danger at Tournay —
the Catholics of that city being the exaltes and in opposition. I
ask him how exaltes. He answers, by republican ideas. I ex-
press (what I felt) my surprise at this, having hitherto supposed
that most of the soi-disant democrats here were fifth-monarchy-
men, or libertines in politics, religion and morals, or, lastly,
Orange-men and contre-revolutionaires in disguise. I think,
with some few exceptions among theoretical men, especially
German and other students and professors, such is a pretty exact
description of the republican party all over Europe, for whom, I
confess, I have no great respect.

Visit two or three book-shops, inquiring after St. Croix, Daru,
Meyer's Judicial Institutions, Savigny and Hugo. Get none of
them. At the Jew's Summerhauzen, taken with a new edition
of the Institutes, that is, of the Corpus Juris, of which the first
livraison only is published ; good edition in quarto, with copious
notes, containing the concordance of the law.

Take a long drive in the evening, going round the Boulevard,
and thence by cross roads to the gate of Anderlecht. View of
Brussels still better than the one mentioned above. Weather
delighful. At night, the whole air filled with the musical chorus
of frogs, which I mistook for birds !

Invitation to dine, on the 28th of this month, with the British
minister, it being H. B. Majesty's birth-day ; and so we are to
dine in their horrid straight-jackets, called court-dress.

2lst May. Read the Odyssey, on waking, etc. Day passed
as usual. No event. At 7, take a drive, and more than ever
charmed with the beauty of the earth, and the brightness and
sweet temperature of the heavens. Pass the voiture of Madame
la Contesse de Merode (Henri), who stops to walk through a
by-path, leading along a wood of Mr. Mosselman's, on the cote,
out of the Porte de Hal. Asks me how I like their country.
Tell them excessively, and that I often visit these enchanted

12 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

solitudes. Think this the prettiest drive of all. Not dark until
half-past 9, and a new moon promises still sweeter evenings.

22d May. Write to Mr. Patterson, consul at Antwerp. Re,
ceive a note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Invited to
dine at Court to-morrow. Go to Summerhauzen's libraire : gives
me the card of a teacher of German. Dine at Prince Auguste's.
Meet there Sir Robt. Adair and his new attache, Mr. Des Voeux,

(whom I had not seen before,) M. de Baillet, M. de , Percy

Doyle, attache to the English legation, Lady Win. Paget, (look-
ing very pretty), and her mother, Lady de Rottenburg, M. Pe-
rier, — afterwards, (the Prince, who is usually exact to a minute,
was becoming impatient,) the Earl and Countess of Stanhope
come in. At dinner, Mr. Des Voeux is beside me. Talkative
and amiable ; has been in Germany, and learned its language
and literature ; is rather scholastic. In the course of conversa-
tion, tells me we are making in America a new experiment, —
viz : a republic without slaves. I ask him, if he has ever seen
that idea in print. He says not, and that it has just occurred to
him. I reply that my reason for asking was that I had often
and often reflected on it in all its bearings, and but lately had a
long conversation upon it with an intelligent and interesting
young Polish exile, Count Zamoiska, (nephew of Prince Czar-
torisky,) and I had often wondered that no one had ever (to my
knowledge) dwelt upon and developed it, among the thousand
and one speculations which these later times have produced in
what is called political philosophy. Seems struck with what I
say. After dinner, the Prince's Savoyard pensioners play and
dance in the street, which draws us all to the window. While
I am there, the Prince brings Lord Stanhope to me and intro-
duces him. Long conversation on politics ; not knowing his
politics, my share of it rather political, — that is to say, with a
double aspect. The Prince at length (in his way) conies up with
his hat on. I ask him if he is going to the theatre, (of which
he is a constant attendant.) Answers negatively, for they give
Hamlet in English, which is Greek to him. Says he is going
to "carry off" (enlever) Lady Stanhope. What will you do, says
he to my lord. On some indecisive answer being given, I pro-
pose to his lordship to take a drive with me, which he agrees to.
Go to the Allee Verte, and thence round the Chateau of Lacken.
Find him extremely talkative, — engrossed with the politics of
England, whose situation he thinks imminently, nay desperately,
perilous. Soon find out he is neither whig nor tori/, (mistake :
he was an ultra tory, turned jacobin, verbo tenus, from despite,)
but a believer in an approaching English republic, and a root
and branch reformer, bien entendu, however, after his own

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 13

fashion. On my suggesting that the financial difficulties of
England were rather embarrassing in a moral than a material
(French sense) point of view, and that spunging half the national
debt, if it were excused by an over-ruling necessity, would not
be fatal to her prosperity, he dissents, and lets me into his sys-
tem (for he is an homme a systeme). This is to increase the
circulating medium. I tell him that the only difference between
his plan and mine is that I candidly confiscate half the capital,
and he secretly destroys its value to the same amount, by paying
the interest in a nominal instead of a real value. He answers
that if there is plenty of money there will be plenty of work,
and the operatives will have something more innocent to occupy
them than schemes, as Gil Bias' heroes express it, of living at
the expense of their neighbors without their consent, — whereas
to destroy the capital in any way would augment the distress.
He has written about it, and had conversations and correspond-
ence with Mr. Attwood of Birmingham, and so there is no hope
of him.

Finding him talkative, I do all I can to bring him out fully,
and succeed. After taking a very long drive, I ask him if he
wishes to be set down any where particularly. Tells me no,
and asks me if I am engaged. Answer no, and add that I should
be glad he would go in with me to my house, — which he does,
and remains until 10 o'clock. I had, thus, a conversation of
three hours with him, which was very interesting to me, for it
consisted of a collection of curious little reminiscences and anec-
dotes,— the tittle-tattle of high English circles, — which I have
never had so good an opportunity of hearing.

He tells me Lord Grey is troubled ever and anon with a
fearful vision, — like Macbeth's dagger and Banquo's ghost. He
sees the decollated head of Brissot, (horresco referens,) with
gouts of blood dropping from it, as if warm from the knife of
the guillotine. The first time this horrible phantom presented
itself to him, it seems, was when he was making a speech on
the Reform Bill. He was heard by some near him to say, there it
is ! then burst into tears, and sat down. The fear of encountering
this phantom has made him change his position in the house of
lords, cover his eyes with his hands, etc., etc. I tell him, it is
downright monomania, and wonder I had never heard of it be-
fore. Was it never put into the papers, where every thing goes
in these times ? He says it was ; but why was it not circulated 1

Lord Grey, he thinks, (and says both Wellington and Talley-
rand say so, too.) is a good speaker, but not an able statesman ;
and that he heard a grave man, and a man of substance, who
had backed him in the reform, say, recently, that his Premier-
ship would soon be the most unpopular man in England, and
that he would end at the lamp-post !

14 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

Lord Carnaervon (lately deceased) told Lord Grey, in a speech
full of power, that he would be the Neckar of the Revolution,
unless he became its Robespierre.

By way of illustrating the panic that prevails in England at
present, tells me that Lord Hertford, one of the richest men in
the kingdom, whom I met at Court here, six months ago, on his
way to Naples, foreseeing the storm, had invested £500,000 in
American stocks, and bought a Palazzo at Naples, and, it is
said, never means to return to England. Lord S. himself assures
me, he does not think a revolution six months off, and that they
will attempt to set up a republic. The present set, he says, are
losing all their popularity, and must be succeeded by radicals ;
for Wellington positively refuses to come in. I ask him what
the Duke thinks of the situation of the country. As ill as pos-
sible, says he ; and, to another question of mine, he replies that
Wellington's opinion is founded not on the character of the ad-
ministration, but of the crisis.

Lord Grey, he tells me, in spite, or, perhaps, in consequence,
of the above-mentioned vision "of the gory locks", (raw head
and bloody bones,) is making himself very ridiculous with the
women, to whom he indites sonnets and billets-doux, at the age
of three-score and thirteen or so ! One of the latter he addressed
to Lady Lyndhurst, who threatens to publish !

Remarks that the conduct of the King, in regard to the Re-
form bill, was as weak and insincere as that of the King of
France in relation to the Constitution ; and his practices with
the Tory party of a piece, in all respects, with the flight to Va-
rennes. Says he is a very impracticable, foolish man ; not at
all sensible of the state of things in England until lately, but
now frightened ; but refuses to hear officious advice, because he
feels bound to be bound by official. Tells me that, some time
ago, one of the royal bastards (Lord Frederick, I think) laid a
wager there would be a republic in three years. He (Lord S.)
had told another, whom he frequently sees at Club, that his
royal papa had done a foolish thing to alienate from himself the
affections of the people of Hanover, for now he would have no
refuge when he should have to fly — as fly he must, or run —
["and they that run, and they that fly, must end where they be-
gan", L.]— from republican England. The king lately had the
mortification to see two professed republicans elected under his
very nose at Brighton, and, that his "disgrace might want no
brightening and burnishing''', elected over two naval candi-
dates, whom ureform Bill" wanted to get in, as he always sticks
to the button. Another thing shocked the nerves of his majesty :
a head, not unreal, like Lord Grey's Brissot, but a hard, bond
fide English cranium, unceremoniously thrust into the window
of the royal carriage, with the ominous interrogatory issuing

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 15

from its mouth, "What are you doing here ? get about your busi-
ness, and give way to the Duke of Sussex/' The Duke of
Glo'ster is an acknowledged fool : they call him Silly Billy.
When the king was going down to dissolve the Parliament, he
was in such a hurry to do it, that he said if they did not get a
state-carriage ready in time, he would go in a hack. However,
he was not reduced to this unseemly necessity ; but as he was
going off, Glo'ster, who was looking out of a window in the
palace, cries out, "Who is Silly Billy now?"

After we got to my house, (which my guest admired, comme
de raison,) I thought it time to be not semper auditor ; but still
contrived what I said so as to get all I could out of his lordship.
I ought to add, that he has been a great deal in all parts of Ger-
many, which he likes very much, and which he represents as
being all instinct with the elements of convulsion. Says he
knows Metternich wrote a letter to somebody (perhaps the am-
bassador) in England, full of the gloomiest forebodings ; and
apropos of forebodings and ambassadors, H. M. Reform Bill,
speaking, one day, with the Russian minister, of the state of affairs
in Turkey, remarked, with great pomp, "Yes, it must be owned,
the Sultan is in a most critical situation." "I wish," rejoined
the diplomate, "he were the only sovereign in Europe that was."
At the which the other made rather a wry face.

To some remark of mine on the disposition of revolutions
(Saiurnia regna, with a vengeance) to eat up their own child-
ren, [Ney, Vergniaud,] as Danton, on his way to the guillotine,
expressed it ; he said it was strikingly illustrated by the Cato-
street conspiracy. "Who do you suppose were to be the second
class of victims?" Hunt, Cobbet, Cartwright & Co.; the very
men who hoped to profit most by a revolution, and, therefore,
were marked out as stumbling-blocks to be removed by their
understrappers. This, his lordship said, he knew from a secret
but perfectly unquestionable source, and thinking it might cool
Gobbet's ardor to inform him of it, he had done so through a
third person ; but the reformer only answered, he knew the peril
and was willing to encounter it. Occidat dum regnet.

I begin to think seriously of the times ; the wax lights burn
blue, as from a ghost story, — and it comes to that. For prophe-
cies are repeated, and, among the rest, those of old Nixon, (not
Nick,) who lived under Harry 8th, or thereabouts, — which are
very strange. These said dark sayings were committed to a
book, now in the possession of a great house, which treats them
as the disinterred relic of Numa was treated at Rome, — they are
deposited in a chest and walled up ; but they were formerly
better known, and some fragments of their Delphic import are
still remembered.

It is 10 o'clock at night. Lord Stanhope, perceiving a thief

16 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

in one of the lights, gets up and takes it out. He then takes his
leave, shaking me by the hand, and expressing his happiness at
having this opportunity to converse with me.

When he is gone, I say to myself, you must be the brother (of
the whole blood) of the eccentric Lady Esther Stanhope ; and
are, doubtless, a little "cracked", north-north-west or so. Yet it
may be as the German author has it, mad but wise, for he is
decidedly clever.

23d May. Rise as usual. Weather delicious. While I am
writing my notes of yesterday's conversation, my servant an-
nounces Earl Stanhope. Shows him up to the salon, where 1
soon present myself in slippers, etc. Asks me if I have heard,
by the courier to-day, what was the verdict of the inquest touch-
ing the killing of a police officer or two, in a late row at Cold-
Bath-Fields, of which we had spoken the day before ; (I had
laid immense stress on the result of the proceeding). I tell him
no (; but, by the evening papers of to-day, find that the jury
thought the homicide excusable, or, as they express it, justifiable).
Talks again of the fearful state of England; thinks the present
race of Englishmen effeminate, may-be owing to vaccination —
de-Jenner-ated. This he said in reference to Lord Valletort,
whose deplorable ill-health I mentioned as especially so, consid-
ering the beauty of his young wife. He is a stupid fellow, says
Lord S., and like the rest of them, as weak in body as in mind,
blase, etc. He was one of those whose family interest gave him
a seat in Parliament, but whom the Reform Bill ferreted ow^and
sent upon their travels. As to Reform, of which we had spoken
very often, I don't exactly know what my guest now thinks. He
voted for it, but when I told him it always struck me, and, in-
deed, all thinking men in America, as a complete revolution, and
Lord Grey's threat of creating sixty peers to carry it, as a glaring
abuse of the prerogative, and a death-blow to one of the nominal
estates of the realm, he fully assented. But this all the English
I have met with do, — Sir Robert Adair, the whig par excellence
included, — and Lord Stanhope told me he was of neither party.
I shall refer this difficulty to Sir Robert, the first time I see him.
This by-the-bye. I point to Sir J. C. Hobhouse's defeat as con-
clusive, and a most remarkable exemplification of the change,
and tell them that this very month, perhaps day, last year, I
had a conversation to the same effect with the brother of Sir
John, whom I met with in Carolina. At that time I did not
exactly foresee the speedy execution of the poetical justice, by
which the rather demagogic member for Westminster was des-
tined (like some other inventors of instruments to promote the
commonweal) to be the very first victim of his own arts. Yes,
says he, and that is so true, that to this day the ministry can get

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 17

no member of the Commons to accept the vacant Secretaryship
of Ireland, for fear of not being re-elected by the constituency
he has created !! And yet this total alteration of the whole frame
of ministerial power and proceeding is only a reform !

Tells me he is struck with my (or rather Bacon's) remark,
yesterday, about the rebellions of the belly being the worst. He
has seen, before, tremendous excitements in England, but, not
being prompted by the malesuada fames, — so persuasive, in-
deed, that, where it has once established itself, the proverb tells
us, the empty premises, thus occupied, have no ear for any thing
else, — they passed away like the effects of a drinking bout.
Look at the trial of the queen, for instance, — what an uproar,
and yet, soon after, her backers were the jest and scorn of lam-
pooners and caricaturists. I remark that the juncture, just after
the glorious peace, when a momentary reaction against revolu-
tions made kings really great men, etc., etc., was very different
from this era of Jacobinical scepticism, irreverence and audacity.

After a conversation of three quarters of an hour, (in which
I talked a good deal, and especially about the importance of the
verdict on the unfortunate affair of the Cold-Bath-Fields,) Lord
Stanhope takes his leave. I ask him if I shall see him at Court
to-day. Replies in the negative ; as he leaves Brussels to-morrow,
had not taken any means to inform the Court of his and Lady
S's. arrival.

Not long after he is gone, comes in Lt. Col. Jeffreys, or Jeffers,
a West-India proprietor, who had called on me repeatedly before,
to attest powers of attorney, etc. Tells me he is come, this
time, to take some renseignemens about the United States, to
which he has made up his mind to emigrate. That he has no
hope of Europe, and, as a West-Indian, very little feeling of
amor patriot for England. We talk of the state of things in
that kingdom. Confirms the gloomy representation of Lord
Stanhope (, who told me it was the hardest thing in the world to
let a farm in his part of England, and that he expected soon that
the middling classes would refuse to pay taxes, and let their
property be seized, in the confident expectation that nobody
would buy it). Instances it in a friend of his, — a country gen-
tleman, whose rent-roll, ten years ago, was £16,000 a year, fox-
hunter, etc., — that he has lately written to him to beg him, if he
go to America, to let him know, for he, too, is in great terror, and
would fain save a tabula in naufragio. Col. Jeffers tells me,
besides his West-India cidevant property, he can scrape together
23 or £24,000, of which a good deal is in American stocks now.
I lend him a number of the Southern Review, containing an
article on Flint's Yalley of the Mississippi ; and advise him not
to be in too great a hurry to lay out his capital and establish his
vol. i. — 3

18 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

family, after he shall arrive in the United States. Advise him,
by all means to go ; that it is the only country which has an
ave?iir, and the world might well be divided thus, — Europe for
bachelors and their suite ; America for family men and theirs.

Not a. — Tells me Mr. Wilberforce had a West-Tndia estate
which he sold, — that he might, with washed hands, attack the
title he had transferred to some less cunning, but, at the same
time, J suppose, less holy purchaser.

By-the-bye, I had talked much to Lord Stanhope, this morning,
about the humbug of that question, which I am satisfied has
been, in all its bearings, most superficially considered by our
modern philosophers. I was touching upon the subject, the other
day, in a conversation with the Count de Robiano, who told me
the same views were now in a course of expounding by a French
professor, whose pamphlets he has sent me (two) as they came
out. His name is De Koux, or something like that, for I attended
more to the book than its cover.

Dine at Court. Take Mr. and Mrs. Seymour there in my
carriage. None of the corps diplomatique but M. Perier and
myself. His S. H. the Prince de Reuss Lobenstein and the
Duke d'Arenberg dine there ; also, Lady Hastings, with Lady
Flora and Lady Selina, who come in later after the Majesties.
Grand-Marshal tells me to give my arm to Lady Flora : did he
know what an inexpressible favor he was doing me l Helas !
I placed her beside me, by way of a return for his kindness, and
never was I happier at a dinner party than I was at this, — enjoy-
ing, as I did, the charming conversation of this beau-ideal of a
high-born, accomplished and most amiable English lady. Tell
her I have heard the nightingale, and been disappointed, — sings
certainly with sweetness and at a witching time, — but, when I
heard him first, I had my imagination excited by the whole in-
spired tribe, especially Milton and Sophocles, (CEdipus Coloneus,)
and so the reality was, or seemed, a failure. I told her the
mocking-bird (I call him the "Rossini of birds", for the royal
band were at that moment performing a beautiful piece from
William Tell,) sings with an infinitely more brilliant and abun-
dant music, through many a winding bout of linked sweetness,
etc., etc. Talked, also, of Bryant's poetry, — another wild-bird
of my country, — whose touching natural notes had awakened
her pure sensibilities, and won her precious admiration, and, 1
suppose, love, — for do women ever admire without more or less
of love l

Her majesty looking extremely well, and promising a speedy
accession to the royal house. After dinner, approach the circle
of ladies. The Duchess d'Arenberg (very pregnant also, and,
therefore, happy, for there never was a creature more devoted to
her offspring,) on the right, and the Marchioness of Hastings on

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 19

the left of the queen. Speak to H. M. Tell her I have received
a letter from Mrs. Rives, begging me to express the high gratifi-
cation it gave her to be remembered, with so much kindness, by
H. M. The queen seems very much pleased, and tells me not
to fail to communicate her satisfaction to Mrs. R. I add, as a
proof of Mrs. R's. affectionate remembrance of H. M., that she
had named her only daughter, an infant, (of whose svjeet blue
eyes, I say par parenthese, she speaks with all the fond rapture
of a mother,) Amelie- Louise. Yes, said EL M.; my mother wrote
me word to that effect, and I am told the child resembles me.
Conversation becomes more general, and I give way to M. Perier.
Talk with Lady Hastings. Thanks me for the fine flowers I
sent her the other day out of my pretty little garden, etc., etc.
In the course of the conversation, I mention that Lord Stanhope
has been a good deal with me, and given me a fearful account
of the state of things in England ; that he seemed to think a
revolution inevitable and impending. He is not by any means
singular in that opinion, said she ; I was thinking of buying a
house in town, and a person of cool, sober judgment in affairs,
advised me to wait for events, etc., etc. By the way, Lord Stan-
hope mentioned, to shew how distressed people were in England,
and, in consequence, how the expensive pleasures of London
were beginning to be shunned, that some tradesman informed
him he had, on a single article, of no sort of importance, (I for-
get what,) sold £600 less than last year. Letter from Harry
Cruger, and some newspapers.

Bad news from the Electoral College. The Minister of For-
eign Affairs (Goblet) beaten at Courtrai ; the Minister of Justice
(Lebeau) at Hay. En revanche, Holland has agreed to an in-
definite armistice, and the provisional liberty of the rivers.

2£ih May. Nothing remarkable ; stretched off on a sofa to-
day in the salle-a-manger, while my valet-de-charnbre reads to
me the preface and Erminier's Philosophy of Law ; and a sooth-
ing air breathing all the sweets of my little garden, and whis-
pering in my ear where he stole them. I determined to let my
friends in America know how well I am learning to do without
them, and to paint in the most glowing colors the charms of the
elegant epicurean existence I am leading here.

25th May. Invited this morning to dine with Prince Auguste
at half-past 4. What can that mean ? Go there at the appoint-
ed hour, and see nobody there but the Marquis de Jumelle. Af-
terwards Percy Doyle comes in. Prince tells me we shall be
en petit comite, and he had invited us early to have the pleasure
of a longer conversation. Soon after the Seymours come in, —
Emily looking beautifully. The Prince shows her the new

20 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

catalogue which he has had printed of his very fine collection
of paintings. Her name is there, for the Little Savoyard, — her
first essay in oil. and a very remarkable performance as such.
Dinner lasts only an hour. After it, Mr. Seymour asks the Prince
to let him see "the letter of Madame de Stael." I ask, what
letter? We are told where to find it in the cabinet de livres. I
follow the Seymours through a suite of rooms into the said cabi-
net, which 1 find most admirably contrived for study, — silent,
sequestered, spacious, having a single window, which looks over
a plot of green turf upon the Boulevard near my house, and
perfectly well lighted from above. The letter of Mad. de Stael,
sealed to, I forget what book, — her own Germany, perhaps, — is
produced and deciphered, sometimes one of us, sometimes ano-
ther, finding out the word. It is dated at Vienna, and is full of
gratitude to the Prince for the kind attentions he had shown a
poor exiled, wandering woman. It is well turned, — not remark-
able,— even the hand-writing, though obscure enough, not de-
cided. After we return to the salon, the Prince asks me if I read
the inscription upon the door of his cabinet. Having answered
negatively, I am requested to do so. I go, and find four very
well-turned French verses, as follows I think:

Ici je suis seul, sans etre solitaire,

Et toujours orcnpe' sans jamais rifcn faire

******

* * * et je commande en roi.

The Prince expresses a wish to become acquainted with Lady
Hastings, and requests his reigning favorite, (when Hamilton is
not there,) Emily Seymour, to menager an opportunity for him,
though, he adds, I am almost afraid to offer my modest hospi-
tality to one accustomed to so much magnificence. After dinner
we all drive in the Alice Verte.

26th May, — Sunday. Determine to attend divine service, to-
day, at Mr. Drury's church, where I have a pew, which, on
account of the extreme uncomfortableness of the building, 1
have not visited for some months. Beadle's wife not there ; a
little girl asks me if I want a seat. Tell her I have one, and
follow two persons, who, to my astonishment, are shown into
my pew, where a stout unknown is already installed. Church
very full. I am horrified, and tell the child the mischief she
has done. Retreat precipitately, and, declining her offer to place
me elsewhere, return home. As I pass, get a bundle of Wash-
ington papers at the British embassy, brought from the charge*
oVaffaires at London, by the courier of to-day. Nothing but
trash. While I am writing these lines, Mr. Drury is announced.
Makes a thousand apologies for the contretemps, which he ex-
plains by the lying-in of the beadle's wife. I tell him I deserved

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 21

it for my long course of sins of omission, — prescription had
fairly run against me. Says he saw me, but as he was reading
prayers there was no help for it, — though Dr. Parr used, in simi-
lar circumstances, to call out, "John, show the gentleman into
No. 7 or 10," etc. But tie, says Mr. D., was called bishop, — a
title which he declined as insufficient, saying-, "They say I am a
bithshop, (he lisped,) but by God ! I am a pope /" Mr. D. says
they (those who live on what others spend, the ^oXXoi) are de-
lighted with the news of the preliminary treaty just signed at
liOndon, and announced in the papers of to-day. (Sunday, tho',
remark, it being the festival of Pentecost, we shall have no
journals to-morrow.) Talks a good deal of the old Court, — the
popular (almost too popular) manners of the Prince of Orange,
contrasted with the cold and rather sombre gravity of the pre-
sent king, who, he says, was very unpopular in England. I
ask, on account of his reputed stinginess? O yes, says Mr. D.,
they tell all sorts of stories about his selling his rabbits, etc., etc.
Thinks his popularity here hurt, by having two men so odious
as Count d'Aerschot (Grand Marshal) and Marquis de Chateler
(Grand Equerry) about him. I mention that the Court is more
stately by far than that of Prance. He says it is, then, striking-
ly contrasted with that of William IV., {Reform Bill,) whom he
describes as having introduced the freedom of the navy into the
palace. But, say I, he goes too far the other way ; he is always
saying something foolish and ludicrous, — and I was going to
mention what Lord S. told me, that, at a late Court dinner, the
American minister being present, he proposed as a toast Wash-
ington (as the first of men), adding, I wish I myself had been
born in America, — and so, said Lord S., do many ol his subjects !!
Find myself embarrassed with an odd difficulty. When Mr.
Davezac was here, he told me he wished to present to me a cer-
tain quidam, whom he described as a correspondent of the
newspapers. God forbid, said I, — the last acquaintance in this
world I should like to make. And there, as I thought, was an
end of the matter. But when are sinners safe ! Yesterday, a

card is sent me with this inscription : "Mr. rp##*#****^ me

de la regence, No. 2S, (de la part de M. Davezac)." I ask my
footman who brought it. The person had delivered it and in-
stantly retreated. I thought it might be some young American,
for some of them have sent me their cards en passant, — God
knows with what secret purpose of their own. However, I am
puzzled by the address, there being no public diversorium, to
my knowledge, in the Rue de la Regence. I ask Mr. Seymour,
at dinner, if he knows of any such person among the English
here. No. On my return home, my valet-de-chambre hands
me a bundle of New- York newspapers, which I open, when out
falls a note. I open, read and identify the writer, Mr. t##**_

DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

as the person mentioned by Mr. Davezac, and the very
scribbler, signing himself X. Y. Z., in the New- York Courier and
Enquirer, whose false representation of things, and, especially,
whose exorbitant passion for turning mole-hills into mountains,
I thought I had remarked before. He tells me Mr. D. was good
enough to say he had mentioned his name to me (though he
does not say that Mr. D. had mentioned my name to him) ; that
Mr. D., when the said newsmonger was at the Hague, had fur-
nished him with several valuable hints for the performance of
his "professional duty"! as a correspondent of a New- York and
London journals — (the Times). This I took to be a very broad
hint (and valuable, too, in its way) ; that he desired me to serve
him in the same way here, which, considering the perfect confi-
dence with which SirR. Adair communicates to me every thing
known to him in a diplomatic way, would be very good of me,
to be sure. Having dropped this significant insinuation, the
accident-maker proceeds to say he has just received a file of
New- York newspapers, (which he begs to place at my disposal,)
and that that incident had reminded him of the (solemn) "prom
ise" [duty again] he had made Mr. D. to become acquainted with
me as soon as possible, — which is paying me a high compliment,
I trow. He concludes by asking me whether, should I be in-
formed of Mr. D's. arrival at Naples, I would not let him know
of it, for which he has the honor to be my most obedient ser-
vant. Je suis votre valet, as they say in the French farces. I
happen not to be a blancbec, thought I. Having travelled much
when very young, I have the caution which that experience
never fails to give ; and, "of all men, else, I have avoided thee,"
anonymous hireling, whose line-paid lies serve no purpose in
the world but to feed vulgar malignity with false ideas of the
weakness and misery of its betters, and with hopes, destined
never to be fulfilled, of revolutions in its own favor. And yet
this accursed race of Thersites', who should be abhorred both of
gods and men, are sure to make up to an American in Europe,
and have too much reason to do so, — just as if. because we live
under and prefer a different form of government, we had de-
clared war, like so many Barbary pirates, against all the laws,
usages, property and establishments — and, with that, against all
the honor and decency — of the civilized world ; and could find
no society to suit us, but — the "fit audience, though few" — the
refuse of all the world besides. Still, it won't do to offend men
who think their impertinences civility, and mean them as such,
and a newspaper editor and news-maker, above all, — for there is
not a more fearful wild-fowl living, — Lupum auribus teneo.
So, as this varlet is come for diplomacy, give it to him ; which
I accordingly do in a letter, exactly adjusted to his, so as to bind
myself solemnly to have the pleasure of informing him, should

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 23

I happen to hear of Mr. Davezac's arrival, (which, however, I
add, is by no means probable,) and to acknowledge the liveliest
gratitude for his favor in sending the papers, which, without
taking his hint about "hints", I send back to him, only enough
read to see several pieces dated at "the Hague", and signed X.
Y. Z. By the way, what is become of that great prophet, O.
P. Q,.? who, because Charles X. fell according to his predictions,
turned his face towards Neuilly and prophecied again ; but
helas ! the row of June 6th came and is gone, and there sits
Louis- Philippe still, and there he will sit, like Theseus in Virgil's
hell. Sedet in aeternum.

Very cold for the season. Mr. Seymour goes out with me at
7, en caliche. On our return we are glad to sit by a fire.

27th May. Before I am out of my bed-room, my footman
hands me a letter and a printed roll of papers. The address of
the letter authorises it to be opened by my "Secretary", if I am
not there. What the deuce means this impatience ? I break
the seal, and see nothing but a letter for Mr. T********, "Corres-
pondent of the Times", and a line giving me to understand that
this draft on me for a florin in postage had been made by a
"friend of Mr. Davezac", and, I suppose, of liberal principles.
A specimen this of their way of confounding meum and tuum,
which confusion is undoubtedly at the bottom of most of the
Reforms noAv in contemplation, — St. Simonianism dressed en
bourgeois. Enclose it, and send it en blanc. By-the-bye, this
reminds me of a certain "Sir Arthur Brooke Falconer", that sent
me a letter once to be forwarded to Mr. Davezac. I did forward
it, and, in the fulness of time, was favored with a call by this
knight, (who looked so confoundedly like a Chevalier of the
most noble and universal order of Industrie, that I did not trou-
ble him to sit down,) inquiring with a touching parental solici-
tude after the fate of his offspring. I told him I had sent it by
the courier of the English embassy to the American legation at
London, to be forwarded to its address, all direct communication
having been cut off. He "Excellency'd" me up to the skies, and
apologized for troubling me, but gave me to understand it would
not do for him (who, albeit unheard of by me, he signified, was
not unknown or unobserved in these parts) to be known to be
corresponding with any one, — that he was tres lie with Mr. Da-
vezac, with whom he concurred in political sentiment, etc., etc.
He bored me to death with the same inquiry afterwards, but as
he got nothing but a dry negative every time he rang, his at-
tacks gradually became less frequent, and, at length, died away.
One day I asked Sir Henry Seton if he knew any thing of a
brother in chivalry of the name of Sir Arthur Brooke Fal-co-
nere. "What," said Sir Robert Adair, "has that fellow been at

24 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

you too ?" Wherefore Sir Henry tells me he too has a "profes-
sional duty'' to perform, — to wit, that of a book-making traveller;
that he has already published something about this country and
Holland; that, living here when the Court was less fastidious,
and being supposed better than he was, lie had been invited to
dine there ; that he presented himself in the oddest costume
imaginable, pea-green coat, yellow breeches, etc., with a thun-
dering bow of crape on his right arm (the Court being in mourn-
ing) ; that, hearing the Grand-Marshal had taken great offence
at his fancy toilette, he had written a letter expressing his aston-
ishment that Count d'Aerschot should think that unbecoming,
which appeared to him, the said Sir A. B. F., so particularly
well suited to the occasion ; that, among other things in his book,
he had mentioned the royal table as being very well indeed, for
a bachelor's board !! etc., etc.

Tell my valet- de-chambre, when he comes to shave me this
morning, that I am very much dissatisfied with him, and, in
short, that I must make another arrangement. He begs I will
not dismiss him in disgrace. I tell him he shall still shave me
and read to me the newspapers and Spanish. He seems quite
satisfied.

Go out en voiture at 3. Stop at Summer hauzerfs. Go thence
to the fair in the Grande-Place. Get down and walk among the
booths, full of trumpery. Stop at a stall ; cheapen some books —
Madame de Deffand's Letters to Horace Walpole. He asks 1 5
francs ; I offer 5 florins, and get them.

Drive in the Alice Verte in the evening. Still cold and glad
to get back — enrhume. Go to bed at 3-4 past 10.

Opened this morning a German grammar, and -got some idea
of the pronunciation and characters. Don't think it will be dif-
ficult for me.

28th May. Col. Jeffries, the West-Indian, comes in. Returns
the Southern Review (No. 3) and American newspapers I lent
him. Says he is charmed with the opportunity of reading these :
is all agog about America. Talks about the emancipation bill,
etc., etc. As he is going out, Mr. Irving, cousin of Beaufain,
comes in. He had sent me, the day before, the ministerial projet
and voluminous minutes of proceedings between H. M.'s gov-
ernment and the West-India body. Says the plan of Mr. Stanley
is too absurd for discussion, and will not be acceded to by the
Jamaica legislature, of which he has himself been a member.
But, I ask, what can they do ? Declare themselves independent,
says he. How long can they stand by themselves? Not at all,
says he ; they will immediately pass a universal, unqualified
emancipation bill themselves. Then what will they gain ? They
will not be obliged to pay their English debts, which the in-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 40

demnity will be wholly insufficient to cover. Indeed, the min-
istry (who, having belied all their professions and disappointed
every hope which the people had conceived from the adoption
of Parliamentary Reform, are very ready to throw the West-
India interest, properly so called, overboard, [vile damnum,] as
a tub to the whale) have just allowed what they imagine will
satisfy the mortgages. They rate each slave at about £20, and
give nothing at all for the land, of which the act destroys totally
the value, and all the fixed capital that perishes with it in those
expensive establishments. I tell him that, from the cursory
glance I have cast over the projet, it seems to be a plan for turn-
ing the West-India planters into so many compulsory school-
masters for civilizing the negroes, whom, meanwhile, they are
bound to feed and clothe at their own risk and peril, in a country
which is everlastingly beset by famine. He observes that some
years ago the planters would have accepted almost any terms,
for the glut in the market and low prices had made their estates
a mere burthen ; but that, of late, things have been visibly
mending, and that, owing to the cessation of the slave trade,
they promise to be still better. In short, they now yield a very
good income. (Col. Barclay, here, told me, some time ago, that
in which he was interested gave him £7000 last year net.) We
then speak of the state of things in Charleston and the Southern
States generally ; mentions that Mrs. Jacob Irving (Beaufain's
mother) had written to Mr. Simpson, of the house of Davidson
& Simpson in London, a horrid account of the condition to
which the fury of faction had reduced society in South-Carolina;
that every body that could get away was leaving the State ; that
she intended to go soon to New- York, and advised her son Ja-
cob by no means to go over thither, as he had purposed doing.
En quo discordia cives perduxit, miseros. I told him it was
just such a picture as my imagination had sketched for itself,
and was, I feared, but too exact.

His West-India plan of independence reminds me of the sui-
cides so frequent under the reign of Tiberius, by which gentle-
men, who foresaw that they were destined soon to be victims of
the tyrant's vengeance, escaped from an ignominious end, and,
what was yet worse, from the forfeiture of estates that followed
a judicial sentence. Queer e — Were not such suicides matter of
duty ?

Mr. Irving told me he heard I had said to Mr. Jeffreys that
the Southern States were about to liberate their slaves and send
them all to Liberia. This strange misapprehension shows how
very cautious people ought to be in conversation with strangers,
and especially in repeating conversations. I explain the error, —
distinguish between the situation and feelings of South-Carolina,
Georgia, etc., and the States further North, Maryland, etc. Tell
vol. 1. — 4

26 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

him that Virginia lias always been averse to hold negro slaves ;
that Mr. Jefferson had, in the original draft of the Declaration of
Independence, inserted a clause, alleging the forcing these poor
wretches upon the colonies against the will of these latter, as
one of the motives of their separation from the mother country,
lie is struck with this; begs me to state it in writing, that he
may send it to Mr. Barrett, Speaker of the Assembly of Jamaica,
who is now in London looking after the interest of the colonies.
I tell him I had written an elaborate essay on the subject, in
which my object was to state the case of the South fairly ; look
for it, but find I have lent it. Tell him 1 will try to get it, and
send it by Sir Robert's courier to Mr. Barrett's address. Takes
his leave urging me to do so. Accordingly 1 send to Mr. Drury,
who lets me have his number. I write a note to Mr. Barrett,
anonymous but una sains, etc., envelope, seal and address the
parcel to the care of Mr. Vail, charge d'affaires in London, — but
after all do not send it. The wrapping-paper (all I happened
to have) was bad, etc. This inspired me with a certain degoul,
and then another came, etc., etc.

Dine at Sir R. Adair's. Small party for such an occasion.
Three of the ministers, Goblet, Lebeau and Rosier, the Duke
d'Arenberg, General Nypels, Messrs. Fitzgerald, Butler and Sey-
mour, General Desprez, Perier, Des Voeux, Doyle and myself.
Grand dinner, however. The king of England's health, porte
by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and H. M. Leopold's, by the
English ambassador in return. I sit between Goblet and Lebeau.
Had more to say to the latter than I have ever had before. Talk
of Bonaparte : Gen. Desprez says he had very little knowledge
(connaissances positives) ; knew the elements very well, but that
was all. Goblet mentions that he used to see him in 1803 and 4.
He was then a boy at school. Bonaparte took great pains to
win all young people, and, from the highest to the lowest classes
of the academy, he came into personal contact with the boys, —
to please them he rated and insulted the masters, whom he would
afterwards indemnify by presents, etc. We talk of his influence
on the progress of civilization, — thence to the times we live in,
which both Lebeau and Gen. Desprez lament as characterized
by contempt of all order, subordination and authority. (In this
point of view, Lebeau says he regards the revolution of 1830 as
a grand malheur, nota). Both seem to insinuate that Catholic-
ism is gaining ground. Desprez asks me if it is not so, especially,
in America. I tell him undoubtedly, in a certain sense, — not, 1
think, by the recovery of lost sheep, but by gathering into large
masses and taking care of the once scattered, neglected and rot-
ting flocks of the faithful. But don't they make many prose-
lytes? he asks with vivacity. 1 tell him Bishop E******, a
great fisher of men, has sometimes drawn up a gudgeon, and so

DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

others may, for aught I know ; but, in a country where there
were so many sects and such propagandisms, a few instances
of the kind made no noise. They mention that, in Germany,
many professors and literati had lately given in their adhesion.
Mr. Fitzgerald, who is opposite, mentions Tom Moore's recent
conversion, and then recalls some of Master Little's former blas-
phemies ; e. g., he heard him explain the worship of the Virgin
in Italy, etc., by the analogy of the influence of a Cardinal's
mistress, etc.

Mr. Lebeau says, apropos of the United States, that it is a
prosaic country. I tell him all happiness and order are neces-
sarily prosaic. Aristotle says your hero must not be a saint.
What poet has ever been able to make any thing of heaven ;
what romance-writer ventures to go further than the marriage
ceremony ? Compare Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, the
Paradise of Dante with the Inferno, etc. But don't despair ;
things are growing tragical enough with us.

After dinner, Duke d'Arenberg talks a good deal about the
incapacity of the Belgians generally for the higher order of em-
ployment ; (they were all gone, and only English left to hear his
dissertation). Says the capital error of the king of Holland
was that, seeing his southern subjects were fools, he was not
content to turn his knowledge quietly and cautiously to account,
but must need make them feel and confess their own deficien-
cies. Going down stairs, he tells me, if the revolution had not
taken place, all the commerce of the Low Countries would have
centered here. What, then, has Belgium gained, except the
honor of filling her armies and bureaux with her own incapa-
bilities, according to this.

Throw off my court dress and go en bourgeois to a party at
the Miss Heyland's, — given in honor of the very ugliest English
woman (by-the-bye, she is Irish) I ever saw, an old maid, by

name Lady A********. Am presented to her frightful

ladyship, and, as I do not perceive that any body is observing
me, talk to her some moments. Miss Doyle looking beautifully ;
both she and the Countess de Bethune in hats. Dancing to a
piano-forte. Very pleasant soiree. I leave at 12 and go quietly
to bed, but not without thinking how easily a well-disposed
Benedict might be suited in this charming English circle.

29th May. Nothing of any importance happens to-day, ex-
cept that, in consequence of the dissatisfaction his frequent ab-
sences have occasioned me, my valet-de-chambre is honorably
destitue of that station wcid forisfamiliated. Hereafter I prom-
ise to retain him as my barber and Spanish reader, with a small
allowance. Mem. — A silver piece of three florins, which I
received with a rouleau of demi-guillaumes at my barber's yes-

2S DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

terday, is non est inventus. It is the very first time I have left
my money in the way of servants, (who ought not unnecessarily
to be led into temptation,) and I am admonished not 10 do so
again. I am exceedingly uneasy about its disappearance, and do
not know what to think of it.

In driving out after dinner, take up the Rev. Mr. Drury and
his son. Conversation about England, English, and so forth.
Asks me if, with my opportunities of seeing his countrymen of
all ranks, I don't observe a marked difference between the no-
bility and their more humble imitators among the gentry and
nonveanx riches. Tell him I do ; the ease, grace and amabilife
of the former being the natural consequence of ascertained supe-
riority and great usage du monde.

Read, yesterday and to-day, some letters of that old witch,
Madame du Deffand, to Walpole. After the horrible barbarity
exercised by the Court upon poor Lally, had they any right to
complain when their turn came to sit in a tombereau, for even
the Jacobins never used the gag or thought of torture.

Take a walk on the Boulevard at HI o'clock ; lovely moon-
light.

30th May. Valet- de-chambre continues to read to me Gil
Bias in Spanish while I drink my tea at 10 o'clock ; and, at 1,
Erminier's Philosophic du Droit. This author, who writes
himself Professeur de I' histoire generate des Legislations
comparees au College de France, has published an essay de
omni scibili under the above title, — odd mixture of German
rhapsody and St. Simonian licentiousness. He thinks war the
sovereignest means of propagating civilization and liberty, and
that Napoleon was the only great captain (except, of course,
Mahomet & Co.) who saw this sublime discipline in its true light
and used it for proper purposes. He thinks France entitled to
the barrier of the Rhine, for, in his philosophy of law, there is
obviously a confusion of libet and licet. These are the ideas of
"young France"!

Go out en caleche at 3 o'clock ; return at half-past 4 ; at 6
dine at Court. A new importation of English. Grand-Marshal
presents me to Lady "YV********* G*****, and begs me to hand
her to dinner. I converse with her and a tall, stout daughter,
with a sort of tartan-silk head-dress, that was not unbecoming
in so strapping a lass, and gave her a rather characteristic Helen
McGregor look. Find the mother a good soul, who is just come
from a tour of the Rhine and as far as Paris, where "G*****"
(who had it in his power to do the king of France some service
when he was in exile) was received at Court with all possible
kindness. Wife charmed with the queen of France and Princess
Mary. Prom her wonderment and satisfaction at every thing, I

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 29

infer she has not seen much of the world before. After waiting
a long time, king and queen appear. Some presentations to their
majesties. At dinner, I place Lady G***** on the right of the
Serenissime Highness Prince de Reuss Lobenstein, who is on
the right of the queen. Miss G***** is on my right, and Seton
next to her. At table keep up rather a spirited talk with her
Caledonian ladyship, who tells me they are not at all related to
Lord Byron. She plied her knife and fork with considerable
activity, and was disposed to get the start of the "majestic
world". A dish of cotelettes au naturel was before us, waiting
coolly its turn to be served. Her ladyship, who has just dis-
patched what was on her plate, pushes it a little towards me, and
asks me "if she may trouble me for a cutlet." I don't seem at
all surprised at this shocking anachronism, (by which I am ut-
terly horrified,) but tell her that they will be presently handed
by the maitre d'hotel, adding that I had an eye on them myself,
for I thought that, after all, there was nothing like a chop ! As
Guleston in Pelham says, what can be made of a people that
don't know how to eat a dinner ; but what a joke was spoiled by
my sang-froid ! Figure to yourself a diplomate putting his
own fork into a dish at the king's table, to help a Scotch lady to
a chop, upon a plate from whose shining (though unwashed)
face a previous holocaust has obviously disappeared !

On the other side of me, Miss G*****, in a very audible, and,
indeed, rather sonorous, though not disagreeable voice, is chat-
tering fashionable scandal with Seton, — whose excess of appetite
for that savage food grows on what it feeds. I think I never
saw any biped with a beard so omniverous of slander, and no
harpy ever let out what it devoured in fuller, fouller or more
frequent discharges. At table, he is talking about Murat, —
whose wife, he mentions, loud enough for me to hear, (he wishes
to call my attention,) is an American. This leads to some in-
quiry, what sort of person, etc., from Miss G. Among other
things, he mentions he heard her say that every king and queen
in the world ought to have his or her throat cut. This, which
was probably uttered as an innocent pleasantry in reply to some
gross badinage of his, for his style of conversation with women
is of the most impudent and unvarnished character, (e. g., he
said to a young lady who had been unwell, in his shrill treble,
ill suppose you drank too much of that sour lemonade, and it
gave you a pain in the bowels"; and to Madame Murat herself,
as he told me, he put the question, whether in her country every
free man had not, of course, a right to kill his own nig-gur,) he
represented as the serious expression of an atrocious sentiment.

Miss G***** mentions that Mrs. Shelly got from the Guiccioli,
when she was in England, the other day, a memorandum-book
of Lord Byron, in which he lampoons and ridicules poor Rogers

30 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

in a frightful manner, and has it published — the wretch ! But
what a heartless, hypocritical scoundrel Byron was !

Sir W. G***** came up to me before dinner, and held a long
conversation with me about America and the West-Indies. He
talks like a worthy, sensible man. I tell him of an impostor
who, nine years ago, passed himself off in America as his son.
Says he heard of it, through somebody that had lent him money.

Soiree long ; don't get home till 9. At half-past, go out en
caleche and take a drive in the moonlight, on the Boulevards,
until half- past 10.

I ought to have mentioned that, for the first time in my life, I

conversed with an unfrocked abbe, M. , member of the

Chamber of Deputies, who soon gave me to understand that he
had made the most of the sceculum when he was in it, having
been a banker at Antwerp and a great and successful speculator
in the funds. Tells me the priests did not make the revolution,
but have saved it. Asks me about his church in America, etc.
Tells me a good many Belgian priests are there, and pleased.
Says the King of Holland discouraged their missionary emigra-
tions. I tell him it reminds one of Charles I. stopping the ship
freighted with future rebels and regicides, — Cromwell, Hampden,
Pym, etc. Ask him if any of the priests are really republicans.
Says the young, unfledged scholars, full of the romances, called
history of Greece and Rome ; a fine thing in theory, that same
rcpublique, says he, mais ga ne vaut pas le diable dans la
pratique. He turned priest from the loss of his wife and only
child, and the touching occasion of his taking the robe was
making me very sentimental about broken hearts, religious ex-
altation, consolations from above, monastic life, etc., etc., when
my talkative and rather weak, and, I suppose, vain, little abbe,
let it out, that, having somewhat of a talent at preaching, he
was doing some good. Helas ! the Archbishop of Granada and
his homilies flashed into my mind, and the dream of romance
vanishes at the touch of my Ithuriel — Gil-Bias.

3\st May. The month ends with very fine, but very dry
and rather cool weather. Invited to dine at Prince Auguste's
to-morrow, at half- past 4, — proof that it will be en petit comitc.
About 2, receive a note from Lady Hastings, requesting me to
call after my evening's drive. Thinking Ihere would be some-
thing of a party, did not go till near 10 ; the which I regretted,
for there were only the Fitzgeralds, Seymours, Frekes, and Des
Voeuxs and Sir H. Seton, who went (all but the Des Voeux's)
about half-past 10 and left me alone with my happiness, tant
mieux. Had a long talk with Lady Adelaide, who is droll.
Tells of a fight that occurred at one of the pic-nics, that are all
the rage now ; the publican and his men and neighbors, against

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 31

the valetaille of the pic-nickers, — which said racaille forfeited
their wages, by giving up the field without striking a blow, — all
except an Irishman, servant of the Calderwood's, who stripped
to it with true Hibernian spunk and defied their combined forces.
I asked what became of the knights themselves during this mo-
mentous scene. Kept aloof, on Don Quixotte's principle, leaving
their squires to do revenge themselves, as they might, upon the
belligerent churls. (Afterwards find this was not exactly the
case.) Fighting is a Vordre dujour. Mrs. Seymour tells me of
a conflict a Voutrance that occurred yesterday in their premises,
between their fat landlord and the allied arms of two maid-
servants of theirs, one of whom came off with a black eye,
which she had purchased or paid for by a scratched face of the
said landlord. Nobody interfered, it seems, during this singular
rencontre, nor has la justice interfered since. One had need be
on his guard against these Amazons.

After the rest were gone, Lady Flora and Lady Selina sang
sweetly. I stay until past 11, and take my leave with regret.

Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald asks me how my name ought to be
pronounced. I tell her Legree, — but Leg arc is so convenient
here.

Thus ends the month of May. Am I wiser or happier than
at the beginning of it ? I humbly trust that I am both (for true
wisdom and happiness are one). Helas ! yvwSi tfsau<rov. The spirit
of philosophical research, — the thirst for permanent and great
renown among those who have done something for the dignity
of human nature and the happiness of their fellow men,— have,
L know not how, sprung up afresh in my mind within a few
weeks past, and their inspiring impulses are, I am sure, about to
triumph completely (as they have before) over my evil genius,
the soft epicurean "indolentia" that so easily besets me. (1 Sept.
Never was confidence so ill bestowed !)

June 1. Study, etc., as usual. Weather less cool ; take a
warm bath in consequence. Receive the visit of Col. Nixon,
just returned, after five months absence, from England. Ask
him how things are going on there. Answers very badly ; every
body gloomy and alarmed ; thinks there is a plentiful lack of
brains in the cabinet. Duke of Wellington cheered lately by
the populace at some great military review. West-India scheme
of Mr. Stanley condemned, out of Parliament, as impracticable.
While he is with me, Casimir Perier comes in. Invites me to a
soiree at his house this evening. Dine at Prince Auguste's :
only the Seymours, Marquis de Jumelle, and a Mr. — , re-
nowned as the best connoisseur in pictures in all Europe (I un-
derstand). Remarked by somebody that Flemish pictures are
more sought after than Italian. Accounts for it by the difficulty

32 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

of getting a true Italian chef oVceuvre, and its clearness, if its
trenuineness be established. After dinner take a drive towards
Foret, and get down to walk up a hill on which there is a fine
wood. Hear the cuckoo for the first time (I think) in my life ;
monotony not unlike that of a kind of dove 1 have heard in the
backwoods of Carolina. My servant tells me the history of this
"bete", which, he says, builds no nest of his own, etc. I ask
why all the other birds don't make war on him. He laughs,
and says they do. An annunciation hdas. At three-quarters
past 9 go to M. Perier's. Every body there, except the new
Countess de Latour Maubourg, whom etiquette forbids to make
her entree into company before her presentation at Court. The
Count there, looking as brisk as a bridegroom. Brings me from
Paris a letter from Count Stanislas Zamoiska, who informs me
he is going to London, whence he will return to Brussels for a
short time. Poor fellow, — worthy of his illustrious descent, by
every amiable and respectable quality, combining the purity of
primeval innocence with the discipline of the most polished cir-
cles ; the interest 1 take in him is painfully lively, though he
more than repays me for it by his attachment to me, for the last
words he spoke at Mr. Seymour's (at whose house he was a
constant visiter) was, I am told, "I am in love with that man."
Sends me, by Count de Latour Maubourg, a new copy of his
uncle, Prince Czartorisky's work on Diplomacy or the Law of
Nations, and a little volume about Poland. Enquires after "our
Emma."

Return from Perier's at midnight on foot; lovely moonlight.
Ladies all at me for a ball, — especially Lady Morrin ; plead
celibacy, and the horror of being put out of my old ways and
having my house turned upside down. However, secretly dis-
posed to give in.

2d June — Sunday. Intended to go to church to-day, but
prevented by the interest I felt in the little volume sent me by
M. de Zamoiska. It is called the Livre des Pelerins Polonais,
and purports to have been translated from the Polish of Adam
Mickiewitz by the Count Ch. de Montalembert, under whose
name there is prefixed to it a most eloquent and powerful appeal
to mankind in behalf of this ill-fated race. I had never read
before any thing like a detailed account of the horrible barbari-
ties of the victorious Czar, and my heart alternately burned
with indignation at the insolent and cruel domination of this
barbarous ruffian, and melted and sank within me when I
thought of what his victims have been and are, — the defenders'
of all Christendom, — knights, like the Cid, whose banner was
the cross, and whose blood was offered up for the faith and the
freedom of Europe with such generous and self-devoting gal-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 33

lantry. Milton's sonnet on the massacre in Piedmont was in
my mind the whole time, and I was frequently surprised by
tears and murmured the vow of the great poet, — "Avenge, O
Lord, thy slaughtered saints, — their martyred blood and ashes
sow, o'er all th' fields where still doth sway th' accursed tyrant."
Great God ! the knout, the mine, the chain, the shaved-head, the
confessor refused, the poor orphans hurried away, amidst the
cries of their desolate mothers, into an everlasting banishment
among barbarians, — all education, even at home, forbidden, etc.,
etc. Great God ! and is it the country of Sobieski that is thus
trampled upon by these blood-thirsty and savage, but servile and
wretched barbarians, in the face of Europe ! and for what ?

Of the poem itself I can scarce venture to form any opinion,
for I have only read it in a translation. It seems to me to be too
bold, bordering almost upon profaneness ; but there is something
striking in the idea of identifying the progress oi liberty with
that of the Christian church, — the sacrifice of Poland with that
of the Pascal Lamb, — and the virtues necessary to her ultimate
triumph, with those which shone forth among the fiery persecu-
tions of the apostles and their first disciples. One thing must
be admired, — the author is right in preaching the humility
which is of the essence of the wisdom that is from above ; and
there is no hope for liberty but in the progress of Christian civ-
ilization. Between the despotism of autocracy on the one hand,
and of jacobinism on the other, tossed alternately from one to
the other, where, else, can we find a spot to rest the soles of our
feet upon, so as not to sink down in the "Slough of Despond."

Receive an invitation to dine at Mr. Seymour's at 3 ; some
friends from the north of Ireland having fallen in upon him un-
expectedly. Go there accordingly, and meet a Mr. Foley, (cousin
of Lord Foley,) his wife and sister-in-law, — all upon their trav-
els—the ladies for the first time. Talk rather loudly and hoarsely,
but good, sensible, sound English minds and bodies. After din-
ner take a drive, Mr. S. and Mr. F. accompanying me, while
the ladies from the windows of the upper story (we remained at
table after them, a VAnglaise) reproached us, very justly, for
our egoisme. Return and pass the evening there. Col. Count
Prozynski comes in and has a long conversation with me ; has
faith in the fall of thrones , — not immediately perhaps. Asks
me to lend him the book Zamoiska sent me. Tell him I will
as soon as Miss Seymour shall have read it. Walk home at half-
past 10, and observe that clouds are gathering in the South ;
evening sultry ; and so some hopes of relief from this distressing
drought.

3d June. Not disappointed : when I look out this morning,
earth wet,
vol. i. — 5

see the earth wet, but find afterwards that the shower has not

34 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

been sufficient. Walk out, at half-past 2, to my banker's ; draw
on London for £200. Visit a pretty China shop : talk of a ser-
vice de dessert en pay sage. Find it rather warm walking;
but, driving after dinner, it was so cold that I was glad to get in
again. Evening, small dancing party at Mr. White's, where I
am introduced to Madame de Latour Maubourg, who is tres
gentille, though rather small, — hair a la Grecque, very simple
and becoming, — grave look for a French lady ; but 1 am dis-
posed to like and do like her. Party insipid enough to me ;
more rain to-night.

kth June. At half- past 11 take my first lesson in German
from a Mr. Harkan, whom I suspect of being a Jew ; he seems
rather astonished at my being so au-fait (from my knowledge
of various other languages) ; he is to come every other day, and
should the weakness of my eyes continue I will employ him as
a reader. At 3 go out; call on M. and Madame de Latour
Maubourg, Mrs. Des Voeux, (wife of the English attache, and
daughter, it seems, of the late Lord Ellenborough,) Col. Nixon,
Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald, and Mr. Taylor and his family. Lady
Charlotte invites me to pass to-morrow evening at her house.
Lord Hastings, I suppose, is to be there. Meet Mr. Taylor and
family coming out en voiture, as I drive up towards his house.
See the Seymours on foot, returning from the same expedition ;
get down and walk with them. Mrs. S. delivers me Lady Char-
lotte's message, just mentioned. Speaking of marriage, tells me
I should not be so much invited about if I were not a bachelor,
and advises me not to give up my privileges. On my return
home, receive a letter from the department of foreign affairs,
accompanied by Mr. Marks' commission as consul at Ostend,
and an exequatur for him. Write to Count Zamoiska and the
Barings. Fine rain at night. Hear, but have not felt, the gnats.

5th June. Begin to think seriously of giving a soiree dan-
sante. Mr. Butler calls with Mr. T***** B******, nominally
a Boston man, but really any thing else. Hands me a letter
from Mr. Vail, charge, etc., at London, whom I know as well as
I do the man in the moon, except that I never saw him. I had
heard of Mr. B****** before, and had a letter to him from
James Rose when I came here ; but he was gone back to Eng-
land. Is now travelling on the continent for the improvement
of his children, about whom, by-the-bye, he proses horribly.
Face indicates a bon vivant, flushed with a purple grace. Tells
me he has heard much of me, and that the English here like
me better than my predecessor Hughes, (who was a great favor-
ite,) although they say I am a very different person. He is
scarcely gone when Mr. Taylor, and his son-in-law Mr. Lee, (a

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 35

very gentleman-like person,) call. They are to dine at Prince
Auguste's to-day; the company all new comers, — Count and
Countess de Latour Maubourg, the Des Voeux, etc. At 4 walk
out to get some cards of invitation printed. After dinner, call
in my carriage and take Mr. T***** B****** to drive through
the forest of Soignes. The recent rain has made the country
and the woods delightfully fresh. At three-quarters past 9 go
to Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald's, where I am presented to Mrs.
Taylor and the Marquis and Marchioness of Hastings. He is a
tall and well-looking young man, apparently of about 27 or 28,
with a decidedly patrician air and address. She is lively, talk-
ative, with a certain confidence and even boldness in her man-
ners, at the same time, when she took up the guitar to sing, (she
sang a German air very prettily,) she told me to remark how
her very fingers trembled with fear. Mrs. Lee sang, also, sev-
eral German airs, — one of them charmingly. Miss Freke's Italian
song not bad. Mrs. Freke invites me to her house on Friday,
and Lady Hastings to-morrow. Mr. Fitzgerald presented Lord
Hastings to me, by his lordship's request ; for I never (unless it
be inevitable) make an advance to the English or my own coun-
trymen.

In driving, Mr. B. tells me he finds the United States triste,
and repeats what Lord Lyndhurst said there some thirty-five
years ago : "This country is rustic, without being moral".
Talks to me again of the pleasure he feels in the reputation
of our corps diplomatique. Proses horribly, though he seems
a good creature. Concurs in the gloomy views of the pre-
sent state of England, but not quite so tragical as the others.
Thinks the debt will go ; but doesn't apprehend any attack on
property, though, he says, nothing can be so ferocious and un-
feeling as the under classes of English. Party given at her
lodgings, by Miss Cramer, to which I am not invited ; I think I
can guess the cause.

6th June. Go out at 3. Call on Miss B******, — a nice girl ;
promise to make up a soiree for her. Call on Lord Hastings.
Dine at Court. Meet him there again with his lady. She was
Lady Grey de Ruth ven, a peeress in her own right, with some
two or three thousand a year ; very much spoiled, her parents
having died when she was young, and living with a deaf guar-
dian, or something of the sort, contracted the habit of talking
very loud, and, what is worse, talking politics. Lord Hastings
himself is the quietest creature in the world, and has change*

tout cela. She has a little terrier, named , which she

makes a great deal of, kisses, etc. When the singing was going
on, at Lady Charlotte's yesterday, this little brute was set upon
a small table, where it stood stock-still and looked with the most

36 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

edifying gravity. At dinner she sat next the king ; the Duke
of Orleans had Lady Wm. Paget on his right. This young
Prince is just returned from England, where he has been very
much fH6. The Prince de Reuss Lobenstein, or the Lord knows
what, (he furnishes seven men for the defence of the holy Roman
empire, and is, of course, of immense consequence in the balance
of Europe, being as much a sovereign as Louis Philippe,) sat on
the left of Lady Hastings, — then Madame de Stassart, between
whom and Mrs. Taylor I was placed. Find the latter an amia-
ble English lady. Tell Lady Wm. Paget I expect to see her
at my house, and count on her keeping up the ball with spirit.
Seems delighted (she is extravagantly fond of dancing) and
promises to do so. After dinner dress for Lady (Dowager) Hast-
ings' soiree. Go at three-quarters past 9. Some foreigners, —
Mesd. d'Hoogvorst, Vilain XIV., and de Stassart, Countess de
Latour Maubourg, and Madame du Val de Beaulieu. Talk much
with all the young Lady Hastings1, and, having passed an agree-
able soiree, retire last, like Hesperus, with Mr. Des Voeux. On
the landing-place of the steps, see Lady Wm. Paget, Lady de
Rottenburg and Miss Morris, with Count Lenowski, waiting for
their carriage. Offer mine and take them home. Talk of Prince
Ricefs (so pronounced here) passion for Miss Morris. Lady
William and her mama say it is all over on both sides ; that he
is a bore in conversation, insisting on speaking broken English,
etc., etc. Return home at three-quarters past 11, and do not get
asleep until 1.

7th June. Opening of the Chambers at 12 by the king in
person. All the corps diplomatique present, and Madame la
Comtesse de Latour Maubourg to adorn it. King keeps us wait-
ing fully an hour ; it is very warm, and, in a court dress, quite
intolerable. His Majesty comes on horseback, with a brilliant
Hat major. Received with no great rapture by the crowd, [not
crowd, ior I asked M. de L. M. if the populace had been ecarte
on purpose,) but with a good hearty round of applause within
the Chamber. Salutes very politely and takes his seat on the
throne, and, having previously covered himself, proceeds to read
the discourse, of which, in the diplomatic tribune, we do not
hear one single word. The paper seemed to me to tremble in
his hand. The speech is short, and we are soon dismissed.

Preparations for my soiree dansante turn the house upside
down. I am put out of my dining hall, of which they are wax
ing the floor, etc. In the evening, go to a party at Mrs. Freke's ;
every body there, which saves me almost all my cards of invi-
tation. I invite about a hundred people.

Two copies of the speech sent me : fair prospects held out in
it. Surtout, that no more taxation is necessary.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 37

8th June. Receive a long letter from Grimke about "Chris-
tianism", and his works and views, — provoked by a discourse
of a Mr. d'Aubigny which I sent him from Paris ; also a letter
(in German) from Mein Herr somebody at Frankfort, informing
me (as I guess) that he has expedie to me twenty-four bottles of
Johannisberger No. 1, presented to me by Mr. Marks, consul at
Ostend. Mr. Des Voeux calls ; talks about Greek classics, etc.;
admires my house. I tell him the one next door is also to let.
Go with him to see it. Says he wishes he had not taken another.
Seems disposed to get off if he can and be my neighbor, which
would be very agreeable to me. Take a quiet dinner up-stairs,
(dining-room being still in the hands of the invaders,) and after
dinner drive out. On my return feel unwell, as if grippe, —
perhaps only want of sleep, for I have not slept well for some
nights.

Should have mentioned that Mr. Serruys, secretary of the
Belgian legation at Berlin, and brother of the American vice-
consul at Ostend, called and talked a good deal about the state
of Europe. He was in Italy during the revolution, and, I trow,
did not like it much.

Mr. B******, also, called and was admitted (contrabande),
whilst I was taking my German lesson, the which put me into
no small fume, for it drove all the parts of speech pell-mell out
of my head.

9th June. Fete Dieu. I go out to see the procession at 12
to St. Gudule (the cathedral). In at the death : see it just as it
approaches the church and enters for dismission : banners not
very splendid : good music. Wonderful resources, those of the
Catholic church, for influencing the imaginations of men.

Warm in walking. Take a bath ; better after it. Dine alone.
After dinner take a long drive en caleche with Mr. Seymour,
and spend the evening with his family. They tell me all the
gentlemen are begging for invitations to my ball ; but Tom,
Dick and Harry may go to the devil, for me. Return home
early to take a preparatory and proportionate sleep. Helas !
"Why, gentle sleep," etc., etc. I was still awake at 2 in the
morning, — too hot with a blanket, too cold without.

D33 Anniversary of my departure from Charleston.

10th June. Invited to dine at Prince Auguste's to-day. Call
on Sir Robert Adair to ask the honor of his sister's (Mrs. Clav-
ering) company this evening. Says she is too infirm to go out.
Shews me his last letter to Lord Palmerston ; extremely well
written and sagacious. While I am there a lunch is served in
another room, (3 o'clock), to which Mr. and Mrs. Clavering come
down. I am presented to them, and find her a very amiable

38 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

lady, of precisely the same style of manners as her brother.
Told me if she were twenty years younger (she is seventy-five)
she would come to my ball with pleasure. Presently Sir Robert,
after ordering another cover to be laid, goes out and returns with

, who had been unwilling to present himself. Received

with great kindness by his sister. After some conversation, I
take leave ; as I am going out Sir Robert tells me, in a low tone
of voice and with great kindness of manner, that they are going
to dine (they four) enfamille to-day, and asks me, as my house
must be in confusion, if I won't join them. Tell him I am en-
gaged to the Prince.

Receive a sweet little note from my sweet little Lady William,
requesting an invitation for two uvery good dancers." Write
her for answer, that her wishes are commands for me always,
but especially on an occasion when she is to have every thing
her own way.

Dine at 5 with the Prince. Present Lady Hastings, with Lady
Selina and Lady Adelaide, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour and their
daughters, Sir George and Capt. Hamilton, the Duked'Ursel (the
Prince's nephew), Percy Doyle, Sir Henry Seton, etc.

Weather very warm. After dinner, I return chez moi and
repose a little, — then make an evening toilette. At half-past 8,
M. and Mad. de Stassart come in. Madame tells me 1 had not
named any hour, and that is 8 o'clock according to Belgic usage.
After a long interval, which I contrived to fill up very well by
talking and showing them the preparations for dancing, one or
two gentlemen drop in ; but it was 10 o'clock before the body
of my guests, principally English, (about one hundred in all,)
come in. As soon as Lady Wm. Paget enters dancing begins,
and continues in the most spirited manner until 2 o'clock. I
received up-stairs, but they danced on the rez-de-chaussee, where
every thing had been done to make the thing go off pleasantly
and with the greatest success. The ladies cried out a thousand
times charming, delightful, etc., and said there had been no such
ball at Brussels this many a day.

1 had slept very little the night before, and the breaking of
my rest another night made me nervous.

1 1th June. At rising in the morning (9 o'clock) find it very
warm, with the wind blowing a perfect hurricane and driving
clouds of dust before it.

Take a lesson of my German master ; begin to possess the
principles of the declensions.

Pass the rest of the day in writing letters to America, to send
by the English minister's courier to-day, — my mother, Cruger,
etc. Take a walk at 4 in the park ; at 5 get into a warm bath ;
and at six dine at Court. Large party, — Duke of Orleans still

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 39

there. Mad. de Latour Maubourg seated on the left of the king ;
Lady Hastings on the right of the duke. Have to go to Court
in a carriage not so fine as my own, which is repairing. Return
home at half-past 8, and am asleep at half-past 9.

Note. One of the letters I write to-day is to Mr. A. H. Everett,
in answer to one of his dated the 26th July, 1832, which, after
wandering about like a ghost in limbo for nearly a tvjelve-month,
is just come to hand. Mem. — Mention in it with horror (and
terror for the avenir of our country) the ignominious assault
made upon the President of the United States, by a brutal wretch
of the name of Randolph, lately dismissed from the service.
This is one of the things that shew how the ochlocracy of the
country is going to work. There is something terrific in the
idea of 10 or 20,000,000 of men united, that is crowded together
in the same body-politic, each with his hand lifted up against
his neighbour, and his foot upon all law and authority !

12th June. Storm continues, but it is grown quite cool. Pass
the day most unprofitably. Receive some calls, — from Mr.
B******^ wj10 can>t g0 £or tke wither . Capt. Chesters of the Brit-
ish army, who was presented to me at my ball by M. Duval de
Beaulieu. He has been a long time in South-America, and gives
any thing but a flattering description of its distracted condition ;
one, in the blessings of which my own country seems so desir-
ous of becoming a partaker.

After dinner go out to drive, and take up Mr. B******. Make
the tour of the chateau of Lacken. Find it most uncomfortably
cold in returning with our faces to the wind.

At 10 go to a party at M. de Bethune's. Madame looking
very pretty. Receive the congratulations and thanks of all the
ladies, who say they have talked of nothing else but my ball
since Monday ; that it has spoiled them for all others, etc., etc.
Being still unwell from loss of sleep, return early — half-past 11.

Note. Fresh discontents among my servants, — quarrelling
about the division of the spoils, I suppose, — having nothing else
to do ; and, being dissatisfied unless each is allowed to give or
sell to his friends what remains after, they are all gorged with
the abundance of my house. They are execrable vermin, to be
sure.

13th June. Take a lesson in German. Receive a letter from
Mr. Charles Warley of Charleston, informing me he has shipped
a case of Madeira wine to me by a vessel just arrived at An-
twerp. In the evening get another from somebody at Antwerp
on the same subject. Write myself to Mr. Patterson about it.
Payment of accounts of ball, — rather more than I expected ;
however, the thing succeeded, and that's enough. Go out at 3.

40 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Call on Miss Doyle, — out. Dine very moderately ; take a drive
after dinner and a nap. Go, at 10, to a party at the French min-
ister's. Every body there, but the ball not gay. Ladies all
talking of mine still. One of them tells me its fame has gone
to Antwerp. I am almost the whole evening with the Lady
Hastings', especially Lady Adelaide, who has a vein of good-
humored pleasantry, which, united with such perfect gentleness,
is very charming. In bed at 1, and sleep profoundly.

I4tf/i June. Send to Messrs. Damoot & Co. for money ; they
send me back with it a draft on me from Charleston, forwarded
by Baring, Brothers — accepted.

Walk out at half-past 2 and don't return until half-past 4 ;
cheapen porcelain, plate, etc. Meet M. and Mad. de Maubourg ;
tells rne her bouquet is all fane. Tell them I will replace it
when I go home, and I do.

After dinner go to drive, — Mr. Seymour with me ; "reason
high" of government, philosophy, etc. Tell him I think justice
has not yet been done to the depth and power of Aristophanes,
the great political satirist of Athens. Mention my idea of the
"Clouds" — that its purpose is to shew that, if men affect to
reason about every thing, they infallibly end in libertinism, —
tfavrwv ^riTouvrsc: Xo/ov, etc. etc. Am not very well ; go to bed at
10 and sleep soundly.

15th June. Another day not very profitably spent. Receive
two letters from Cologne and Coblentz, apropos of a case of Jo-
hannisberg wine sent to me by Mr. Marks. A Mr. Charles Davis
of New- York, a young gentleman, who has been some time in
England, calls for a new passport. I give him one, and we talk
some time about the assault upon the President. He says he is
ashamed to look foreigners in the face, yet (such are the illusions
of youth) talks in the next breath of our giving the world "les-
sons", and expatiates upon our navigation and commerce, etc.,
as if we owed all this bonheur materiel to our own wisdom.
Says he is opposed to Mr. Van Buren because he is a democratic
demagogue, and wishes a Southern man elected, with a view to
the dignity of the government. He is going to Antwerp. 1
ask when he will be back, and tell him I shall be glad to see
him at a diner sans f agon.

Dine at Prince Auguste's, — a diner d'hommes. Mrs. Claver-
ing there, — the rest as usual ; ten persons in all. After dinner
take a long drive. Not well, — some lurking cold ; go to bed
early, or rather lie down on the bed in my dressing gown at 10,
and sleep so until 12, when I awake and undress.

Mem. At the Prince's, Mr. Taylor tells me a long story about
the Prince of Orange's hostility to, and rupture with, the corps

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 41

diplomatique, as such ; and how he refused to meet them any-
where ; and how Sir Charles Bagot refused to meet him in turn ;
and how the king interposed ; and how Sir Charles (he was an
ambassador) wrote to his government, who approved what he
had done (comme de raison) ; and how afterwards the Prince,
in the park, took no notice of his bow, etc., etc. This strange
conduct of H. R. H. is accounted for by several offences given
to him by certain individuals, ci-devant members of that body ;
as, for instance, the Austrian minister's (Metternich's pimp, on-
dit) reporting to his Court a political conversation of the Prince's,
which he overheard, and, on its coming back to this country,
causing the king to scold H. R. H., etc., etc., etc. This must
have been very pleasant indeed for the Court circle of the day,
and shews the Prince of Orange to have been a petulant and
trifling fool, utterly unfit to be even an heir apparent to his fa-
ther's throne, or to associate with men of the world.

l§th June — Sunday. Read to-day a part of the correspond-
ence between Jefferson and that worthy representative of the
French republic, citizen Genet.

Write to my sister (Mary) and to Grimke. Go out in my
carriage and make some calls, — nobody at home. Afterwards
take a walk in the park. While there fall in with Miss C. and
Miss D.; join them and have a long flirting talk with the latter,
who is going to Aix-la-Chapelle on Tuesday, and threatens not
to come back to Brussels. She is very pretty, and I almost in
love. Shake her hand and press it most fondly; go home
and think of her all the evening ; promise her a ball, if she will
come back, in the autumn.

After dinner a heavy rain ; stay at home and write.

17th June. Get a parcel from Washington by way of London

and Ostend to-day. A Mr. , born at New-Orleans, (where

he has not been for a long time,) comes to me for a new pass-
port, his own being out of date ; give him one.

At 4 walk out in the park with the young Count de Beaufort,
who talks to me a long time and agreeably about the Court of
Charles X., in which he was a page. Says Louis XVIII. told
his brother what would happen, if he persisted in construing
the charter after his fashion.

Dine at M. Goblet's, Minister of Foreign Affairs, with some
twenty odd other victims, — among them Count and Countess
Latour Maubourg, Sir Robert Adair, etc.; dinner bad and ser-
vice worse. — all sorts of China and glass but the right one, etc.
But en revanche, both host and hostess exceedingly amiable, and
sorry I am that this stingy government doesn't allow them some-
thing more than the pittance of a salary, iorfrais de represen-
vol. i. — 6

42 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

tation. At dinner, sit between M. Lebeau, Minister of Justice,
and M. Nothomb, Secretaire-General and author of the Essay
on the Revolution. Gives me an account of his introduction to
Talleyrand, and dining en petit comitc at his house in London.
Sat next to him and his heart went pit-a-pat. Is still mightily re-
buked by his genius, and thinks him a conjuror. Talk of Mon-
tesquieu, of whose political philosophy I speak slightingly. To
my surprise both my assessors agree with me, and say no man,
that hasn't seen a revolution, or something like it, has a just
conception of the "Leviathan." I say ditto, and tell them that
is just the reason why the ancients knew more about govern-
ment than the moderns, and democrats are always deeper politi-
cians than moralists, etc. Burke I mention as a sort of exception
and a prodigy. Nothomb agrees ; but, Lebeau says, owing, he
supposes, to the translator, he finds it difficult to read the "Re-
flections." I tell him the translator must have a genius for
distortion, for the original is incomparable both for thought and
eloquence.

ISth June. Dine at Court, to-day ; ambassadors' day. After
dinner (at which, by-the-bye, the music was remarkably good,)

the two little boys, apparently about 1C or 12 years, are

made to play on the violin in the apartment next to the drawing-
room, the folding doors being thrown open. Their performance
is prodigious, and not tours deforce merely, but sweet music,
which, I suppose, is beaten out of them by their father, more a
mercenary than merciful.

In the evening go to Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald's, where there
is a little reunion. See Lady Flora for the first time since her
late illness. She offers me her hand, which I press fondly.

Letter from Mr. Patterson asking advice officially.

Ferrari gives notice of quitting to-morrow.

19th June. After getting through my morning work go to
the Chamber of Deputies, where I expected to see some acquaint-
ance, and among them hoped Lady Flora would be. Am not
disappointed. None of the corps being there but Mr. Des Voeux
and I, we invite them into the tribune diplomatique. Subject
before the Chamber, the "address" in reply to the king's discourse.
When I go in Henry de Bronetere, the cleverest man of the
opposition, is speaking from a paper ; good voice, the delivery
spoiled by the embarrassment of reading. Mr. Lebeau replies ;
reads too, — bitches a good speech by it. After he sits down,
great hubbub about putting the question. Mr. Gendebier rises
and bellows for some time with the lungs of a bull. The debate
becomes exclusively personal, and very unworthy of the place
and the occasion. Mr. Lebeau replies warmly and forcibly ex-

DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

tempore ; much better than his first speech. Says he has noth-
ing to do with any newspaper. M. Nothomb follows, screaming
like a woman in a fury ; owns that he is concerned in the "In-
dependent", but pleads to the jurisdiction of the House over the
press. The House ultimately adjourns the matter over to the
next day.

Dine at Prince Auguste's. When I am going to make my
toilette, see Mr. Drury (my parson) passing. Tells me Mrs.
Trollope is arrived, and wishes to be acquainted with me. De-
cline the honor. At the Prince's, a diner oVhommes. In the
course of conversation after dinner, mention that Mrs. Trollope
is come. Prince delighted at the intelligence ; asks Mr. Seymour
to bring him acquainted with her. I tell him it is cruel of him.
He says she has so much esprit and fun. Asks if I have any
objection to see her. I tell him yes. He speaks then of America ;
says he has never, in all his life, met with any American travel-
ling, except one, about twenty years ago, in Vienna. I tell him
it is not that they do not travel, but that they have no means of
making acquaintances in Europe. Signifies plainly enough that
he thinks Mrs. T's. account to be depended on ; excepts, of
course, men of learning, who, he says, belong to no country.
At last, shakes me warmly by the hand, and tells me, as our rela-
tions are quite confidential, I may do just as I please about meet-
ing her or not.

I go away deeply depressed, — not so much by the foolish
ideas entertained of us by Europeans, as by the unquestionable
fact that the present generation are, in every respect, (socially,)
less cultivated than our glorious fathers, thanks to the Arminius
of our institutions, St. Thomas of Cantingbury, whose demo-
cracy, doubly rectified in France, was breathed with the breath
of life into our new-born Constitution, — like a child inheriting
the morbus gallicus from a debauched father.

Take a sweet and long drive out into the prairie at the south
of the city, where I had never been before. Hay just mowing.
Delicious evening. At 9 go out again and walk in the twilight
until 10.

Send newspapers to the government, and write to Mr. Pater-
son that I have no information to give him on the points stated.

20th June. A case of Rhenish announced to-day as deposited
in one of the entrepots. I am charged in the carrier's account
with droits oVentree and accise. Refuse to pay. Send my ser-
vant, who comes back with a request, on behalf of the officer of
the revenue, that I send a written declaration that the wine is
for my own use. Do so. Returns and tells me, notwithstanding
this trouble, I must pay the account, the carrier having advanced

44 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

the whole amount. Swear I will not, and write to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs to claim my privilege.

Attend the Chamber of Representatives at 2, and stay still
half-past 3. Missed Roger's (Minister of the Interior) defence
of the destitutions of those who, opposing the ministry system-
atically and violently, still hold on to their offices. Hear Gen-
debier growling a VaccoutumGe. Quite a humbug this frondeur,
and very tiresome, besides his unreasonableness. Nothomb next
rises, and makes a very good speech for a Belgian. Before he
finishes I go off, leaving M. de Latour Maubourg dozing on his
hand, — no great proof this of what I say.

Take a bath, and dine at half-past 5 at the French ambassa-
dor's, en petit comite. Present, Sir Robert Adair, Mr. and Mrs.
Clavering, Lady Wm. Paget and her mother, Mr. and Mrs. Des
Voeux, Capt. Hamilton, Casimir Perier, and myself. I sit on
the left of Madame and talk a great deal to her, about her father
(M. Daru), the theatre, modern French literature, (which she
dislikes, as I do, — I mean their romantique school,) Taglioni,
etc., etc.

After dinner take a drive, and at 10 return to the French le-
gation, where Madame receives. Not a great many people. See
for the first time Mademoiselle Desprez, daughter of the General ;
charming young person, about 17 or 18. At half-past 10 or so,
the Seymours come in. Madame has evidently heard something
spiteful about her daughter Emma, who is guilty of being a
sweet girl, with remarkable talents, and very much admired by
the admired, without any ambition to please. I have a great
deal to say to her, by way of consolation, and remind her of
what the wise man says of the fate of those who are generally
praised. In bed at 12.

2\st June. Pass this morning, as so many others lately,
operose nihil agendo. This comes of learning German, the
which, together with the time I spend in writing this journal,
notes, etc., especially re-translating diplomatic papers in to French,
consumes the hours between 1] and 2, when I am fatigued, and,
if I go out, feel too much dissipated to engage afterwards in
any serious occupation. Go to Summerhauzen's and buy Wolf's
Odyssey and Marten's Guide (new edition).

Dine at home to-day. After dinner call on Mr. Seymour and
take him out to drive. Go there in the evening late, and stay
half an hour. I had not made them a call for nearly a fortnight
before. Mr. Morse, a young American, enters.

22c/ June. Morning as usual. German lesson ; while at it
two letters come in, one from my sister (M.), the other from Mr.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 45

King, — the latter in reply to my second to him. Felt, as usual,
excited by news from home. Go out, at 2, en caleche. Make a
little purchase of champagne coolers, plated, etc. Forward a
letter from his father to McMillan King. As I am returning up
the montagne de la cour, am met by Mr. Drury, who stops me,
telling me he had sent my review of Hall's Travels to Mrs.
Trollope, whom he points out to me as the "lady in the green
hat before us." Asks if I happen to be going to dine at the am-
bassador's : tell him, not. Says he had hoped I was, for so I
should have met her there. Drive on and pass her. Get down
at the gate of the park, near the Hotel de Bellevue. Am remind-
ed by my footman that I am to dine at the Prince's at half-past
4. Get up again into my carriage. As I am doing so, the
Trollope passes, and, looking at me, I have a full view of her
face and form ; the former rather comely for her age, the latter
stout and gross, the whole person excessively vulgar. Call on
Mr. Morse.

Make a toilette and dine at the Prince's. Two artists there :
Cartigny, the actor and a director of the theatre, and Fetis, the
king's maitre de chapelle : Mr. Seymour, Mr. Taylor, the Ham-
iltons, the Prince's secretary and I. At table, the Prince asks
Fetis what he thought of ancient music as compared with the
modern ; whereupon, with a loud voice, an artist's real, and,
apparently, a good deal of information of a higher order than I
expected to find in him, he proceeds to shew that the difference
was between the most simple yet refined melody, and the richest
harmony of a modern orchestra, etc. I am appealed to about
the sources of information on the subject, and mention the col-
lection of the Greek musical writers, published by Foulis.

Mem. I shall look into the matter myself.

After dinner call at Bellevue, and ask Mr. Morse if he and his
friend, whom he mentions, (a Mr. Rochester,) will take a drive ;
they get up with me and do so. Mr. M. is of New-Orleans,
whiskered, like a pard and rather tawny, tall, thin and with a
nasal twang ; in short, I should have sworn him an American
at any distance. His compagnon de voyage wears a cap, and,
as soon as he is seated, takes out his penknife and begins to
pick his finger nails with that useful little implement. Both
speak so loudly that I am quite stunned. Talk politics, and,
after an hour and a half's drive, I set them down again at their
hotel, having previously invited them to dine with me to-mor-
row : an invitation which they do me the honor to accept, and,
bowing with gravity, take leave.

At 9 go to the Prince's again, where there is a little soiree,
with the little musical monsters, the Eichorns, (9 and 11 years
old,) whom I had heard at Court the other day. The Lady
Hastings, with her daughters Flora (helas !) and Selina, the

46 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Seymours, the Pagets, the Latour-Maubourgs, the Hamiltons,
the Des Voeuxs, Seton, the Taylors, and some Belgian notabil-
ites. Pass there an hour and a half or so very blissfully, and
return.

Begin a letter to-day to Mr. King.

I ought to mention that, as I enter the salon at the Prince's in
the evening, Seton beckons me to sit down by him, which, after
making my salutation to the Prince and the ladies present, I do.
He says he wants to console me about the Trollopes, with whom
he has dined at Sir Robert's, and whom they vote the vulgarest
canaille that can be. Afterwards hear of her from Mrs. Taylor,
who dined there. They say they were less amused with the
old lioness than with one of her whelps, (or cubs,) Mr. Henry
or Anastasius Trollope, who spoke his mind very freely, and
told how he had killed an Indian for looking at him, etc. I tell
them I should suppose, from her book, that Mrs. Trollope was
not a proper person to be admitted into their society. They
seem to think so now, yet it is provoking to see the sort of sen-
sation she produces here. The Prince is out of the notion of
making her acquaintance : he says because she stays so short a
time, but I doubt the Seymours have had something to do with
it, for they have shown more sense than curiosity in the matter,
which is more sense than others have.

23c? June — Sunday. Write a letter to Mr. King. At 2 Seton
calls. Tells me the Trollope is decidedly to dine with the
Prince on Wednesday, and that I ought to go to enjoy the sport.
Makes some further observations on their vulgarity. Talk about
the Mr. Bankes lately arrested for an unnatural crime in Eng-
land. Says he knows Mr. T******* that called on me, and gives
him negative information from time to time. Seems to think
him rather a decent man for his profession. Go out and take a
walk in the park at 5. At 6, my two young countrymen come
in to dine. Like them better on acquaintance, especially Mr.
Rochester, who doesn't talk so loudly as the other, and has not
the same strong nasal twang. Tell me they have had their
passports arranged so as to go to Holland by West Wesel. At
9 they go away. I take a walk afterwards and sleep. Nota.
Execrable dinner.

2£th June. Sir Robert calls and gives me Mr. Nothomb's
book, with the Prince's commentary. Mentions that the Trol-
lopes dined with him. Says in all his life he never saw any
thing so vulgar as the boy, whose voice drowned all other sounds
at table. Mentions his extraordinary story about killing an In-
dian for looking at him. Says they are to dine with the Prince
on Wednesday, and he is to be the negotiator. As neither

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 47

lioness nor cub speak a word of French, doesn't know what
they will do. Grumbles that the ministry are afraid to dismiss
a sufficient number of their troops. After he is gone, I go out
and visit the Charnbre. Hear some prosing and retire. Return-
ing home, I read the Prince's commentary on Nothomb. His
resume of the revolution and its heroes is very characteristic,
and embodies so exactly my own views of them, that I shall
copy it, and, with his permission, send it to Petigru.

Dine alone ; so long since I have done so, it seems strange to
me. Call, after dinner, en caleche, for Lady Wm. Paget, — not
at home. Take a drive to Feret. Evening delightful. Great
fete and dancing in the village, — the Kermess. Return and
spend the evening at home with a friend, who, it is decided, is
to go soon to Paris pour fair e ses couches.

25th June. Morning as usual. Make up a parcel for Ameri-
ca, by the English courier. Letter to Col. Somebody, head of
the ordnance department at Washington, from the Mr. T******* ;
my letter to Mr. King, and another in answer to one received
this day from Charles Petigru, informing me there is no hope of
his coming to Brussels ; a duplicate of Mr. K's. letter at the
same time to me.

At 2 go to the Chamber. Find the seance levee and the ques-
tion on the address carried in favor of ministers. Call, in pass-
ing, at the ministere des affaires etrangeres, on the subject of
a second box of wine on which I am charged duties on the
frontier. Tell him I don't care so much about the present in-
stance, but that I want to know what I have to depend upon in
future. Tells me "the thing ought not to be, and that he will
see to it." Thence to the Port de la ville. Tell the directeur
what has passed between the minister and myself; am assailed
by the voituriers, who say they have advanced the droits and
are not to suffer. Tell them they can make themselves quite
easy as to that, but they will not. I make my escape to my
carriage as soon as possible. Return the call of Mr. Firmin Ro-
gier, secretary of the Belgian legation at Paris. Get down at
the Park. See Mr. White, who has seen Mrs. Trollope ; says
her conversation betrays want of education and usage du monde,
but finds her pleasant, etc. Miss Graham says the MS. was
submitted to Basil Hall, — mark that ! See Lady Wm. Paget,
who comes up to me and expresses her regrets that she was not
in when I called yesterday to give her an airing ; begs I will
advertise her in the morning, whenever I have such intentions.
Hear Mrs. Northey has been excessively ill of the grippe ; leave
my card and condolence. At dinner, in a very ill humor at the
whole economy of my house. Excess immeasurable when I

48 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

am alone, — stinted and bad fare when I have company ; and
that, when the most costly things are in the garde-manger, they
are reserved for the gouter of my servants and their friends.
Confound the whole race, — they torment me to death. Call for
my butcher's book, which I have not seen for three weeks, dur-
ing which time I have dined out at least twelve days ; find what
has been supplied this month already amounts to 185 or 190 lbs.
of meat ! and that for four mouths in twenty-five days, and
some bouillon the night of my party. Can't stand this.

Take a short drive in the Allee Verte. See nobody ! Find
that my cook is the mistress of a Belgian officer, to whom she
must allow rations out of my pantry, for the other servants say
she gives them what is necessary, and that's all.

26th June. Nothing particular, this morning. I am just going
out at 2, when the two sons of General d'Hoogvorst come in :
very amiable lads. Go out to walk ; return at 3. Read the
new work of Martens ( Guide Diplomatique) and Vattel. At
half- past 4 take a bath. Thunder and rain. While at dinner
postman brings me what I took to be some important letter, —
pay 3 florins, open it, and find it an old New- York newspaper !
of the 20th last month. Glad to learn from it that the country
is full of indignation against the ruffian who assaulted the Pre-
sident ; the information dearly purchased.

After dinner drive out ; take up Mr. Seymour ; rain comes on
as we enter the Allee Verte ; return ; get down with him and
spend an hour at his house. Emma beautiful this evening.
Dined, with her father, at the Prince's to-day. The Trollopes
were there : dinner en petit comite. The boy Trollope expresses
surprise that people don't eat cats, snakes, etc., here, as they do
in America.

I copied one of the Prince's notes on Nothomb to-day, which
I found an admirable resume of the manner in which the revo-
lution was brought about.

Hear of a duel between M. Rogier, Minister of the Interior,
and the grumbling, bellowing, perriwig-pated patriot Gendebien
They were originally two bakers of the same farina, but Ro-
gier has risen and is sweet and complacent, — the other having
remained, from some accident in the baking, a mere kneaded
clod (hopper), is turned virulently sour. Their fratricidal com-
bat was not fatal. They fought with pistols at forty paces.
Abel pulled first, but missed ; Cain took aim, without advancing
ten paces, as he might, and shot his favored brother in the cheek
with a spent ball, which, having penetrated one cheek, was ar-
rested in its flight by a tooth in the other, and fell without fur-
ther harm into the mouth; which, I should judge from the

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 49

above recital, was open to receive it at first. The minister is
doing well, and is expected to recover the use of his tongue, for
all political purposes, in a week.

27th June. Receive a tremendous bundle of newspapers from
Havre. In consequence, don't go out at all before dinner. News
upon the whole decidedly good. Randolph certainly dead, and
the people filled with honest indignation against his nose-pulling
namesake, who is absconded, and is said to have sailed for Eu-
rope. Queer e — Won't he too be a lion, like the Trollopes. and
wouldn't he be the very thing to complete the quartette ? Note.
The Frenchman who travels with her, besides other occupations
not publicly declared, serves her in the capacity of sketcher and
caricaturist.

Dine at home. The king returned to Lacken from Antwerp
(where, Mr. Patterson writes me, he has been well received, for
Antwerp,) yesterday, but no dinner to-day. After dinner, a drive
as usual.

At 10, go to a soiree at the French legation. Madame receives
every Thursday. Have a long talk with Mr. Northey, who
seems scandalized at the fuss made about the Trollopes, whom
he had met at the Calderwood's and at Lady Morris'. Says he
thinks they want a place in the book of travels she is writing.
Knows all about her. She is the daughter of a horse-dealer in
England, and has two sisters, who are or were kept mistresses.
I tell him I think it scandalous to pay attentions to such a vul-
gar trollop, which the first literary men of England would not
certainly receive. All the English there, and dancing to the
piano-forte, played by different gentlemen, on a floor which was
quite stick-j, the wax not having been sufficiently rubbed off.

28th June. Another case of wine arrived from Antwerp : a
dozen old Carolina Madeira, by way of specimen. Go out on
foot at 3, to make some little purchases : returning through the
park, see a gentleman and three ladies, in one of the by-walks,
hurrying precipitately forwards. Take up my glass and descry
Mr. Seymour and his daughters, who turn suddenly and come
towards me in the walk where 1 was. I ask what gave them
such extraordinary activity in a warm day. Say they saw a
gentleman whom they wished to avoid. I ask if the blockade
is raised. They reply no ; that the guarda-costa is in sight.
Presently passes Mr. White, and I find out the mot of the enig-
ma. He will think, perhaps, they did not fly from him, but to
me, according to an unfounded report.

Dine at home ; drive ; return ; fine moonlight walk round
the park at half-past 10-11.

Received a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs relative
vol. i. — 7

50 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

to the different cases of wine detained till duties be paid, and
about the forms 1 must submit to in future, to enjoy my priv-
ilege.

29th June. Warm to-day. After my lesson in German, the
master expresses his surprise at my progress. Write an answer
to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, thanking him for his trouble,
and promising to pay the duties this time and take better care
another. Invited to dine at Sir R. Adair's on Tuesday ; to a
soiree on Monday at Mrs. Blackshaw's ; and another on Tues-
day at Casimir Perier's.

Take a walk at 3 ; return at 4. Read until dinner ; at dinner,
and after, read Grirnke's letter to the people of South-Carolina
on the ordinance, — diffuse, rambling, not well composed as a
whole, yet containing some strong passages.

After dinner, they bring in the case of old Madeira ; one of
the bottles broken and empty. How the deuce could that happen 1

At 8, go to a concert, at Vauxhall, given by the little fiddling
prodigies, the Eichorns. They are really wonderful. Meet the
Marchioness of Hastings, with three of her daughters. Very
warm, and having no seat I am exceedingly fatigued, but hold
out for the sake of my company. Invited to go with them after
the concert is over to drink tea. Go, and stay until 12 ; return
by moonlight, which is just beginning to be effaced by a dark
thunder-cloud, that comes rattling up.

30^ June — Sunday. Write to Petigru about the revolution
here. At 2 go out, and call on Gen. Desprez (ill) and Prince
Auguste. Meet, at the Prince's, one of the sons of the Duke
D'Ursel, with his wife, I suppose, for I did'nt hear her name.
Prince asks me to come to his house to-morrow evening, and be
presented to Lady Charlotte Greville, who stays with him. I ask
his leave to copy his commentary, which he cheerfully grants,
adding that he will show me, if I wish it, other works of his on
the public law of Germany, which he speaks of having studied.
I thank him and take leave. Return home to my letter. Soon
after, Count F. Robianode Borsbeck calls. While he is there
Sir Robert Adair comes in. The latter tells me the Austrian
minister to this Court is probably on his way hither now. As
he is going, mentions that, there being a diplomatic dinner at
Court on Tuesday, the Queen of France being expected here,
he has postponed his until Friday. Take a bath. At half-past
7 go out to take a drive in the prairie. At 9 call at Mr. Sey-
mour's, where I stay until half-past 10. Weather warm.

1st July. Day nearly thrown away, for any good purpose.
At 2, calls to take leave ; gets a viaticum ; says I shall

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 51

hear — de ses nouvelles. I am half sorry; alas ! for human feel-
ings,— what an odd jumble they are. Sure the journey will not
take place ; so before. After gone, half-past 4, continue my
letters. Dine ; after dinner write again. At 8, go out en caleche.
Think I see the departed in grande tenue on the Boulevard.
Return and look through my glass ; find I was mistaken.

At half-past 9, go to a soiree at the Prince's ; presents me to
Lady Charlotte Greville, with whom I have a long talk. After-
wards I speak to the Countess de Latour Maubourg, then to
Lady Hastings and Lady Selina H., where I stick ; the party
being almost exclusively English, and, therefore, stiff, stately
and solemn. Nobody but Sir Robert Adair and myself change
places for a long time, the rest being planted round the room
immovable. Little Eichorns astonish us again.

Prom the Prince's, go to another English party at Mrs. Black-
shaw's. The Seymours, Lady Wm. Paget, Count and Countess
Latour Maubourg, Perier, Hamilton and myself, went from the
Prince's. Found a small company, wondering what was be-
come of us ; very dry and stupid. At midnight return, and go
to bed reflecting.

Find out to-day that I have been horribly robbed of some of
my best wine, and begin to imagine whence all the money which
that scoundrel Ferrari sported, on his return from the country,
came from ; the villain — I hope he will get his deserts, — a dozen
Lafitte I meant for Petigru.

Del Chambre tells me he can't let me have my carriage on
the same terms another month ; says Latour Maubourg pays 80
francs more, and, in truth, as I find on talking with him in the
evening, he really does.

2d July. Am engaged all day writing to the government,
making up my accounts, etc. At half-past 4, sally out on foot
to take a little exercise. As I go into the park, a severe shower
of rain and hail comes up, which, by the help of an umbrella
and a tree, I contrive to weather. Returning, I make a toilette
and go to Court to dinner. See there an English party ; Lady
Charlotte Greville, Mrs. Clavering, Mrs. Taylor, and the Sey-
mours. Lady C. walks with the English minister, and is seated
on the left of the king. Mrs. Clavering walks with me. We
have a long and earnest conversation upon the spirit of the
times, etc. I find her eminently pious, and am more charmed
than ever with her manners and conversation. Tell her, among
other things, that my best hopes for my country are founded on.
the sincere respect for religion which possesses, almost univer-
sally, the whole American people. She seemed surprised, —
asked me if I spoke advisedly, and, on my assuring her I did,
said she would treasure up the observation.

52 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

After dinner, change my dress and go to Casimir Perier's ;
dancing to a piano-forte, flageolet and violin. Good many new
English faces there. Two very young lords, whose names I
forget, tall and handsome, among them. Return at midnight.

Note. My traveller not gone, says Louis.

3d July. Queen of France, and the Princesses Marie and
Clementine expected to-day. Being very much overcome hy
incessant application and want of exercise yesterday, walk out
to-day. Visit Summerhauzen's librairie, afterwards Verbeists,
where I buy an edition of Bynkershoek, Bodin, St. Augustin's
Confessions, and a little volume I never heard of before, Ga-
brielis Patherbii Turonici professione Fontebraldcoi Theoti-
mus, sive de tollendis et expurgandis malls libris. St. Augus-
tin's Confessions I have been long curious to see, as also the Civ
itas Dei, but no octavo edition of the latter was to be found in
the curious and immense collection of that singular bibliopole.
I ask him if he has not lately been visited by des Anglaises.
He answers yes, des grandes dames, dont les manieres tenaient
de la royaute. I recognized the Hastings', and told him his
discernment appeared in that observation, for they had for a long
time held a Court. Tells me he never asks who his visiters are,
and accounts for his reserve by a story of some Englishman,
who, having once bought of him some 6 or 7000 francs' worth
of books, for which he paid the ready money, Verbeist begged
to be informed where so good a customer might be found, in
case he got any thing of the same kind, with the objects of the
present purchase. Upon this the unknown amateur, looking at
him over his shoulder, told him, for all his answer, that he was
very curious. How very English !

Sir George Hamilton sends me some trash in the London
Court Journal, in which the little English circle in Brussels is
sltown up. Sir George is Narcissus, (well-named) ; Seton,
Cor-nerus (quasi "core-nero" — ditto) ; Lady de R., Tondirina,
(ditto) ; the others I don't recognise. These attacks on ladies,
and trespasses on the sanctity of private life, appear to me quite
shocking. But whoever takes such a thing as the Court Journal
deserves a place in it.

In passing through the Grand Place observe that the streets
are pevoisees, through which the Queen of France is expected
to pass, and some, though not a great many people, gathered in
them to see the cortege.

Experience, to-day, a depression of spirits, produced by a
cause from which I could not have anticipated such an effect.
Lord, what is man ! I was reminded of St. Augustine by these
feelings.

Receive a letter from Dr. Bronson informing me of his mar-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 53

riage and his perfect happiness. It is a proof, certainly, of some
sort of ecstacy, that he has forgotten to seal a letter which had
to travel 1000 leagues by sea, and 100 by land. The gloom I
was in before is very much deepened by this picture of the only
object I have earnestly and constantly aspired to and sighed for,
but which seems to be only for others, — domestic happiness,
"thou only paradise of man that has survived the fall." Should
my life ever be written, it will be deplored that my aversion to
marriage betrayed me into many peccadillos. Alas ! Solomon
himself never felt more bitterly than I do, and always have, the
vanity and vexation of those wretched substitutes for the interest
which man is destined to feel in woman and her virtuous love,
on pain of suffering the most desolate ennui, and every sort of
chagrin. Verily, Byron — a second Solomon — never said a better
thing, in prose or verse, — "Pleasure is the severest of moralists."

Dine alone ; eat little — think much. After dinner a drive in
a new direction ; return at 9, and finding there an unwonted
solitude, go out, for the first time, to the petit theatre of the
park. Amused for an hour by a vaudeville. Do not see a trav-
eller, who, I am told, is still at Brussels ; hope I may no more
see .

On my return, see an invitation to dine with the Prince to-
morrow. Valet-de-chambre of the Prince excuses himself for
not bringing it in the morning'. To bed and sleep soundly.

Mr. Nothomb sends me his book, by way of hommage, I sup-
pose, for a compliment I paid him at Court, the other day, on his
late speech in the Chamber.

Ath July — Thursday. From 6 in the morning until 4 in the
afternoon, when I dress for dinner, I am incessantly at work.
What a contrast between my calm and even apathy, and the
furious political excitement felt, or, at least, expressed now in
Carolina, where, I suppose, I shall be honored with some com-
plimentary notice by my dearly beloved nullifying friends.

My country ! my country ! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
slayest the prophets ! God of our fathers, have mercy upon
thee!

I continue deeply depressed, and am not a little home-sick to-
day. At half-past 4 go to the Prince's. The Lady Hastings'
and Mr. Fitzgerald keep us waiting for dinner until a quarter
past 6, — they having understood that to be the hour. The
Prince very impatient. Lady Charlotte Greville and her son,
(the Prince's guests,) Hamilton, Seton, Casimir Perier, M. de

, (I never can remember the name of this old Ugitimiste),

and myself, make up the party. I walk to dinner with Lady
Flora ; but, as I am going to sit down, am called by the Prince
to sit on the right of the Marchioness, who is on his right.

54 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

Lady Selina on my right. At dinner eat little and drink less,
but talk a great deal with my charming neighbours. After din-
ner, Lady Flora rallies me for a deserter. I have a long con-
versation with Lady Charlotte, (she is sister to the Duke of
Portland,) whose manners and esprit I admire more than ever ;
nothing can be more refined in its simplicity, — upon that never-
failing topic, the political situation of England. Feels the same
anxiety as all the rest. Says London never was so full as during
the last season, yet agrees there never were so many houses to
let in the West End. Public houses all overflowing, however,
and the capital made a sort of watering-place.

The Prince has just had a pretty picture, of the Flemish
school, copied by his favorite (and every body's) Emma Sey-
mour. It is framed ; he has another copy not framed, — both
are produced and submitted to the judgment of Mr. Fitzgerald,
who sets up for connoisseurship et se rnele, as the Prince ex-
pressed it, oVacheter des tableaux. He looks at the framed copy,
which he takes to be the original, and breaks out into all befit-
ting raptures about its many perfections, scarcely deigning to
cast a glance over the supposed essay of poor little Emma. After
he had vented his ecstacy, and displayed his discrimination in
even the minutest matters, they tell him his mistake. He looks
a little black, but does the best to keep his ground, and, as it is
now a point of amour propre with him, must be henceforth a
champion en titre of our little friend's charming talent, which
any one, without being a connoisseur of pictures or those who
make them, may see in her eyes.

At 7 take leave, and drive in the Allee Verte till three-quarters
past 8. Then return home, and, to fly the solitude, go to the
Theatre Royal, for the first time in exactly six months, since I
gave up my box because they made me pay for the tickets I
presented to my friends. The Muette, which I find charming.
Thin house, though the best, Mr. Clavering tells me, that he has
seen. He has not been here on Sundays. No?ie of the English,
except Lady Wm. Paget and her mother, and Miss Morris (but
not her mother), go on Sundays. Sir Robert in his box.

At half-past 10, to a soiree of Madame de Latour Maubourg.
Dancing to a piano ; not many people. Talk with Hamilton,
who went in my carriage, about a certain adventure.

5th July. I woke (an unusual thing with me) at 3 this morn-
ing, and not being able to sleep rose, according to Franklin's
advice, and exposed myself to the cool (too cool) morning air,
by opening a window ; returned to bed and slept until the music
of the gUides, passing on the Boulevard at seven, waked me
again. Rise depressed and discontented, — read the three books
of the Odyssey in Wolf's edition, etc. On coming down to my

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 55

office at 11, see an invitation to dine at Court to-morrow : send
an excuse immediately to Mr. Butler, to whom I had been en-
gaged. Go out, after writing this and translating a part of the
Expose des Motifs of the conduct of the French government
in relation to American independence, (a very long and remark-
able document,) and walk into town to my banker's, and thence
to Summerhauzen's, where I buy Pellico — le mie prigioni, — a
German translation of the Romancer o of the Cid, and a history,
in German, of the Knights Templars. Return at 3. Not able
to do any thing : begin a letter to Bronson, but my hysterical
feeling will not down, — so I go out again to walk it off. Find
out where an acquaintance of mine lives ; call, but not at home.
Return by way of the city and the park ; find it very warm.
Expect to find a bath ready when I come in ; do, but not warm
enough. As I am getting in my servant brings me a note from
Hamilton, covering a remarkable one to him. Make a toilette
and dine at Sir Robert Adair's at 6. Present, besides Sir R. and
Sir G., Mr. and Mrs. Clavering, Marchioness of Hastings, with
Ladies Flora and Adelaide, Mrs. Walpole (a new arrival), Seton
and myself. After dinner, take Seton to Mr. Taylor's, where we
see some relics of a dinner party and many preparations for a
soiree. Walk in the garden awhile, then to whist. I play two
rubbers and excuse myself. Talk to Lady Flora all the time.
The Mistress Walpole is there, and comes up near me ; I looked
at her over my shoulder, and not recognizing her, (I did not, in
fact, till it was too late,) she seems not a little offended ; and,
being asked about a son or a brother, said to the inquirer, loud
enough for me to hear her, "he is gone to America, — rather a
strange place to go to." I move off a few steps silently, without
seeming to observe this sally of impertinence or spite. Am
desperately sleepy in consequence of the fatigues of the day and
the insomnie of the night before. Retire at half-past 11 and get
to sleep by 12, but, at 3, (as yesterday,) wake again ; and find
Franklin's remedy unavailing this time. Lie awake till 5, when

6th July. I rise and go down to my bureau for my German
grammar. Find my coachman and jille de quartier both at work.
Tell the latter she is early ; answers, unot enough so." After
my barber has done his part, (half-past 8,) I go out and take a

long walk on the Boulevards. See ; voyage broken up.

Return at a quarter past 10 and take my tea and toast.

Invitation from Count and Countess de Merode, Westerton, to
a soiree there this evening. Send to get a box of four seats at
the theatre, against the evening that their majesties shall "be
pleased to honor it with their august presence." None to be
had, but one of eight, — too many for a "solitaire" comme moi.
Take a German lesson and a bath. Read the preface to M. de

56 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Maistre's Soirees de St. Petersbourg. Dine at Court. Queen
of France walks with the King, then the Queen between her
two sisters, Sir R. Adair with Mad. de Latour Maubourg, M. de
L. M. with the Marchioness of Hastings, I with Lady Charlotte
Greville, Hamilton leads in Lady Flora Hastings, and seats her
next to me ; on turning round and seeing her, I exclaim at my
good fortune. Hamilton says, I brought Lady Flora here as a
favor to you. As much pleased as ever with Lady Charlotte G.
After dinner, speaking of her very agreeable manners, stamped
(withal) with a thorough knowledge of the world, to Gen. Gob-
let, he says, "on dit", "that she has, in her day, (she is now
turned of sixty, but doesn't look more than fifty,) made many
men happy before, and happier than you." I reply, that ex-
plains it all, and gives me a high conceit of my own discrimina-
tion ; for I was decidedly impressed with the idea, that she had
learned to read men backwards and forwards, from my first
conversation with her. Talking of her the other day with Mrs.
Clavering, I remarked that she seemed to know the world tho-
roughly. No wonder, said she, for she has lived always in the
best society. That is not what I mean, (I reply) ; for a lady,
and especially an English lady, may pass her whole life in the
best society, without knowing the world in the sense I allude to.
After dinner to Mr. Butler's, where I find the Frekes and a
few other ladies all alone in the drawing-room. Begin to declaim
with them against the barbarous usages of England, which per-
mit gentlemen to sit so long over their wine. Witness the
present instance ; I had gone through a Court dinner, with all
its pomp and circumstance, — been home and changed my whole
dress, and presented myself at 9 o'clock at Mr. B's. — while these
sturdy bottlemen were still at their cups. Servant comes, in the
midst of my harangue, and tells me his master invites me to
join his party. I instantly rat it, but tell the ladies my only
object is to bring them in. Find some seven or eight gentlemen
wrangling about the duty of an ambassador (who, they say, is
paid for that) to present every young Englishman, especially a
lord, that wishes to see the king, and that though there be no
regular levee. (Sir Robert had not presented the two young
Irish lords who passed through.) After a few glasses of very
good wine, — especially the only good Madeira I have tasted in
Europe, — we retire, and presently make up a party at whist, — a
franc a point. I win two rubbers, and take leave, at a quarter
past 10, to go to the Merodes. Find all the company gone ex-
cept Lady Hastings, Sir R. Adair (who is just come in), and the
Seymours and a few French gentlemen. Soon take leave a la
Frangaise and return home, where my solitude is solitude no
more, but sleep is as coy as ever. The almost total loss of it
for three nights is terrible, and deranges my whole system.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 57

7 th July — Sunday. Rise very late, — horribly exhausted and
nervous, but not so desolate as before, because there is some-
thing to awaken an interest of a certain kind. Ennui produces
more offences of every kind against good manners than self-love,
says La Rochefoucault, and c'est Men vrai. It is not good for
man to be alone, — that is, unless he be at hard labour, — for
otherwise a certain great personage is sure to find some mischief
for him to do. See Madame du Deffand, vol. 2, p. — .

The day is very warm. I order a bath at 1, then change
my mind and put it off till 4 ; meanwhile occupied in writing
French, a letter to Bronson, etc. At breakfast, the engraver
brings in 150 visiting cards for me ; hideous things, totally unfit
for use, like every thing else one gets here than can be got any
where else ; e. g., a few days ago had a pair of boots footed for
the first time, and, in putting them on, found that my heel had
accommodated itself with a hole in the back of one of them,
instead of its natural lodging.

Go out en caliche at. 2. Call at Mr. Freke's and see them.
They talk of Paris, where they have never been, though have
stayed here so long a time. Talk of America; say the Ameri-
cans they know, although republicans, are the proudest people
they ever saw. I tell them nature makes aristocracies (I did
not, as I might, add, "and nature alone can make them") where
society does not, and, often, where it does. There are, at first,
two great classes in the world, — people of esprit and fools.
Then comes education, which draws a line between people of
esprit, cultivated and mere mother wit. Lastly, a little fortune
or vantage-ground is necessary to the former, but, this being
given, they necessarily have an ascendant which the world
cannot take away. Thence to Mr. Butler's, whom I see. Hear
thunder, and am off, leaving cards at the Hotel de Merode as I
pass. When I am on the Boulevard, see a tremendous cloud at
the East. Am not long at home before a tempest of thunder,
lightning, hail and rain comes rattling on, pouring out the while
torrents of rain. I take up De Maistre's Soirees, and find a
discussion on the origin of evil, very apropos of a storm, —
pleased with it : have to put it down to go into the bath, where
I remain half an hour, and then, what with the flesh brush and
the toilette, don't get out into the drawing-room until half-past
5. Read till 6. Dinner announced ; eat little. After it, try to
sleep — in vain. At 8 receive a visit ; and, at half-past 9, go out

en voiture fermee to drive, as far as the porte de Hal ;

with me. At half-past 10, to bed, and, God be praised, sleep
soundly for eight hours together.

8/^ July. Return a card I received yesterday from Mr. Henry,
late consul of the United States at Gibraltar. Write to Mr. Mark.
vol. i. — 8

58 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Go out on foot, at half-past 2, and walk as far as the Botanic
Garden ; then back by the rue royale. At half-past 4, dine at
Prince Auguste's. Mad. la Comtesse du Roure, sister-in-law of
Madame de St. Aulaire, and dame oVhonneur of the Q,ueen of
France, Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle d'Hoogvorst, Mr.
Taylor, M. de Baillet, Casimir Perier, Lady Charlotte Greville
and I. Give my arm to Lady Charlotte. At dinner speaks, like
all the rest of the English, oi the downfal of the aristocracy.
Says the inequality of fortune is dreadful ; an eldest brother
with £50,000 a year, while £20,000 is to be divided among all
the younger children. Mentions a duke's daughter that always
goes in a stage-coach, and how it would have horrified her proud
father to think of it ; but she had married a poor cousin for love.
Speaks of the Catons ; says Betsey is good-natured, but vulgar ;
Lady Caermarthen a mischief-maker and universally detested ;
Lady Wellesley very pretty and of good manners, but too evi-
dently playing a part, — indeed, far more stately than the queen.
Mentions that, on some occasion, Lady C, then Lady Harvey,
seeing the aides-de-camp of the Emperor of Russia waiting on
him at table, wanted Lord Wellington's to do the same.

Mr. Taylor mentions that he has lost 600 panes of glass in
his conservatory, etc., by the hail yesterday, and that a part of
the brick wall of the town is demolished. After dinner I return
home, and see a letter from Mr. Harris, (charge d'affaires at
Paris,) who doesn't know me, introducing Mr. Henry to me, —
funny enough.

Go out en caleche, — see the wall where it was demolished ; it
is washed down. Return and spend the evening at home. At
half-past 9, go out en voiture fermee with a friend. To bed and
sleep pretty well,—

9th July — but wake with a decided fit of spleen and ennui.
When I am come down, one of my servants comes in with some
complaint, — a thing that always makes me furious ; leaves me
with my bile all stirred up, and prevents my studying for my
German master, who comes in at half- past 11. After the usual
occupations, go out at 2 and call on Mr. and Mrs. Henry, — not
at home. Take a walk and return ; finish Vattel. Dine alone.
Read, after dinner, English newspaper (Examiner). At three-
quarters past S, company comes. After 10, go out to a soiree
dansante at Mrs. Heyland's. Talk with Lady Flora Hastings
and Miss Seymour ; decline playing whist. Return at half-past
11, and sleep, in a single nap, through the whole night. Day
very unseasonably cold, gloomy and damp.

\0th July. Cold, gloomy weather continues. Before I am
down stairs, Mr. Henry calls. Tell my servant to show him

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 59

up. Talks about Col. Hayne, Harris (charge at Paris), etc. Has
good manners, but bourgeois ; an American tourist in England,
among merchants, etc. Tell him I shall be happy to see the
ladies of his party. Asks me to name my hour, which I do ;
and, at half-past 2, I call, and am led up to the top of the Belle-
vue hotel, where, in angulo quodam, see two pretty girls, one
English, the other, Mr. H's. daughter, still prettier, and prettier
quam American, — outline more precise and Greek, countenance
belle, etc. Talk half an hour with them ; advise them to go
up the Rhine, and by no means to miss the country between
Liege and Namur. Take a walk, then home and study Wicque-
fort till dinner ; struck with his way of thinking, etc. After
dinner, read the Examiner till some one comes in at 8 ; and, at
half-past 9, take a drive, as far as the gate de Hal, en voiture
fermee. At a quarter past 10, go to a soiree at Latour Mau-
bourg's, where, besides the old set, I see Lord and Lady Sidney.
They are young ; she a Paget, daughter of Lord Anglesey, —
pretty, and dances tolerably for an Anglaise, but too dumpy. I
stay only until 11. Getting rather tired of all this, and sighing
for a month or two at Paris.

11th July. Morning as usual. Weather clearing up. Take
a walk at half-past 2 ; delightful day. On the Boulevard meet
Col. Nixon. While talking with him, the Prince and Lady
Charlotte Greville pass in a britscka. Col. N. confirms what
General G. told me the other day.

No event. Finish my letter to Bronson in the evening. In-
vitation to dine with the Prince to-morrow ; hope I shall see
Lady Charlotte, who told me she was to go to-morrow, and to
whom I expressed the strong desire I feel to see her again. Oh !
when she was 40 years younger, or even 30 !!

\2th July. When I come down to-day, receive a note from
Sir R. Adair, inviting me to meet Lord and Lady Durham at his
house to-day, at a dinner sans f agon. Unfortunately under the
necessity of declining the invitation. Send newspapers to Amer-
ica,— Constitutionel to Petigru ; send my letter to Bronson by
the English courier. Write, also, to my English tailors, Lane
& Sons. Walk on the Boulevard. On my return dress for
dinner, and go at half-past 4. Nobody there but Perier, Mr.
Seymour and Emma, Lady Charlotte and her son. Rather an-
noyed that I was not at Sir Robert's. Sit next to Lady Charlotte.
Talk, among other things, of Lord Stanhope ; mention the story
of the raw head. She laughs, and says it must have been a
phantom of his own creation ; though, dares say, he believed it.
Says he is a little cracked, she thinks. I smile, and she asks
me if I don't think so too. I told her I thought him "full bro-

(50 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

ther of Lady Esther." The truth is, I set him down for that in
my journal at the time ; though, as she says, he is clever. As
to the story itself, it seems it is not without foundation ; a head
has appeared to Lord Grey, but Mr. Greville never heard that
it was Brissot's. Lady C. says Lord Durham talks so coarsely
to women, that his society is not considered as safe for them,
though he can be, when he pleases, very agreeable. His temper,
too, is bad.

After dinner, I take a drive in the neighborhood of Lacken ;
Mr. Seymour with me. That over, I had arranged to call on
the Hastings', where his daughters are to be, but I do not. Go
out, however, and come back at 1 1 discontented. I am rapidly
falling into confirmed ennui, and must change the air.

13th July. Receive a visit from a person who writes himself
"Olislagers de Meersenhoven," and claims kin with M. deVilain
XIV. Comes to ask how he can recover a small debt at Charles-
ton, which is to be paid over for the benefit of the "missions."
One of many instances of the spirit of proselytism that is
abroad in this country. Speaks of "Monseigneur" England,
who, he tells me, is in Ireland just now. I have a good deal to
say to him about his church in America, and our prison discip-
line.

Mr. Butler, Sen., calls to take leave, — going to Aix la Chapelle.
Walk out ; return at 4, and study Wicquefort until 6. Dine at
half-past 7. Before I am out of my dining room, a friend calls ;
partakes of the dessert — nothing else.

l&th July — Sunday. A mass of Weber or Beethoven at St.
Gudule's, with the possibility of seeing the Queen of France
there, and the certainty of witnessing the procession of the St.
Sacrement, (I believe,) tempts me out at 10. When I descend
from my carriage, some person, with a badge of office on him,
leads me up an avenue, formed by a double row of soldiers, into
the choir, where I do what I never did before, — go through a
whole mass. The priest, ministering, at the elevation, was liter-
ally enveloped in a cloud of incense. Music delightful.

Return home and begin a letter to Hammond. At 2, go out
with the intention of calling at Mr. Taylor's and Lady Charlotte
Fitzgerald's. See Mr. T. in the street. He gets up into my
carriage, and we go together to his house. Passing, we meet
Lady Wm. Paget in Casimir Perier's caleche; remarks on the
incident, and Lord William is said to he jealous. At Mr. Tay-
lor's see Lady C. Greville ; tells me she hopes she will have the
pleasure of meeting me at the Prince's to-morrow. Tell her I
shall have that happiness. Thence to Lady Charlotte Fitzger-
ald's. See there Lady Flora and Lady Sophia Hastings. Lady

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 61

Charlotte gives me "Sketches of Canada by a Backwoodsman"
to read, and Mr. Fitzgerald the last number of the Examiner. I
make my bow to the ladies, and go with him into his library.
He shows me a printed composition of Lady Flora, — a pretty
tale, — which proves her mind to be as elegant as her manners.
Leave a card at Mrs. Heyland's. Return home, and walk out.
Meet Mr. Seymour, who begs me to come and dine with him,
which I consent to do. Return to my letter to Hammond.

At 6, go to Mr. Seymour's. Meet there a Mr. JSearle (I think)
and his wife, daughter of an Admiral Amsel? or some such
name, — pretty eyes, but coarse voice and loud in her conversa-
tion. I experienced, at this dinner, the inconvenience of not
being introduced. Something was said about the Dutch, and
what the Americans felt towards them. It was remarked that
the former were a good people, and every body liked them. The
Dutch you mean, says this lady, not the Americans, surely, for
if there is a people I abhor, it is they. Mr. Seymour seemed
ready to sink ; all was consternation. I affected not to hear, but
it wouldn't do ; the blood mounted into my cheeks, and I was
silent in spite of every effort I made to talk as if nothing had
happened. I don't know whether she found out her mistake.
After some time, the ladies left the table, and we soon followed.
In the drawing-room, I entered into conversation with this per-
son and Mrs. Seymour, and endeavored, while coffee was hand-
ing, to make the impression that I had not heard ; but after
lights were brought (about 9) I decamped, in spite of all the
friendly remonstrances of my kind hosts against that step.

This little woman's being the daughter of an admiral may
account for somewhat more vivacity of hate, but I am satisfied
the hostility she expressed with so much naivete is, in a greater
or less degree, a national feeling. The attentions paid to the
Trollopes, were not all due to curiosity and the desire of appear-
ing in her future pages.

I return home, not excited, but reflecting on the wickedness
of such feelings, and especially of the conduct of those who lay
themselves out to awaken or inflame them.

Mr. Butler, Sen., calls to take leave, and urges me to Aix la
Chapelle.

Mem. When the procession was formed before the cathedral
to-day, and the priests began to bray out their psalmody, some
young men near my carriage bellowed in response, and laughed
heartily at the impious mimicry. Although this is the most
Catholic of Catholic countries, I have no where seen jokes upon
the clergy so heartily relished.

Voth July. Morning, etc., as usual. Continue my letter to
Hammond a few moments. Go out on foot at 2. After my re-

62 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

turn, read Wicquefort half an hour, when I receive an unex-
pected visit. My guest par tie, I make a toilette and go to the
Prince's. Present, the English ambassador and his sister (Mrs.
Clavering), Seton, Hamilton, Mr. Taylor and his new son-in-
law Mr. Deeds, Mr. Seymour, Duke D'Ursel, Lady Charlotte
Greville, Mr. Greville and I. Sit between Mrs. Clavering and
Hamilton. The former anxious about the politics of England.
Since the ministry have been beaten on the local courts bill,
expects a change. Very kind and complimentary to me ; takes
a glass of Sillery, and asks me to fledge her, taour meeting in
England.

After dinner, go home and find Washington papers to the 14th
June. Go out, afterwards, en caleche, towards the Alice Verte.
A monde infini on foot (especially) and en voiture. It is the
Karmesse of the city to-day.

According to Lady Charlotte's request, return to the Prince's
after 9, expecting to play whist. Nobody but herself and the
Prince. Duke d'Ursel comes in afterwards. No whist, but
agreeable conversation. Prince tells me a new book of Me moires
of Condorcet is advertised. Talk of De Maistre and his Soirees
de St. Petersbourg. Lady Charlotte calls my attention to Galig-
nani's Messenger on the late Parliamentary event, at which I
can see she is chuckling, but still anxious. About 10 take leave,
shake hands, and hope we shall meet again. Darling little crea-
ture,— and whose years one absolutely forgets in her nameless
graces. Walk to the Porte de Louvain and back again ; read
my American newspapers and go to bed.

16th July. German master admires at my progress ; I begin
to read without a great deal of difficulty, and shall soon under-
take some work of note, — e. g., Wolf's Prolegomena, which is
sent me to-day by Mayer, or the Romancero of the Cid, trans-
lated. At 10 walk out ; go to Mayer's and buy a German pocket
dictionary. Return at 4 and read Wicquefort. Dine alone.

To-day Prince Auguste leaves Brussels, to make a short tour
on the Rhine with his little darling, Lady Charlotte Greville.
Her majesty's advanced pregnancy prevents their seeing us at
Court ; so that I shall, for a fortnight at least, be very seldom
disturbed in my solitude. Tant mieux. Let my eyes only hold
out, and I am independent of the world.

Drive, after dinner, round the town. See preparations for a
grand illumination at the Botanical Garden. Go by there in my
carriage at 9 to half-past 10 ; brilliant beyond every thing of the
kind fever saw.

17th July. Excuse from M. and Mad. de Latour Maubourg,
for not being well enough to receive this evening. Hair cut ;

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 63

take a bath and — a cold. Terrible attack of pain in the pit of
the stomach and bowels at dinner. Take a cigar and lie down ;
passes off. Drive out — return ; drive out again after 9.

Letter from Count F. de Merode, announcing his appointment
ad interim to the bureau of foreign affairs, during M. Goblet's
absence at London.

Returning from the Allee Verte, (where I met, for the second
time, the whole royal family, — viz : the king, two queens, and
two princesses, in a single open carriage,) Mr. Seymour stops
me and invites me to his house this evening, but tells me my
"bill of fare." "The same," says he, smiling, "you had on Sun-
day." I smile, and tell him I will come another time.

18th July. Nothing extraordinary. Returning, in my walk
at 2-4, fall in with Mr. Irving, who refers me to the London
Courier for a meeting of the saints in England, in relation to
slavery in the United States. They find fault, it seems, with
the Colonization Society, because the sending off the free people
of colour diminishes the chance of insurrection. Afterwards see
Sir R. Adair, who tells me the Tories are alarmed ; that the
result of their late meeting at Apsley House was a determina-
tion to let the Irish church reform bill go to a second reading,
and to introduce amendments in committee, that this concession
of theirs is altogether owing to the decision of "our" (whig)
party, who would have resigned on the spot and refused to have
any thing more to do with the government, etc., etc. Tells me,
with a charge of the profoundest secrecy, that the Dutch propo-
sitions submitted through Dedei and Van Soclen are more inad-
missible than ever ; perhaps, owing to the apparent instability
of the Whig administration. The whole conference had scouted
the overture.

After dinner a heavy shower comes up, which prevents my
driving. Amuse myself with "Sketches of Canada, by a Back-
woodsman", (a Mr. Dunlop, says Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald, who
lent me the book) — very lively and clever, and, I dare say, just.
Says the Southern planters are the only "body of gentlemen" in
America, and that's true.

Answer M. de Merode's letter.

IQth July. Undertake to read the preface to Wolf's Lectures
on the four first books of the Iliad, in German ; find it horribly
difficult. Go out on foot and walk for an hour, 3 to 4 ; buy half
a guillaume's worth of good cigars. After dinner drive in the
Allee Verte ; bad weather coming up, I return in haste. At 10,
go to a pleasant party at Mr. Taylor's, where I am presented to
Mrs. Deeds, his newly married daughter ; not very pretty, but

64 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

fat, fair and amiable. Some English new-comers there. I talk
principally with Lady Flora. Sir John Morris returned from a
visit of two months to England. At half-past 11 return home,
leaving almost all the company still there. Don't take much
interest now in these things, and, to tell the truth, I am always
afraid I may hear something disagreeable about my country in
English society.

20th July. Anniversary of my departure from New- York.
Windy and showery. Receive a letter from McMillan King,
apologizing for his very culpable remissness heretofore ; another
from Mr. Mark. Soon after, a visit from Mr. Serruys, brother of
the vice-consul at Ostend, from whom he hands me a letter and
a copy of the new instructions to consuls. Walk, dine, etc., as
usual, but do not drive out in the evening, because my worthy
footman's daughter is thought to be dying, and I have sent him
to his family. Poor fellow, he did not venture to tell me of it
himself ; I learned it through a third person, — a circumstance
which affected me very much.

Go to a party at Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald's. Talk to Mr.
Seymour, Lady Flora and Lady Sophia, who (though a victim
of disease) is a pattern of amiableness and meek resignation,
and, withal, remarkably sensible. We talk of patience under
the ills of life, etc. She says she does not know what it is to
lose a nighfs rest. How much to be envied ! Then, said I,
you have never known perfect misery, of which an insomnia is
at once the effect and the cause. My feelings towards Lady
Flora still the same, and she seems to understand what they are.
I love their sweet English way of shaking hands, — so much
better than the Frenchified bovj. My happiness would be as
perfect as man's can be, with such a lady for my bride, without
her title, and of my own country, — but why, ye gods, do two
and two make four ? Confound number and quantity, they are
sadly at war with quality.

2\st July — Swiday. Read De Maistre's Soirees de St. Peters-
bourg. Strikes me as a production of singular originality and
power. Go out to walk at half-past 12, and find myself the
better of it all day long. Receive a letter from my mother, and
another from my London tailor. Sir H. Seton calls : as I owe
him a visit, don't know what brought him. Copy part of my
journal for Hammond. Return to De Maistre, — tremendous
censure ot Voltaire. Dine alone ; after dinner, read the Soirees
again until company comes in. At half-past 9 go out en voiture.

22d July. Dismal day, — rainy and blowing hard. Go out

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 65

to walk at 3 notwithstanding, and meet Miss Northey on horse-
back, with a footman only accompanying her. She tells me it
is a very fine day, which I repeat and pass on.

Sir Robert Adair sends me the card of Mr. McGregor, and
asks to be allowed to present him. Afterwards Mr. Morse (the
young gentleman from New-Orleans, who was here about a
month ago) comes in, on his return from England and Holland.
Says the cholera is very bad in Rotterdam. Says Mr. Living-
ston is to go first to Naples, in order to get two outfits. So much
the better for him, if he don't want to get a different kind of
fits, — as I am near doing for want of Rhino. While Mr. M. is
talking, Sir Robert is announced and shown up stairs. I follow
and am introduced to Mr. McGregor, a worthy and intelligent
Scotsman, who has been a long while in America, and has just
published a book about the British colonies in the North and the
United States, of which, he says, the first edition is already
bought up : promises me a copy. I talk a long time with him
after Sir Robert takes leave. Among other things, he tells me
the valley of the Mississippi is capable of supporting a greater
population than all Europe. Promise to call and see him.

Dine at Mr. Taylor's. Present, besides his own family, Lord
Edward Somerset, brother of the Duke of Beaufort ; and two
ugly little men of the name of Talbot, connections of his. The
Marchioness of Hastings, with Lady Flora and Lady Selina,
Seton and I. Two young English ladies had been invited, who
sing a merveille, but one of them was suddenly attacked with
some disorder, an evening or two ago, at the theatre, and so I did
not hear them. Seton, whom I take to Mr. T's. in my carriage,
says they are '-horrid vulgar", but recherchees for their voice,
poor things. Lady Flora (on the contrary) tells me one of them
is extremely beautiful ; that their singing is very superior, a
la Malibran, etc.; that they were once all the fashion, and re-
ceived the greatest attention from the "smartest" people at Rome,
where she saw them ; that, being portionless, they afterwards
got out of vogue, and she saw them again at Brighton, and was
glad to find they did not seem at all out of heart for the change,
which made her conceive a high respect for them, and treat
them always with attention. Sweet creature, — this is perfectly
characteristic of her. I sit next to her at dinner, where the
conversation turns on ancient nobility. I make some inquiries
about the different races that compose her lineage. Tells me
why they bear the name of Hastings instead of Rawdon. I ask
her if she has ever seen Mr. Wheaton's work on the "North-
men", which every descendant of the Sea Kings ought to feel
an interest in, as it is well spoken of by the critics. Says she
will remember it.

After dinner, gentlemen remain at table a little while. In the
vol. i.— 9

66 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

drawing-room, have a long talk with Lord Edward and one of
his companions, — both tories, — and the little Talbot vulgar, and
very loud ; so that I was quite ashamed of speaking to him on
such subjects as government, etc., which, with his proclamation
voice, he forced on the attention of the whole suite of apart-
ments. Lord Edward commanded a brigade of cavalry at Wa-
terloo, whither he goes to-morrow, never having been there
since "the evening of the 18/A." A very gentlemanlike person,
with a large family and small revenue. He is here reconnoi-
tring for a good retreat from the ruinous prodigality of London.
Tells me Mr. McLane said of the reform bill that it made Eng-
land a republic, — he would not pretend to affirm that the change
were for the better, or the contrary, but such was the change.
I tell him I think Mr. McLane was not quite right in that, for
that, in my opinion, their government was now neither mon-
archy nor republic, but something far less stable or efficient than
either.

Seton tells me Miss Morris once said to him, before a third
person, that he did not behave like a gentleman. That's no
compliment to yourself, replied S., for a man's conduct is always
regulated by that of the lady he is with. Rather sharp this, but
nothing can be too much so for that most odious and offensive
little parricide , who is doing her best to take in Perier.

By-the-bye, when Seton's note, begging me to call for him as
I was going to dinner, came to-day, I thought of the extra visit
yesterday. Oh world !

Return at half-past 11. In a quandary about a carriage ; tired
of Del Chambre and hiring, which is too expensive, but don't
know how to raise the wind for a purchase. Wish for one of
Mr. Livingston's outfits. — it is the devil to be living, at a Court,
from hand to mouth.

23d July. Call on Mr. McGregor, who introduces me to his
young and rather pretty wife. Go afterwards to Mr. Mayer's
librairie : buy a pamphlet, published at the Hague, of which the
drift is to shew that the kingdom of the Netherlands ought to
be re-established. Thence to Verbeist's, to pay a little debt.
Afterwards, look at a carriage belonging to the estate of feu
Count Somebody ; a very nice thing it is, and scarcely used at
all. but too much asked. Get down to walk on the Boulevard.
Heavy shower of rain comes up. Don't go out to drive after
dinner, but do at half-past 9. Evening fine, etc., moon.

2kth July. Awaked this morning, at 6 o'clock, by a discharge
of artillery upon the Boulevard, announcing the birth of a prince.
After I go down to my office, hear that the French ambassador
is gone to Lacken. Send to know if the English minister has

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 67

followed ; find he has. Send my coachman to the palace here,
to know whether I shall be received if I go ; answer of the
Grand Marshal determines me to go. Set out about 2, enfrac.
In the salle d'audience, see the dames oVhonneur, with whom I
exchange felicitations. Presently Count d'Arschot tells me the
king wishes to see me in the garden where he is. I go down
the steps and see his majesty at the bottom of them, in a blue
military surtout. Receives me cordially, offering his hand, which
took me so much by surprise, that I had not time to take off my
glove until after I had taken his majesty's hand, for which I
apologise, — choice of evils, and I thought it best not to keep the
king waiting. Thanked me for my visit, and for all the interest
I had uniformly shown in their welfare. Returned to Brussels,
call on Seton, who lives in the third story of the palace, (which,
by-the-bye, is a pretty shabby concern altogether,) in a small
apartment. Received me in a sort of drab surtout, with slippers
down at the heel, and without a cravat. Dine alone and very
heartily, which is what I have not done for nearly three months.
Have not eaten my dessert, when I see it announced in an after-
noon paper that the cholera is supposed to have re-appeared at
Antwerp. Repent of my appetite ; diet again, — nothing new to
me, especially as good English fare is said to be the best.

In the evening, go out en voiture to see the illumination ; not
at all brilliant, and no other evidences of popular enthusiasm.
Streets pretty full, but not so much so as I expected, moderate as
my expectations were. Crackers and squibs thrown about with
sufficient license ; thought it prudent to raise the glasses of my
carriage, something of the kind having been thrown over the
top of it.

At half-past 10, to a soiree at Latour Maubourg's, which,
owing to the departure of many of our fashionables for the
watering-places, and the absence of others, was triste enough.
Yet I staid till 12. For a wonder, Miss Morris, whom I had
made up my mind not to salute and studiously avoided, sjyoke
to me, and we actually carried on an amiable conversation for
ten minutes. Afterwards her mama asks me to come to her
house to-morrow evening. I had a talk, again, with Lord Ed-
ward Somerset. Mr. Northey tells me I have been highly com-
plimented in the "Morning Herald'1, at the expense of Sir Robt.
Adair. I tell him half the friendship in the world is like that :
praise the love of one, to spite another.

25/A July. Count calls to sell me his carriage ; no-
thing decided. Receive a letter from Mrs. Holbrook. Pay a
call, en caleche, at Mr. Taylor's. See the Prince there, who is
just returned (an hour ago). Tells me Lady Charlotte desired
to be remembered to me. In the evening to Lady Morris' — the

68 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

first time this six months. Play whist. A Polish exile plays
admirably on the piano-forte. I am invited to go there again on
Saturday, — rather too much of a good thing. What's the mean-
ing of this change ? Cut bono ? Return at midnight.

26th July. Very much occupied to day, finishing letter to
Hammond, to whom I send an extract from this journal ; write
to my mother also. Send the two letters by way of England.
Nothing worth recording the rest of the day, except a drive in
the evening (half-past 9 to half-past 10) by moonlight. Del
Chambre excuses himself for having taken away my carriage
and hired it.

27th July. German lesson ; reading the Cid in the original
and German translation ; find I make a sensible progress. Go
out en caleche in quest of a carriage, being determined to depend
no longer on Del Chambre, who is a thorough-paced scoundrel.
Look at several ; two please me very much, — but the price !
Get down on the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique and walk.
Loveliest day decidedly we have had this summer ; warm, with-
out being hot, even in the sun, while there is none of that chilli-
ness in the air that makes any exposure to it, even in the hottest
weather, dangerous.

Dine alone ; bowels out of order ; if the cholera should break
out, should be rather uneasy. After dinner, call for Mr. Seymour
en caleche and drive in the Allee Verte, where we meet the
Taylors, the Prince and Sir George Hamilton. Go thence to
Mr. Taylor's, where I was invited yesterday to play whist with
the Prince. Do play three rubbers, all which I win. Tremen-
dously annoyed by my bowels while playing. All agreeably
surprised by-a party of strolling Tyrolese, who strike up a song
at the bottom of Mr. Taylor's conservatory, which communicates
with his suite of rooms. Presently Hamilton and others, with
Mr. Deeds and the Seymours, begin to waltz and gallop to this
wild music. At three-quarters past 10, I go to another musical
soiree at Lady Morris'. Find them in the midst of a duet, piano
and harp, and in full ecstacy ; the harper is some famous French
performer. Company listening with deep and silent attention.
Remark Lord Wm. Paget, who is just come. Speak to the lady
of the house. Am rather overcome with the heat and the music
together, and soon file. In bed at half-past 11, but don't sleep
well. Began to-day a very clever, that is, sensible, pamphlet on
the necessity of re-establishing the kingdom of the Pays Bas,
printed at the Hague, as it is said, a few weeks ago.

28^ July — Sunday. Send newspapers to America, and write
to McMillan King. Dine at the Prince's en petit comite. In

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 69

the evening call at Lady Hastings', when that omnipresent and
eternal bore, Mr. Brurenbrock, comes in. Bath to-day and long
walk.

29/A July. Ball at Mr. Northey's. Long talk with Madame
de Bethune.

30th July. Very unwell to-day, — nervous and cholerick. Buy
a carriage, — 3700f.

31 st July. Better than I was yesterday. Send to Del Cham-
bre to come and take his horses, his coachman having wounded
himself severely last night, or rather been wounded, by a horse
treading on him. Sign an agreement about my carriage, and
begin from that moment to repent. Straitened by money sent
to America. I am now 5000f. in debt, — making thirty and odd
thousand I have spent since I have been here. Horrible this
gene of an American salary, to one living necessarily a VEuro-
peene.

1st August. Hip, spleen, vapors, — all the horrors that haunt
an empty purse, — full of every thing but hope. A Capt. Messina,
proscribed in Italy for political opinions, comes to beg. I give
him 10f, and regret I could give no more ; but the government
allows us nothing for the unfortunate — except sympathy, a dis-
cretion ; of that, at least, Jonathan is certainly prodigal.

2d August. Mr. Henry calls, on his return from the Rhine.
I invite him to dine, sans f agon, which he consents (apparently
by way of conferring a special favor) to do. His daintiness of
speech, aping the worst style of English manners, quite oppres-
sive. In the course of conversation, talks of American women
as loud. Tell him not those I happen to know ; and I seize the
occasion to remark, without seeming to mean an inuendo, that
some of the English err on the other extreme. After he is gone,
I write to the Mr. McGregor whom Sir R. Adair presented to me,
to come and join us, which he very kindly consents to do. Pretty
good dinner for an improvisation on a jour maigre. I produce
the best wines, — Johannisberger, Montillado Sherry, Rota (1810)
and old Carolina Madeira, which my guests praised very much
and drank copiously, remaining with me until 10 o'clock. Mr.
Henry, having been consul at Gibraltar for twenty years, may
be, as he pretends, a good judge of Spanish wines. He tells me
the two I gave him are as good as can be found, — but the old
Madeira seemed to be the favorite. He began by telling me he
had already dined at the table oVhote of the Hotel de Flandre
with his children ; but he did pretty well notwithstanding.

70 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

3d August. I send to Mr. McGregor the number of the
Southern Review containing my article on those blackguards.
the Benthamites. Write to Mr. Mark. At half-past 8, go to
the Prince's and play whist there until 12 ; win 23 points. In-
vited to dine there on Monday.

Ath August. Walk out. Receive a letter from Mary, at
Greenville, 21st June. Begin one to her. In bad spirits ; want
of money; bad dinner, which makes 'em worse. Evening, call
at Mr. Seymour's ; Mrs. S. and Emma gone to Ostend for the
latter's health.

5th August. Receive from Mr. Patterson, who is just return-
ed from London, Mr. Wheaton's book on the Northmen, which
I send to Lady Flora Hastings, with a note begging her to ac-
cept of it as a souvenir of Brussels. Mr. Fitzgerald comes in
at the very moment with three late Examiners. I tell him I
have bought a carriage, and want horses. He cautions me
against keeping my coachman, who was formerly in his service,
and a very worthless fellow ; yet this coachman shewed me a
certificate of good behaviour from Mr. Fitzgerald !! This intel-
ligence makes me very uneasy, for circumstances place me some-
what at the mercy of this man for the present. Go to Damoot
& Co. to know when the banking-house is to stop its operations,
according to a recent notice. Tells me I may be easy about it.
Returning, call on Mr. McGregor, who is just on the wing ; see
him for five minutes. Make a toilette, and, at 5, dine with the
Prince. Present, Sir R. Adair, Hamilton, Seton, and Marquis de
Jumelle, Lord and Lady Wm. Paget, Lady de Rottenbourg, Mr.
Crampton (the new attache to the English embassy) and myself.
At dinner, Lord William is introduced to me, at his request, by
Hamilton. After dinner, he comes up to me and thanks me for
the attention I have paid his wife. I tell him we have all petted
her a great deal. Conversation then turns on our navy, national
prejudice between England and America, etc., etc. He is very
complimentary and civil, but how very disagreeable it is to have
to prefix the same proem to every conversation with a new
English acquaintance. Afterwards, Mr. Crampton asks Hamil-
ton to introduce him to me, which is done. He is a handsome
young man of twenty-nine, with a grey head, inclining already
to baldness ; has been three years in St. Petersburg ; knew Mr.
Middleton, who, he says, was very well liked there. Says Ran-
dolph's presentation, etc., was the "funniest" thing of the kind
that had ever taken place, — little Clay was left alone, friendless
and unknown. Lord Hatesbury (forgetting animosities) sent for
him to dine with him, out of compassion, and afterwards treated
him with all manner of kindness. Mr. Buchanan, a very good

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 71

sort of man, but so destitute of all the requisites of a diplomatist,
that he (Mr. C.) can't conceive why he went to St. Petersburg ;
where he lives in a part of the town which is a perfect terra
incognita, and there is no society at St. Petersburg but the Court.
So it goes, — and that is reptiblican wisdom. Why the devil
send an ambassador at all ? Sir Robert asks me what they are
to do with Portugal. I tell him recognize Dona Maria. He says
yes, with a regency. I declare, in like manner, for a regent, for
Pedro is no better than My-jewel. Note — I said the Lords had
done a foolish thing in rejecting the Jews' bill ; Sir R. thinks it
well. Invited to dine again at the Prince's on Wednesday. Mr.
Taylor says Lady Win. P. won't speak to him, and supposes it
is because the Prince gave her mama a hint about her flirting
so with Perier ; says he don't care a pin about her, and still in-
vites her, but that's all. They all go to the play to see the first
representation of uLes deux enfans d?Edouard?\ by Casimir de
la Vigne ; I return to my solitude.

Buy an edition of Seneca to-day, whose works I am deter-
mined to read over by a remark in De Maistre's Soirees, that he
had undoubtedly heard St. Paul and learned from him to speak
of Hoving God", which no heathen philosopher before him had
ever done.

6th August. Gen. Desprez dies this morning at 5 o'clock. I
made my respects to him at Lady Morris' last soiree, where he
was with his only child, a singularly fine girl of fifteen or six-
teen, now left alone in the world, though with a very good for-
tune,— £2000 a year, dit-on. This is a prodigious great loss.
He was Chef d'etat-Major-General, and a man of sterling merit.

Receive a note, in answer to mine, from my adored Lady
Flora, — thanks and acceptance, but dry to ravish. Long walk ;
see preparations making for the 8th. Dine alone.

7th August. Dine at the Prince's, and play cards there in
the evening.

8th August. Baptism of the Prince. I go to St. Gudule in
my carriage, with a pair of horses on trial. Immense crowd in
the streets. The choir of the church prepared to receive the
king and the royal family, the corps diplomatic, the clergy, the
ministers, the legislative body, the bar and the bench, etc. Gal-
leries on its sides filled with ladies and their attendants. Cere-
mony performed by the Archbishop of Malines. Q,ueen of
France, Marraine, — King, represented by the Duke of Orleans,
Parrain. The two young princesses, Marie and Clementine,
with the Duke of Nemours, in the royal tribune as spectators.
After the baptism, a Te Deum. On going out, I find my car-

72 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

riage not there, and get up with Hamilton in his. After waiting
a long time, my servants come home and sit down to their break-
fast, which they eat so deliberately, that I do not get to the
palace until the reception is over. Return immediately, and
write an account of the events of the day to Mrs. Holbrook and
my sister M. Dine, at 7, at Court, — 140 converts. Besides the
chiefs of the corps diplomatique, ministers, etc., chairmen of all
the deputations of felicitation there. I see there the archbishop,
who is a hale, handsome man, just turned of forty. At table, I
remark on his promotion, and say I suppose he is of an influen-
tial family. Not at all, replies Madame de Stassart, — the son of
vl farmer. The King and the Queen of France very images of
happiness. Dinner very pleasant : crowd before the palace im-
mense, and, as half (at least) of it is of the feminine gender,
view from the windows of the chateau very striking and pictur-
esque. Illumination at night, and really much popular enthu-
siasm,— the^rs^ I've seen.

9th August. Funeral of Gen. Desprez, and death of poor
Des Voeux, the excellent, intellectual and learned attache of the
British legation, loving and beloved of one of the sweetest wo-
men I ever saw, — a daughter of the late Lord Ellenborough. I
went to St. Jacques sur Candenberg, but was requested to go to
the house of Gen. Desprez. After waiting a long while, we fol-
lowed the body pele-mele to the church. A long funeral service,
with sprinkling of holy water and castings-up of incense, enough
to exorcise all the "legion" of hell. Then, en voiture, we follow
the hearse. When we got about midway the park, in the Rue
Royale, my new horses become restive, stop, turn around, and
refuse to budge, until led off by my footman. I am horrified, as
well I may be, at this untoward circumstance ; and consent to
my coachman's request (which he makes in an evident funk) to
his withdrawing immediately, but Mr. Fitzgerald, who is with
me, urges me on. We go on, with occasional stops and tricks
of my horses, until near the Allee Verte, they come to a stop,
and I abandon the procession and return home.

10th August. Coachmaker comes for his pay. Congratulates
me, for the horses I had were quite unbroken. Invitation to
dine at Mr. Fitzgerald's on Monday.

11th August — Sunday. Mr. Patterson calls. Newspapers
from America. Call, with Mr. P., to see his sisters and brother.
Returning, see the king reviewing a regiment of artillery on the
Boulevard. Occupied all day with reading England and Eng-
lishmen by Bulwer. In the evening, call at Lady Hastings' and
stay till after 10.

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 73

12th August. Dine at Mr. Fitzgerald's. Meet there the
Hastings', and and his wife, exiled from Milan on ac-
count of politics some ten years ago, and all his fortune seques-
tered ; but he has since inherited some 50,000 francs a year in
Belgium. Have a long talk with him about their sufferings and
prospects ; the former much greater than the latter, I fear me.
His wife quite a blondine, and very amiable. Say they are
charmed to make my acquaintance, and promise to cultivate it.
Lady Flora speaks Italian with them perfectly well. In the
evening, Seton, the Frekes and others come in. The former is
very frisky and facetious, and so loud that his wit is not lost
upon the most distant ears, albeit not attentive, I find him very
impertinent in his conversation with the ladies, to whom he
addresses the coarsest vulgarity and freedoms of approved dandy
conversation ; and am so annoyed, that, at three quarters past 9,
I plead illness, because I felt disgust, and took my leave, think-
ing on the unspeakable perversion of society, by which such a
creature is as much courted as he is hated. He is the very type
of the Dandy Venomous of Bulwer, except his information, of
which this variety of it hath a most plentiful lack.

13th August. Mr. King, a relation of the Hastings', who
dined at Lady Charlotte's yesterday, sends his card. Mr. Pat-
terson and his brother call : I have a long talk with them. They
go away to-morrow or the day after. So much the better for
me, for 1 felt bound and inclined to show them some costly at-
tention, (a dinner or soiree dansante,) and my poor purse .

The weather is cold, though clear, and I have a cold.

\\th August. The Miss Pattersons call on me to execute
some law paper, with their younger brother. Have a long talk
with them ; very lady-like persons. Lady Flora Hastings sends
me Manzoni's tragedies. Dine at the Prince's. His nephew,
Prince Peter, there. Sir R. Adair, Count Latour Maubourg, etc.
Rain in the evening prevents my calling on Madame de Latour
Maubourg.

15th August. Dine at the Prince's again, at half-past 4, en
petit comite ; only Prince Peter, Marquis de Jumelle and I.
Whist after dinner until 8, when the Princes went to the theatre
and I promener, — a pied go to the theatre in the park ; see
Pothier playing the Tailleur de Jean Jacques. He is old and
rather passe, but still admirable; his talent, though in farce, is
imposing.

16th August. Dine at home. Occupied all day writing and
vol. i.— 10

74 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

copying dispatch to Secretary of State : send it off, enclosing
letters to Mrs. Holbrook, my sister and Bishop England.

Rather indisposed with a cold ; therefore send an excuse to
Mr. Taylor for not assisting at his soiree.

\7th August. On coming down to-day, see a letter from Mr.
Lebeau, Minister of Justice, who has got into a scrnpe by deliv-
ering up a fraudulent bankrupt to the French government, at
the instance of M. de Latour Maubourg, begging to be informed
what our American usage is. I write him what I know and
think on the subject, and, afterwards, send him an extract from
the treaty of '94 touching the giving up of murderers and for-
gers. Go to my banker's for money. Shews me letters of credit
in favor of Americans, — among them one for £10,000, from the
Barings, in favor of David Seers of Boston. Mr. Seymour calls
to know if I am alive, having been absent from all reunions for
some days past ; offers to take me to the Prince's, to which I
consent. Go there at 5 — petit comite.

ISth August — Sunday. Before I come down or out, my ser-
vant brings me the card of Mr. White of Florida, M. C. I order
that he be shown up. Came yesterday, goes to-morrow. After
some conversation learn he visits Waterloo to-day. Ask him to
bring his wife and dine with me en petit comite after his return.
Go out on foot ; call on Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald ; see all the
Hastings', who are positively going on Tuesday. Call after-
wards on Mr. White (of Brussels), just returned from England.
Take a bath and wait for my guests. After 6, Mr. W. comes
without his wife, who hasn't time to dress. Rather vexed at
this ; good dinner. After it, go with him and see Madame.
Tells me she is au desespoir at not having come just as she
was, but she thought it wouldn't do to make so free with a
diplomat e. See Mr. Seers there, who excuses himself for not
having called. No excuse — he might have sent his card. After
a great deal of talk with Madame, (I learn, among other things,
that Cruger is married to Miss D.,) I return, through a rain, at
about 1 0 o'clock. She promises to call, before she sets out to-
morrow for Spa.

19th August. At 12, Mr, and Mrs. W. call according to pro-
mise, to see my house, which I tell them I shall be under the
necessity of giving up unless government help me. They say
they will electioneer for me,— good-bye.

A box of clothes brought me from London via Ostend. I am
charged 54f. for expenses, — duties, I suppose. I fly into a furi-
ous passion, — say I won't pay it, and that they may all go to

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 75

Ihe devil. Then, says the commissioner, I shall take the box
with me. You sha'n't, says I, and a pull ensues between him
and my servant, in which I afterwards take a hand ; but as he
is much more in earnest, he carries off the subject-matter of the
contest. Then ensues a long parley, — I demanding what the
expenses were, and that a distinction might be made in the
account they render between duties and the other charges. The
fellow is obstinate, but by no means so violent and impertinent
as my absurd conduct gave him a right to be. A sense of this
takes possession of my mind while he was there, and I feel
deeply humiliated at this renewed instance of the furor brevis
to which I am so lamentably liable, and vow reformation. Sit
down and write to his employers, requesting them to give me
the necessary information ; and, afterwards, write to the vice-
consul at Antwerp to see to the matter for me. Go out to walk ;
afflicted and thoughtful, — grieving at my fatal weakness, the
sin that so easily besets me, and wondering how any reasonable
being can be so foolish. But my nerves, my blood ! It is the
body, not the spirit, that sins ! Rain comes on while I am out,
and helps to cool me. Dine alone. At half- past 9, call on Lady
Hastings and stay there an hour. While I am there Lord James
Stuart comes in ; Sir Robert Adair and Mr. Crampton. I take
leave of this charming family with the deepest regret, and shake
hands with them all, expressing my desire and my hope of see-
ing them again.

Note. Every body going to Italy.

20th August. Invited to play whist at the Prince's this eve-
ning ; which I do, and come away winner of 34 points. Invites
me to dine with him to-morrow.

2lst August. Del Chambre comes in, under pretence of
offering me, for sale, a pair of carriage horses, but really to try
to renew my former engagement ; proposes, in consideration of
my having a carriage, for 300fr. Tell him I will consider of it ;
meanwhile, says he will send me a pair of horses to-day to go
out with, — does so. Dine at 5. The only new guest at the
Prince's a brother of Mr. Taylor's, who was formerly minister
at Berlin.

In the evening, to a soiree at M. de Latour Maubourg's. Ma-
dame asks why I have been so long an absentee. Company
very thin ; nobody in Brussels, and poor encouragement to incur
expense. Invited to Lady Morris' to- morrow evening, (shan't
go), and to a farewell soiree on Monday, (accept). Lord Wm.
Paget excuses himself for not having called earlier than he did.
Find the evening rather heavy, and am off at 11.

76 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

Mem. Between dinner and half-past 8, play at the Prince's
with infamous luck, losing 51 points. Much talk about Lebeau
and the ministry, whose signal incapacity all admit and deplore,
but don't know how to remedy. Lebeau is decidedly clever, but
so very a coward (morally, at least) that he is always throwing
himself into danger in order to avoid it ; — e. g., in debate, the
other day, he made use ot the information I gave him and the
extract from the treaty of '94. He, at the same time, cites the
newspaper he sent me ; but because, in the note I wrote him
containing all the information I had to give, I told him it was
not for me to say what bearing it had upon the question before
the house, as it would be improper in a foreign minister to
meddle with the internal affairs of a country, he takes occasion,
after reading his newspaper, to say, I had not sent it him ; that
/ would not have done so, nor he requested it, for it would have
been inconvenable. Now, for the fact, it was true, — I did not
send the newspaper ; for the inference, obviously insinuated,
that I had not sent any other of the things he relied on, it was
false ; and, for the comment art/, that it would have been unbe-
coming of me to have furnished him with this or any other in-
formation, without officiously arguing the question before the
Chamber, it was equally impertinent, groundless and dangerous.
Should the real state of the case ever come to the knowledge of
the public, they will say, "in denying the fact, you admitted its
criminality in law, and you stand before us, and your friend, the
minister of the United States, with you, condemned out of your
own mouth." Thus, by his "cowardly rashness", a perfectly
innocent affair is made a high misdemeanor, and punished with
all the shame and remorse of guilt. Such is the legitimate con-
sequence and just recompense of every deviation from truth and
integrity, however slight ; and there never was a better proof
that honesty is true wisdom.

22d August. Receive two letters from the Department of
State ; one about the ratification of the treaty, the other (most
truly American) limiting the contingent expenses of this mission
to $500 a year. Now this is, in fact, a great deal more than
they have been for the past year, even should they allow me
office-rent, — but the niggardly, and, what is worse, (I sup-
pose,) narrow-minded and foolish policy of thus attempting to
circumscribe contingency, and reduce their diplomatic repre-
sentative to the condition of a broker's out-door clerk ! Heav-
ens ! "the magnificent affluence of North-America", as Bulwer
calls it, — illustrated in this most vulgar and miserly parsimony
about candle-ends ; and a system under which all elevated and
gentlemanly feeling, even in their highest officers and represen-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 77

tatives, is utterly crushed, dignified with the name of economy,
while millions are squandered upon the wildest projects at home,
because they feed noisy and active ragamuffins.

23c? August. Go out to the Chambers to-day, to see how the
motion of Gendebier & Co., to impeach Lebeau for the extradi-
tion of the French rogue, comes on. The tribunes all full. In
that of the corps diplomatique, Count de Latour Maubourg with#
three French gentlemen, a Vair distingue. Afterwards comes
in a fourth, whom, I afterwards learn, is the Duke de Choiseul.
Hear Nothomb conclude an able and victorious defence. The
whole pack of the opposition open together when he sits down,
but like hounds that have lost the scent. Their coarseness,
grossierte and personality beat even our Congress, — c'est tout
dire. But what is more, they are cracked, stark mad, (and those
who are not for another row, if, indeed, there be any such, of
which I have very great doubts,) and as ignorant of public affairs
as children. Horrid day, like November.

24tth August. Receive a card from the Duke de Choiseul.
Baron de Pocderle calls, and, among other things, describes to
me the horrors of Bonaparte's military despotism in Belgium,
especially after his reverses in '12. The conscription, according
to this account, was the most dreadful engine of terror and tor-
ture ever invented by a tyrant. Yet its victims, after staying
six months in the army, were sure to be devoted, heart and soul,
to the emperor, — such was his talent de fanatiser ceux qui
s'en approchaient. Take this example of despotism : Madame
d'Outremont, whose son had been conscribed, offered the empe-
ror half her fortune to let him off. Madame,. he replied coldly,
your fortune and your son alike belong to me.

Go out at 3, en voiture. Call at Mr. Taylor's, Lord W. Pa-
get's, and at the Hotel de Bellevue, to inquire for the person who
left me a card this morning, and writes himself "Grantz Mayer
de Baltimore" — don't find him. Go to Mayer's librairie and
borrow Trelawney's "Younger Son." This person is he to
whom (quite unknown to me) I, at the request of Mr. Vail,
Charge d'affaires of the United States at London, (equally un-
known,) gave letters to my friends in Carolina. Yet I did not
know how to refuse, and so I described him, as described to me,
as an English gentleman. Have heard of him from two quar-
ters,— learn he is so much pleased with Charleston, that he pur-
poses returning thither. Dine at 6, at Mr. Northey's. Small
party of English ; two new arrivals, — one of them an officer
(army or navy) ; talks about his love of the Americans, — same
old topic. Asked to stay in the evening, but have an engage-
ment. Mr. White tells me he will come to-morrow and read to

78 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

me something he has written about Mr. Gendebier's attack on
Lord Ponsonby. On being reminded that the said G. de 13. is
good at a hair-trigger, says that he has taken that into the
account !! Bah !

2oth August. Read "The Adventures of a Younger Son";
clever but not interesting, so far as 1 have read. If a true story,
indeed, it would be better, — but, as a fancy piece, so so. Call,
* en voiture, on the Duke de Choiseul ; leave my card. Dine at
home. After dinner, call at Mr. Seymour's. At a quarter past
9, go to a grand ball given in the fine Salle de Grand Concert,
by the officers de la garrison de Bruxelles, in honor of the
queen's fete. No English ladies there but Lady and Miss Morris,
and Mrs. White, with a Miss Gore that is here de passage. The
two latter only dance. Great many Belgian women. King
comes in at half-past 9, and stands all the while, speaking to
people about him. Before he comes in, I have a talk with Baron
Evain, Minister of War, who has a very long face and thinks
war. not improbable in the spring. Sooner or later it will come,
I dare say ; for things can't remain where they now are, with
such violence in the liberal party both in Prance and Belgium.
I stay at this ball, stewing and stupid, until the king goes, and
retire, myself, at 11, with a shirt wet with perspiration.

N. B. Another illumination (third), but knowing nothing of
it, I don't join.

26th August. Write to Count de Merode, acting Minister of
Foreign Affairs, about the wow-ratification of the treaty conclud-
ed at Washington between the Secretary of State and the Bel-
gian Resident. Walk out. Dine alone ; while at dinner, receive
an invitation from Gen. and M. la baronne d'Hoogvorst, to dine
at their chateau to-morrow at 5, — accept. After dinner, read
Trelawney's novel. At 10, go to Lady Morris' party ; almost
exclusively English. Talk to Miss Freke and others, of break-
ing my heart because they are going away. Return to bed, at
half-past 11, through a lovely moonlight.

27th August. Receive a letter from Mr. McLane, enclosing
one from Petigru at Washington, and another from my sister at
Buncombe. P's. health bad ; poor fellow, I hope not perma-
nently. Tells me of an English girl's (Miss L.) being seduced.
I saw into that matter two years ago, and think her parents
richly deserve it. Tells me they are dissatisfied at Washington
with me, for having expressed my doubts about the failure of

the nullifiers. If they don't like it, they must . Just see

what we democrats are ! Doctor Pangloss Candide ! motley's
your only wear. A third of heaven's host pulled down by that

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 79

arch-tempter C******,— so much the better! The President's
nose pulled till it bleeds by a cashiered ruffian,— so much the

better, etc., etc. I'll see them all before I lie thus to

others or myself. Such optimism is precisely the ruin of the
country.

2Sth August. Day thrown away, — operose nihil agendo, —
except reading some pages of Xenophon de Republica Athenien-
sum, which is a fine specimen of Socratic irony. Ought to have
noted, that I dined yesterday at the Chateau of Meysse, with
Gen. baron d'Hoogvorst. The king was there at a partie de
chasse. I was invited to dine at 5 ; got there at half-past ; —
ushered into the salon, where I saw Mad. and Mademoiselle
d'Hoogvorst, and Mad. de Latour Maubourg, with Mr. Conecny,
the king's secretary. After some time, Mad. Leon d'Hoogvorst
comes in. It is delicious weather, — le plus beau jour de la belle
saison. We go out to breathe the fresh air and look at the fine
garden and chateau. A boat is tied to a pier-head on the pond ;
we get into it, and, with immense trouble, (for the water was
low,) we get it afloat, and calling a peasant to our assistance, row
(that is, are rowed by Wappes, his name) to the other end of
the pond and back. The sun is setting when we return into the
house, but it is long before the sportsmen come in. At length,
half-past 7, they are announced, the king at their head, — M. de
Latour Maubourg, Casimir Perier, Hamilton, and all the d'Hoog-
vorsts in their costume de chasse. After the necessary compli-
ments, H. M. (who was in a short coat, or coatee, and gaiters)
goes off to Lacken ; and, after another delay, to allow the sports-
men to make a toilette for dinner, famishing (for I had eaten
nothing but a little dry toast for twenty-six hours) I find myself
at table, and a very abundant and rather good repast before us.
At half-past 9, return by the loveliest moonlight that ever shone
upon the harvest-home, and am at home at 11.

To-day (Wednesday) dine at the Prince's. Don't know why,
find the dinner party stiff and cold. I believe the cause is with-
in— the letter I got yesterday. I never hear from home without
a decided depression of spirits, — regrets both private and public.
After dinner return home and read a novel until a visiter comes
in. Do not go to Latour Maubourg's in the evening ; tired of
the everlasting sameness of the society.

Invited to dine at Lacken to-morrow, — tant pis, — though I
shall have the pleasure of seeing the sweet little queen, in the
first bloom and pride of maternity. I am afraid things are not
going well for the dynasty in other respects. It seems to me it
has no friends that can be depended on, except, indeed, all the
priests, of whom I know nothing. The opposition hate the
present order of things so much, that I don't believe they would

80 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

stick at a restoration, with conditions ; and there is more than
one speck of war on the horizon. Then there is no ability
civil or military, in the country, adequate to such a crisis. Be-
fore dinner, I hint this to Sir R. Adair, who tells me he is very
much of the same way of thinking. At table, I broach the
subject, more especially in reference to France, to Count de
Latour Maubourg, but he thinks all well. Notts verrons. Per-
haps he's right.

29th August. Dine at Lacken. We first assembled in the
fine rotunda, from which we go out upon the steps behind. The
view from them is very beautiful. Through one vista you catch
a view of Brussels. At the foot of the eminence on which the
chateau is built is a sheet ot water ; beyond which is the road
to Antwerp ; and, on the other side of that, (the great eye-sore
of the chateau,) a huge factory of some sort or other, with its
cittish and money-making look. The Court is in mourning for
some relative of the king's, but, the Grand Marshal having given
no notice of it, the corps diplomatique, who are all present, omit-
ted the sad trappings. Madame de Latour Maubourg is dressed
in white with ostrich feathers, and contrasts violently with the
deep purple of Mad. de -Vilain XIV., the only dame du palais
who was there. The third lady (there were only three) was
Madame Leon d'Hoogvorst, to whom I gave my arm. Just be-
fore I went up to her, I saw M. Rogier, Minister of the Interior,
approaching. She declined his offer, telling him she had been
laid out as a match for me by the Grand Marshal himself. R.
richly deserved this public expose of his manque d'usage. On
my right, at dinner, sits M. de Georlache, President of the Court
of Appeals, with whom I have a good deal to say about lawyers,
law, etc. Tells me L'Herminier is a very young man. I say
his book is an "ouvrage dejeune hommeP "Civil law not stu-
died in France", and he agrees the bar there is fallen off. After
coffee, and her majesty is seated, we go up one by one to rnake
our compliments. She asks me how I have been, during the
long time she has not seen me. I tell her well, and "hope she is
as happy as she has made others." "You are very good," etc.

After a long and tedious soiree, (warm withal), we get off at
about 9 o'clock ; an event somewhat hastened, probably, by the
delicacy of Mr. Fallon, a member of the House of Representa-
tives, (the same whom Hamilton's coachman whipped the other
day,) who fainted away.

Lovely moonlight. After my return, I throw off my armor
and take a solitary walk. In bed (not being very well) at half-
past 10; and am "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought" ,
for I don't know how I shall make both ends meet with my
American salary, without totally reducing my establishment.

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 81

Living from hand to mouth in a Court, or giving up society
altogether, seems to be the only alternative.

Note. Mr. Lebeau thanks me again for the aid I gave him,
when he was attacked in the Chamber the other day.

30th August. Dine at Sir R. Adair's ; only Sir Brook and
Mr. Taylor, Seton, the Rev. Mr. Jenkins, Van Praet, and the
two secretaries of the English legation and myself. At table, I
am speaking of Bulwer's book on England and Englishmen to
Van Praet, sotto voce. To my great surprise, Sir R. overhears
me and says, "Ah ! he is one of those corrupters of our lan-
guage, with his grasp of intellect" etc. This was pronounced
with so much heat, that I remembered then, for the first time,
Bulwer's saying of the English corps diplomatique that there
was not a man among them up to mediocrity, except fulano
Lamb, a man of fashion. Seton, who. of course, begins forth-
with to rail at him, (for how should his malignity overlook such
a chance ?) cites this impertinence, and then they all fall upon
the poor author, to whom they give no quarter. It is hinted by
somebody, that he (Bulwer) is aiming at being made a foreign
minister himself. On the whole, the subject proves to have been
an unlucky one for me to touch upon ; though, as I did it in a
tete-a-tete, I had no reason to expect such an explosion. The
truth is, however, that Sir R. has reason to be indignant at this
sweeping condemnation of himself and his colleagues, for he is,
at any rate, a shining refutation of it. An honester English
statesman never lived, and few abler public men are to be found
any where. I have been frequently struck at the great precision,
perspicuity and force of his dispatches, which he has repeatedly
done me the honor to allow me to peruse. But Bulwer is a man
of talents and an enlightened political writer, for all that, —
bating, always, his radicalism and Benthamitism. I sent him,
the other day, my article on the Utilitarians, to make him reflect
a little on that matter.

31st August. This day, fourteen years ago, I was in Aix la
Chapelle. Del Chambre comes in, with whom I strike a bargain
for horses the next month, — 215 francs ; but it is too much.

While I am at my German lesson, a young American is an-
nounced and shown up stairs, who proves to be a townsman of
my own, second son of the late John Middleton, — and who pre-
sents me a letter from Jas. Hamilton, Jr. He has been recently
appointed to deliver a eulogium on the late R. J. Turnbull.
He begs me to pay his young ward some attention, (which I cer-
tainly shall, for my love for the old Charleston race is as strong
as life,) and to give him letters to Paris. The boy himself is very
young — only 19. He sailed from Charleston to St. Petersburg,
vol. i. — 11

82 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

and came back by Hamburg ; Mr. Buchanan, late Minister to
Russia, brought him as far as Aix la Chapelle in his carriage.
Says Mr. B. is ordered to be in the United States by the 10th Dec,
and is hurrying on to Paris because of the report of the Presi-
dent's dangerous state of health. Should like to see him, not-
withstanding ; and hope he may be able to visit Brussels, since
he was to have gone to the Hague on some errand or other.
Invite my little countryman to dine with me to-morrow.
It is dreadful weather ; an equinoctial storm ; ennui.

1st Sept. — Sunday. Storm continues so that I do not go
out the whole day. Write a note to M. de Robiano, returning
the Soirees de St. Petersbourg of M. de Maistre, which he had
lent me. Read some hundred and thirty pages of the Confes-
sions of St. Augustine, which are a strange enough composition,
to be sure. Not having read any bad Latin for a long time, or
any work not classical, am shocked at the style, though it re-
minded me of Jeremy Taylor's diffuseness.

Wait dinner for my young countryman until nearly 7. He
neither comes nor sends an excuse ; so I dine alone by candle-
light.

2d Sept. Mr. Middleton calls and apologizes for not having
come ; "though," says he, with great naivete, "I suppose you
hardly expected me." I tell him ] will call at 3, and take him
in my carriage to see the chateau and grounds of Lacken, —
which I do. I take leave of him at half- past 4, having given
him a letter to Mr. Warden, at Paris.

Dine at Mr. Taylor's at 6. See Mr. Butler, who is just re-
turned, looking remarkably well. Gives an account of Percy
Doyle's falling from a horse, by which he broke his head and
lost his senses for twenty-four hours. After dinner, whist ; I
lose two rubbers, and excuse myself for playing no longer.
Return home at half-past 10.

Sir Robert Adair, I learn, was taken so ill on Saturday, while
at dinner, at his own house, with a large party of officers, that he
had to leave the table and go to bed. He has been in danger,
but is better.

3d Sept. Bad weather continues. At half-past 2 clears away
a little. I go out on foot, having suffered much from want of
exercise. On my return, call, en voiture, upon Mr. Fitzgerald,
who gives me a number of the Examiner, and asks me to dine
with him enfamille, — Mr. King, a nephew of Lady Hastings,
being the only person invited. Take a bath, by which, and the
use of the flesh brush, I am wonderfully refreshed. Dine at 6 ;
very pleasant partie quarree. Lady Charlotte, who knew Lord

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 83

Byron well, entertains me with several anecdotes of him. The
lady who rejected him, just before he proposed the last time for
Miss Milbank, was Miss or Lady Keith. The young person
who, Moore thought, would have managed him, was a relation
of Lady Charlotte's, and, she says, entre nous, the last woman
in the world she would have thought of matching with Byron :
cold, haughty, repulsive, slow of apprehension, though very
sensible. Says Lady Byron was one of the dullest persons in
the world. How could it be expected, as somebody remarked,
that such a union could end well ; where one was all imagina-
tion, and the other all calculation ? What seemed most disgust-
ing to Lady C. was the profound hypocrisy of their conduct
towards Byron, who had no idea what was going to happen.

At half-past 7, go to the Prince's to play whist, and, having
won 35 points, go home and sleep comfortably. Night dark and
cloudy.

Sir R. Adair much better to-day ; but

Ath Sept. — worse this morning, having passed a bad night.
News of tremendous havoc among the shipping in the channel
of the Thames, by the late (or rather present) storm. Count
Lenowski calls with Count Plater, another Polish refugee, whom
he introduces to me, and with whom I have a long conversation
about America principally. A very intelligent and perfectly
well-bred man. Goes on, to-morrow, to Aix, whither he is
taking the Countess to the waters. After a walk, I dress and go
to dinner at the Prince's ; where Hamilton tells us Sir Robert
Adair is as ill as possible, and his disease is afievre tierce. He
is, it seems, seventy-two years of age. After dinner, the Prince
plays at whist. I do not join. Hamilton apologises for sitting
on the right of the Prince at dinner, saying the Prince had
directed him to do so ; which I don't exactly comprehend. Bad
weather continues, though it occasionally clears up for a few
moments. It is very cold for the season ; fire rather agreeable
than otherwise.

5th Sept. Receive a visit, to-day, from a gentleman who sends
in his card as "le Chevalier Frost." Recollect hearing Sir R.
Adair and Hamilton speak of him as very anxious to be pre-
sented. He is shown up; and I presently after go into the
drawing-room, where I see two gentlemen. One, with specta-
cles on nose, and apparently the spokesman, introduces himself
as Sir Somebody Frost, and tells me that, being on a scientific
tour, he thought he would take the liberty of calling upon "my
Excellency." Whereupon I read my man through at once, and
have a long talk with him about his botanical studies, Paris,
America, etc., etc. He is as raw as a boy just from College. I

S 1 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

never saw greater simplicity, and should suppose he had been
knighted for it ; though very amiable and, of course, single-
hearted withal. His companion was a doctor. "Dr. Bowring'/"
said I. "No, Dr. Winder." He had been in Canada during the
war, (whither he is going again,) and was present when his
namesake, Gen. Winder, was taken prisoner. "The resemblance,"

said he . "Indeed." said I, "now you mention it, I think

you do resemble him." Out again, — he meant the resemblance
of their names, and, I suppose, resembles him in person as much
as the thief on the cross. Take their leave, and then I go out
en voiture. Meanwhile, see the Seymours passing. Madame
looks better, but Emma. not. Mr. Fitzgerald tells me where I
may find a pair of horses for sale. Tell him I am going to
travel, and don't think I shall buy till I return. Weather seems
breaking off.

6th Sept. While I am at my German lesson, to-day, my ser-
vant brings me the card of "Charles Stuart Perry, des Etats-
Unis," whom, according to the standing order in regard to
Americans, he has shown into the drawing-room. I excuse my-
self to my maitre de langues, and present myself with "sad
civility" to the strange guest up-stairs. As I enter, "Mr. Legare,"
saith he ; "I suppose you don't remember me." "Your face is
familiar to me, but I really do not know at present where it is I
had the pleasure of seeing you." "I met with you only once ;
but have never forgotten that evening." "Where ? when V

"Recollect where you were on Sept., 1830." In short, Mr.

Charles Stuart Perry was a person I met with at a little country
inn at Lancaster, in South-Carolina, on the eve of a dinner at
which I had the honor of assisting as an invited guest, in com-
pany with his Excellency Gov. Miller and the said C. S. P., who
was just arrived from Alabama, and who was one of the last men
in the world I should ever have expected to encounter on this
side of the Atlantic. As it was, I narrowly missed that happi-
ness. He had, it seems, actually taken his seat in the Diligence,
and was almost off, when he found out I was here. He did
not hesitate a moment to put off his departure until 3, in order
to see me, and so, by 12, he was at my door. Almost as soon
as I got into the room, he began to talk of General Dwernycki,
whose acquaintance he had made in hunting up Gen. La Fayette,
and to whom he introduced himself as a friend of Poland and
liberty, etc., etc. This generous enthusiasm naturally (in an
Irishman's buzzom, at least) kindled into poetry, and it was not
long before the sympathetic Hibernian inflicted upon me the
Lord knows how many verses of his own manufacture, upon
the misfortunes of Sarmatia. This extravagance nearly over-
came my politeness, but, as I had seen him in Carolina, I rallied

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 85

and discussed nullification with him. Here, again, he was well-
nigh spouting me to death, for he would have had me listen to
the whole argument on the other side, from the very beginning,
involved in clouds of Irish eloquence. This was worse than
Poland, so I cut him short by thrusting in some victim of the
Czar. He had been to Waterloo, for "he had heard of battles
and he longed," etc., etc., and said that had it not been for that
little taste of his,— had there been no field of Waterloo, — he had
not visited Europe for these ten years to come. "I'll give you a
little souvenir of Waterloo." "O Lord," said I, "I have been
there ; you know they force them on you there." "But I mean
something of my own," said he. Whereupon, asking for pen,
ink and paper, he sets himself about writing "something," he
says, "to be submitted to my criticism." After a few moments
of diligent scribbling, he held up and read to me some of the
strangest stuff that ever a madman (as I now begin to suspect
he is) indited. "So, you're a poetical nullifier," says I. In
short, after talking with me full two mortal hours, and per-
suading me he was one of the greatest men, etc., he took his
leave.

7th Sept. Mafoi, non mi recordo. Write to the Count de
Merode about the ratification of the treaty, which the ministry,
through a cowardly subserviency to England, are manifestly
shirking. Mr. Butler calls. Write to my landlord that I can't
bind myself to keep his house a year.

8th Sept. — Sunday. Spend this day in writing letters against
the next English courier : first, to my mother ; second, to the
Department ; third, in the evening, to Petigru. About 2, go out
en voiture ; for, mirabile dictu, it is a fine day. Call at Lady
C. Fitzgerald's, where I find Mad. de Pocderle in the very act
of taking leave, — going to Ireland to be brought to bed at home.
Nice little woman, and, although speaking French perfectly,
quite English. Take a drive on the Boulevard ; call, en passa?it,
at Mr. Butler's. Find, on returning to my house, his card and
an invitation to dinner on Tuesday. At 6, dine at the palace in
the little apartments. Dinner made remarkable by the presence
of a radical notabilite, Dr. Bowring, heres testamentarius of
Jerry Bentham, and editor (dit-on) of the Westminster Review ;
a very vulgar Cuistre, lecturing incessantly about first principles,
and proclaiming himself, in every word, look and gesture, Sir
Oracle. What a world it would be, if governed by these self-
conceited and presumptuous popinjays ; and yet their favorite
theme of railing is the arrogance of the aristocracy, whose whole
system of manners (the very antithton of this ribald school) is
self-denial. He talked incessantly at table (sitting next to me on

S6 DIARY OP BRUSSELS.

my right) to Rogier, the Minister of the Interior, who listened
like a most docile catechumen, and apparently with immense
edification. After dinner, when the queen and her ladies are
seated, he goes up to her majesty and harangues her in the most
extraordinary manner ever witnessed, since the execution of
Marie Antoinette ; thrusting himself between H. M. and the lady
next her, bobbing up and down his head and spectacles, like a
duck in a puddle, gesticulating, etc., etc. We looked on in
amaze. At last, Hamilton puts the Grand Marshal up to going
to H. M's. deliverance, by engaging her in conversation ; the
maneuvre succeeds, for, after a few moments of indecision, the
Radical leaves the Round Table and comes up to us, — but, after
speaking a little while (in a most absurd strain of egotism),
finding no sympathy in our circle, and no obstacle to his renew-
ing his attack upon the queen, he is at her again ; but d'Aerschot
is on the alert, and takes him off by some means or other.
Crampton says he is in advance of his times a long way ; and
is showing us a specimen of the manners of the twenty-fifth
century. "Of all men else, I have avoided thee," as Macbeth
says to another gentleman, untimely delivered, not born, or if
born, earth-born.

9th Sept. Delicious weather, — warm, bright and genial. I
walk, and then go out to drive. Invited to Mr. Seymour's again
this evening, (I was there yesterday evening). Receive a note
from Mr. Levet, my landlord, giving me conge, and thanking
me for my kind note to him. This pleases me much, for I love
to be at peace with all mankind. At Mr. Seymour's, in the eve-
ning, a small party given to another literary radical, Lady Mor-
gan. I have always had, from her writings, or the parts of them
1 have happened to read, a great aversion to her, and would not
be made acquainted with her, when I might have been, fourteen
years ago. I could have wished to avoid her this time also, but
Mrs. Seymour insisted, and I can't refuse her any thing. Her
Leddyship begins by high compliments to America, etc. I took
the first opportunity to decamp. Afterwards, I heard Mr. Sey-
mour speaking to her of me, (as I could plainly perceive). She
looked at me very hard, and on his saying something very kind,
(I dare say, from his usual goodness,) she said, "Ah! he's the
only one then, — at least, the only one I ever saw"; I suppose
(ireek scholar, or something of the sort. She had the good
sense to say that mother Trollope's book is a very wicked one,
and the absurdity to propose that she should herself go and
make a better. Her husband, "Sir Charles", was also of the
party, haranguing about the march of mind, or something else
as intellectual. Draw on England for £60.

DIARY OP BRUSSELS. 87

10th Sept- All day occupied copying dispatch, etc. At half-
past 5, go to dine at Mr. Butler's, where there is a small party ;
but am compelled (the Court going to the play this evening) to
leave the table, when the cloth is removed (as it literally was), to
repair thither. I had taken a box ; Pre aux clercs, given by
order. See Lady Morgan in Latour Maubourg's box. I heard
from the sister of Mad. de Latour, the history of her making
their acquaintance in a recent excursion to Spa. It was a perfect
specimen of the modest assurance and servile assiduity by which
these travelling book-makers contrive to thrust themselves into
good company, — as, on the other hand, the attentions shown
them are evidently bestowed, or laid out rather, to be repaid with

interest when the "tour" comes out, at page , treating of

Brussels, etc.

I arrive at the theatre after the king and queen, who are very
punctual in their appointments with Demus. Don't think he
was very grateful : house not full, and vivats not very loud or
hearty ; though fully enough so to justify a boastful representa-
tion in a court journal. Spectacle over at half-past 10. A son
of Mr. Taylor's, with whom I had been made acquainted at Mr.
Taylor's, joins me in my box and goes home in my carriage ; a
well-bred and pleasant youth, worthy of his family, who are
very gentleman and woman-like.

11th Sept. Receive a card from Mr. Atherton of Philadelphia,
whom I had seen at Paris. Go out, en voiture, to return the
visit. Rainy. See him, and spend an hour in conversation with
him. his wife (a ci-devant pretty woman) and his daughters, one
of whom is charmingly pretty.

After dinner, go to a soiree at Count Latour Maubourg's.
Lady Morgan (whom I rather like on acquaintance, for she seems
a good soul) is there, and her two nieces, nice little girls, pretty
and remplies de talents, as the French say. Dancing to the
piano forte, played by Col. Prozynski. There were half a dozen
young Poles, fine fellows, full of grace and spirit. We were all
interchanging lamentions on their hard fate. Lady Morgan's
nieces sang two Italian airs very sweetly. They are the young
persons mentioned with such praise by Count Ptickler Moskau.
Have much talk with the little Freke, who is going away, and
promise to go to-morrow to see her likeness.

Mem. I have now no doubt that Casimir Perier has, for some
reason wholly unknown to me, conceived a deadly aversion — ill
disguised by a modem French smile and bow — towards me.
So it is with Prozynski, who went a great deal out of the way
to get presented to me, and, after calling twice or three times to
have a talk, was guilty, all of a sudden and without assignable
cause, of a breach of politeness, which has made me almost

88 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

drop his acquaintance. Both these persons are very intimate

with Miss , whose detestable disposition I early divined,

whose impertinent airs / have treated with cool disdain, and
who hates me, I suspect, as she does the devil, (if she hates him
as much as the rest of her friends), because I don't think her a
beauty, and have never given her an opportunity to display her
wit in conversation with her. I have heard she vilifies "Ameri-
cans", and I have no mind at all to win her good graces for my
country.

\2th Sept. A very fine day, which I remark as a very un-
usual thing now-a-days ; so I go out en voiture. Call on Count
Plater, and ask him to dine with me on Saturday. Afterwards
on Mr. Atherton. Receive, this morning, a visit from Mr. Trap-
man of Charleston, who tells me he came from Ghent on pur-
pose to see me, and goes to Antwerp to-day. Invite him to dine
on Saturday, which he says he will do if he can. Invite Mr.
Atherton, but he declines, — his arrangements being made to go
on Saturday. On my return, call to see how the Prince is, — ill
of fever and bad night. Then at Sir Robert Adair's, whom 1
see for the first time since his illness ; is very much reduced and
feeble, but not as much so as I expected to find him. Says he
expects some notabilitcs from London, — among them Joe Hume,
the economist ; adds, laughingly, "I don't know whether to give
him a very bad, or a very good dinner." I advise him to give
both, that Hume may judge for himself between radicalism and
(diplomatic) epicurism. Says he will make me acquainted
with them, and have me to meet them. On my return home,
see cards from Casimir Perier and his brother Paul ; an anchor
cast to windward in case of a ball, etc., no doubt. I don't like
any bourgeois gentilhomme, but least of all a French one. Pay
Jones his due-bill. Spend an hour at Mr. Freke's, and am quite
in love with mademoiselle for her goodness.

13th Sept. Don't remember any thing of consequence. In
the evening, at half-past 8, call on Mr. Atherton at his lodgings,
and see them all. Give him some hints about "sight-seeing" at
Antwerp. Meet with a Mr. Bryant of Philadelphia, who is just
from Baden, etc.

l&th Sept. Bothered by preparations for dinner and noise of
servants. Don't take my German lesson in consequence. Re-
ceive a visit from Mr. Bryant. Walk out and back ; read a little ;
dress for dinner, and, at 6, receive my visiters, — all English but
Count Plater ; but, owing to mistake, (from verbal answers,) two
of my guests missing, and we sit down only nine. Good dinner ;
four of my men sit with me at table until 12 o'clock, — Fitzger-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 89

aid, Butler and Nixon, Paddies, and White an Englishman.
Drank like Carolinians— (by-the-bye, a decanter of old Carolina
Madeira charmed them wonderfully). I was surprised at the
coolness with which they swallowed glass after glass (as I
once could, but never shall again), I confining myself prin-
cipally to Hock and Seltzer. My Johannisberger and Lafitte
font effet. I go to bed horribly accabU by this tremendous
seance of six mortal hours, which, from want of habit, almost
kills me now. At one time I had to leave the table to get fresh
air, for I was quite sick, though I had eaten and drunk very
little.

• 15th Sept. — Sunday. Wake at 8, so horribly done up by my
"sitting" yesterday, that I take a little magnesia. I have been
unwell, for some days past, in the bowels, and although I ab-
stained yesterday, yet the heat of the room, snuff, cigars and
smoke were too much for me. After breakfast, walk out on the
Boulevard towards the Porte de Hal. On my return meet with
the Chevalier Frost, who, after many compliments, tells me he
is only "walking, and, having nought to do, 'twill give me great
delight to follow you." Says he is charmed with me and my
country. "Why, just see," said he, "what they did for me ; they
conferred a degree upon me, without having ever seen me or
heard of me, just on the strength of a work in which I devel-
oped some new principles of botany (I think it was). And what
has England done for me ? or what have I not done for Eng-
land ? I have given it an herbarium of fifty, I should say fifteen
thousand dried plants, — that's what I've done ; and all I have
got by it was to be turned out of my place by Lord Stanhope :
for once I used to give dinners every week to all the literary and
scientific characters that came to London." This innocence and
naivete were quite charming. The conversation turns on Lord
Stanhope, who quarrelled with him, it seems, (for King Leopold
had asked about the cause of the direful strife between Frost
and the Earl,) about an order and a present (I think it was a
sword) sent him as a compliment from Portugal ; Stanhope, in
his double capacity of President of the Society and a Peer of
the realm, protesting the honor was his due and not a common-
er's. I walk past my house and back again, listening to his
simple chattering, and wondering how a man of science, who,
as it appears, has been a good deal in the world, could be such
a Johnny Raw. Chemin faisant, he tells me he feels very much
indebted to me, and will give me reason hereafter for not repent-
ing of my civilities. I tell him it was well he had not told me
that before, for the hopes of such reward might have thrown a
suspicion upon my disinterestedness. Nothing, however, really
horrifies me more than the idea of getting into a book ; if that
vol. i. — 12

90 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

be the sort of recompense he means. Among other tilings he
said of Lord Stanhope, he declared him a very hypocrite, and,
in politics, a disciple of Metternich.

( 'all on Mr. Bryant at Bellevne, and take him out to drive
with me in the forest. Bad weather still. Spend the evening
at home.

16//a Sept. At a soiree, this evening, at Mr. White's, (awfully
stiff — so much so, that I never went into the principal drawing-
room, but held myself aloof, in the passage, where there was a
sofa and Lady Morris with me, besides some others,) a young
Pole, who is just returned from a disastrous enterprise in his
wretched country, is presented to me. Among other things, he
tells me he thinks Louis Philippe can't reign long. "What will
they substitute ?" say I. He doesn't know what to answer, but
says the French government is too retrograde, and won't be
borne. I tell him the liberals in Europe have exaggerated no-
tions of free government ; that they are to us and the English
what young lovers are to old married people, — they dream of
the loved one as an angel without blemish, whereas she is a
mere mortal after all, and, like every thing terrestrial, requires
many allowances to be made for her, — especially in France, the
only refuge of free thought, on this continent, and which would
not be so long, were its government half so weak as La Fayette
and his men would make it.

Afterwards, Lady Morgan comes to our corner. I invite her
to take a seat on the sofa. Presently she goes towards the door,
and comes back with "Sir Charles", whom she presents to me,
and who immediately begins to talk about America. He asks
me what is thought of Jefferson. I tell him what I think of his
theoretical politics. Says his meaning was what is his reputa-
tion for talent. I tell him very great, and for orthodoxy still
greater, — every dominant party being the "only true Jeffersoni-
ans." I remark on his style as occasionally faulty and affected,
and especially full of neologism. "Aye," says he, "but very
forcible." No doubt, I reply, and then instance his correspond-
ence with Genet and Hammond, as equal to any diplomatic
pieces I ever read, and a specimen of most triumphant contro-
versy. In the course of the conversation, I mention Franklin's
prediction — about the trade of a king being a very bad one in
fifty years — as verified. I add that, as he had proved that the
flash which terrifies us in the thunder-cloud was only the same
electricity that may be excited by rubbing a cat's back, so his
severe common sense had disenchanted mankind of all the
prestige of worldly grandeur and artificial distinctions of rank.
He laughed, and seemed struck with the thought.

Casimir Perier bows rather civilly this evening, but I pass on

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 91

without any offer at speaking. Poor Prozynski comes up and
speaks to me. This, I suppose, in consequence of my giving
half a guillaume to the dear little Freke, in aid of some charita-
ble purpose of her's with respect 1o the Poles, and of my remark-
ing on his unaccountable behaviour towards me. Still rainy.

\7th Sept. Shocking weather still. Receive a visit from
Count Plater and the young Pole I spoke to yesterday.

\§th Sept. Receive a letter from Mr. Harris, Charge d'af-
faires at Paris, concerning Mr. Livingston's arrival at Cherbourg,
and that he has some newspapers and documents which he will
send me by a private hand. This fashes me not a little, for I
never get American news until it is stale ; and I write to him
begging him to forward the papers immediately. I suppose he
is afraid of adding a few sous of postage to my account for con-
tingent expenses. Go out, en voiture, at half-past 2, to my
banker's, where I meet with Mr. Fitzgerald, and, taking him up,
go to his house to see some curious pieces of Dresden China he
has just bought. Chemin faisant, tells me I gave them a capi-
tal dinner. I express myself much pleased with his report of
it, declaring myself a decided amateur of good cheer. Go thence
to see a dinner service offered for sale, — not good enough. In
returning, call on Count Plater at the Hotel de Bellevue. Find
him au second in a small room, where Prozynski presently
comes. Go to the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique, and, getting
down there, walk until half- past 5. Returning, call on the pro-
prietor of the Hotel de Galles about an apartment there which
I have a mind to take for six months from December. In the
evening, to Latour Maubourg's. Small assembly, and all old
faces, except a French lady, Countess somebody (a fine woman)
and her daughter. Lady Morgan comes up to me, and asks me
how it happens that all the ministers have called on her but the
American. I might have given a better reason than I did, which
was that I am not much of a visiter. She begged me to supply
the omission as soon as possible. In the course of the short
conversation I had with her, she told me somebody in the Cham-
bre des Representans had been impertinent enough to mention
her name : "I suppose," said he to M. Jullien, "the honorable
member utters his liberalism in hopes of finding a place in Lady
Morgan's forthcoming book of travels." "Wasn't that an unjus-
tifiable liberty to take with a lady ?" xlfterwards I make her sit,
and then Sir Charles comes up, with whom I talk all the rest of
the evening.

Mem. Latour Maubourg tells me the king and queen are
going to Paris early in October, and he too on a conge.

Return at 12, having set down Crampton at his own door.

92 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

complaining horribly of the partie, as being neither ball nor
conversazione.

2. Mem. Mr. Fitzgerald tells me Mr. Butler, as being the
grandson of an Earl, thinks himself entitled to the pas, and is
rather nettled if he don't have it, when there is no one with
better claims to it. I laugh, and tell him foreigners are not sup-
posed to know the pedigree of every English or Irish gentleman.
I le says surely not, and he only mentions it to expose his vanity.

19th Sept. Horrible weather, — rains a verse. I venture out
notwithstanding on foot. Go to the Chamber of Representatives,
but, finding the tribune diplomatique closed, proceed on my way.
On my return home, find that Seton called. He asked my ser-
vant if I dined at Mr. Taylor's; innuendo, if I did, to call and
take him there in my carriage. After dinner, to the Taylor's,
where there is a new set of English, — Lord Cranstoun, General
Taylor, Sir Charles and Lady Wale, with two pretty daughters,
though of the grampus breed, Lady Morgan, (but not her Sir
Charles). I get her to present me to her nieces, Miss and Miss
Somebody Clarke. Count Plater, who is sitting between them,
rises and offers his place. I tell him, Je rt'ose pas vous rem-
placer ; however, he insists, and I yield. I enter into conversa-
tion, with Miss C, by telling her Prince Puckler Moskau had
made her and her sister his heroines. I find she is not quite
pleased with the celebrity conferred on them by his Highness,
who, according to her account, is no gentleman. He prevailed
on the dowager Lady Lansdowne (old enough, I suppose, for his
grandmother) to make him a promise of marriage, and pay him
£4000 for the breach of it. He was black-balled at the London
Clubs, for some of his sinister doings. On some public occa-
sion, in Ireland, he insisted on taking the pas from the Duke of
Leinster, Erin's only duke, which led to a challenge, and to his
being put into Coventry for the rest of the day. This is quite
a nice little girl. She hopes that her aunty's book on Belgium
and our noble selves, may appear before the "Trollope's." She
(Miss C.) is persuaded that King Leopold's throne won't last
long. She declares more than half of what Puckler says is
notoriously false, — as, for example, Lady Somebody calling on
him, and, on being told that he is in dressing-gown and slippers,
insisting nevertheless on coming up. So of his pretended inti-
macy with Lady Morgan and themselves, and the quHl aille an
diable put into her sister's mouth on some occasion.

20th Sept. Mr. Taylor calls with Lord Cranstoun to see the
house, which I show them and recommend. They go to my
landlord's determined to offer £300 a year for it — £75 more
than I pay. Go out en voiture, the weather being fine. Call

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 93

on the Morgans ; thence to Mayer's librairie ; thence to the
Cbambre, where, after some difficulty, I get admittance to the
tribune diplomatique. Don't stay long, for Dumortier gets up
to speak on instruction publique. Drive on the Boulevard, and
get down at the Porte de Schaerbeck to walk. Delicious wea-
ther. Prince Auguste, who has been ill for ten days, reported
in great danger, — on Ta administre hier. Dine, en famille, at
Mr. Taylor's, — only five — Gen. T. and Seton. After dinner
play whist, and, in five rubbers, win one franc. Lord Cranstoun
comes in. I give him my place, and take leave.

Mr. Taylor sends to see how the Prince is. A very particular
answer is brought, by which we are encouraged to hope that the
worst is over, and that we may yet meet this noble Amphitryon
at his round table. Mr. T. tells Lord C. he is sorry the house
is already engaged for a Mrs. Tomlinson, with as many daugh-
ters as Danaus.

2\st Sept. The passing bell is at this moment (11 o'clock,
A. M.) announcing to Brussels the departure of the head of its
society. Prince Auguste d'Arenberg is no more. Hamilton
was at the races yesterday, at the dinner at Court, and at the
ball at night, dancing jollily. There is the friendship of this
world. But, on the contrary, Sir R. Adair is deeply concerned,
and so are all the Seymours. Poor Emma is as much afflicted
as if she were a daughter. At Mr. Taylor's, on the 19th, I saw
Mrs. Seymour in tears, and presently they all went away. Af-
terwards, I learned that it was because very bad news had been
brought from the Prince's sick bed.

T have let time run up such a score against me, that I despair
of settling it fairly, for keeping a journal is no idleness.

I don't remember any thing about Saturday and Sunday, the
21st and 22d, except that, on the latter of these days, the pre-
parations making for the celebration of the quatre jotirnees,
already excite the curiosity of the people, and, on Sunday, the
boulevards and streets are more alive than I have seen them
since I have been in Brussels, — precisely twelve months this
day, or the next (23d).

On Saturday Sir Robert Adair calls, and invites me to dine
with him on Monday, where I am to meet Mr. Grant, President
of the Board of Control, Mr. Hume (Joe), young Mr. Senior,
and Mr. Bowring, the boring.

23d Sept. — Monday. Salvo of artillery, at 7 this morning,
ushering in the first of the days ; which I pass in a sufficiently
hum-drum style, — only, the weather being fine, I go out en vol-
ture to see the crowd, attracted by marksmen shooting for prizes,
etc. At 6, dine at Sir Robert's. Hand down to the table Mrs.

94 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

McGregor, who looks very pretty this evening, and talks so
doucely in her simplicity, that she quite takes me. On my right
is Mrs. Senior, a good soul, apparently deserving her name bet-
ter than her husband, but, without being at all coarse or imperti-
nent, decidedly vulgar. And, indeed, so were the whole set
except Mr. Grant and the McGregors. Still. I like them all
except Bowring, whose outre cuidance and forwardness are in-
sufferable. Mrs. Senior was cracking jokes at the expense of
her friend, Mrs. Hume, who had never been abroad before,
whereas Mrs. Senior (as she took occasion to let me know) had
been in Paris once upon a time. "Oh ! we have taken her to
such strange places, and it was so amusing to observe the im-
pression they made on her." Strange places, said I ; may I be
permitted to inquire what these curiosities are ! "Oh, to Cafes
and Restaurans." Indeed, I reply, I don't wonder at her sensa-
tions then, for I own I never feel at home in one of them. She
misinterprets this, and fends off by saying, "the Mar-chio-ness
(Marchesa) Accomati goes to them, and if she can, I'm sure I
may." This answers the double purpose of justifying her con-
duct and letting me know she knows that very amiable young
lady, whom I met with some time ago at Lady C. Fitzgerald's.
After dinner I have a long talk with Senior, who is a very intel-
ligent and unobtrusive person. He asks me to breakfast, but 1
tell him if it is before 12 it is impossible, — for I never go out
earlier. Then he tells me he will send me two publications in
which he has had a hand, — the Complete Reader of the Whig
Ministry, and some Report on the Poor Laws.

In the evening to Mrs. Freke's, where there is a small party.
Count Plater tells me he has called repeatedly to ask me a sin-
gular though great favor, — which is to let him use as a pretext
for declining an invitation to a patriotic bajiquet, to be given by
subscription to-morrow, that he is engaged to dine with me. T
tell him certainly, and it shall be the truth, if he pleases ; so I
invite him, with Lenowski and another young Pole, to dine to-
morrow. Having done so, I make my escape very early, and
go to bed at half-past 11.

2Ath Sept. On coming down, my servant asks me if I am
going to St. Gudule to-day to assist, with the king, at the mass
of the dead of September. I tell him no. Afterwards he comes
in, and informs me the coachman had mentioned to him that
the rest of the corps were there. This throws me into the
greatest consternation. I expect to have all the newspapers out
upon me, for my guilty conscience suggests that it is a happy
deliverance from the scene that I fancy is to take place after the
mass, at the Place des Martyrs. There never lived a biped
that holds all that sort of mummery more in horror and detesta-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 95

tion than I do. So, without a moment's delay, I write a note to
Seton begging him to excuse me to His Majesty, — alleging that
I had had no invitation, etc., etc., and understood Sir R. Adair
to say, yesterday, that he did not intend to go. I wrote also to
Mr. Livingston, in case the papers should notice it, justifying
my absence completely. But before I sent my letters, I thought
it as well to call on Sir Robert. On being shown up to the
drawing-room, I find Dr. Bowring in the act of telling him what
a sensation the absence of the whole corps diplomatique had
created ; for, it seems, none of them had gone, until about half-
past 12, at the instance of the king himself, (dit-on,) who sus-
pected some omission on the part of the ministry, messengers
were dispatched post-haste to beg us to go, if possible, though
but for a moment, — on which Hamilton and Crampton did pre-
sent themselves at the Place des Martyrs ; the messengers had
not found my house, it seems, and I was greatly relieved by the
information, and immediately call, according to appointment
yesterday, on the little Freke, to whom I address as many com-
pliments as my special affection for her warm-hearted and pretty
little person prompted, — and those were very, very many.

Dine at 6. My Poles engage in a political conversation with
one another, which they keep up with the greatest animation
until past 10 o'clock, — I occasionally dipping in, but not enough
to prevent my being mortally ennuied, for I was waited for dur-
ing the last hour and a half. The principal interlocuteurs were
M. Plater and a young gentleman, just returned from a mad
expedition to Poland, where he escaped by miracle, but some of
his companions suffered death, after the cruellest torture. This
young man raves like a maniac when he speaks of the retro-
grade system of the "11 Mars", and prophecies the downfal of
Louis Philippe. Count Plater talked very much like a man of
sense, and, being a Pole, like a philosopher. I threw out occa-
sional doubts about the guilt of the "Juste Milieu", and begged
to understand distinctly what were the several charges alleged
against it by the Movement Party.

Invited to dine at the palace to-morrow.

2&th /Sept. Before I come down, Mr. Burns of New- York,
and Mr. Stevenson of Albany, call. The latter sends me up
two letters of introduction. — from Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Wal-
ter Patterson. I have a talk with them ; invite them to dine on
Friday. Decline ; going on that day.

At 12, go to the race and take my place in the royal loge.
The scene was a very animated one, — the running no great
things ; but the race of indigenous horses (that is, English
horses bred in Belgium) is far better than I had any idea it was.
Count Duval showed some very fine beasts ; and, what struck

96 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

me, entered, avowedly, three of his own for one prize. A jockey
of a man, of the name of Salter, got thrown and miserably hurt.
An accident happened to another, run by Lord Wm. Paget, a
wretched poney, which was easily distanced. Sir R. A., who
felt a Chill, did not get out of his carriage, but sent me word he
would be glad I would fetch Mr. Grant back to town, — which 1
accordingly did. I was charmed with the good sense and sim-
ple manners of this person. As 1 passed the Park and the Place
Royale, saw such a crowd, that one who had not been at the
populous race course would have thought all Brussels was there.
The balloon was expected to be going up, but it was no go.

Dine at Court ; about seventy covers. Before I go Sir Robert
sends for me. 1 go and find him in bed, in a perspiration. J le
begs me to excuse him to the king, and to do another commis-
sion for him ; above all, to let it be known he is not very ill,
but has taken to his bed by way of precaution. The portrait

of is at his side, in bed ; and he dreads should the cursed

newspapers get hold of his indisposition, that both she and his
sister will hurry to Brussels at the risk of their own health.
Poor old gentleman : I know how to sympathise with him in
this deep and natural feeling, which the world calls folly, and
which, perhaps, is so.

From Court, home to rest a little. Then to a ball, given by
subscription, in the Salle de Grand Concert, where I find their
Majesties when I go in. The number of people not so great as
at the military ball some time ago. The queen danced four
times, and she dances perfectly well: twice with officers of the
garde civique, managers of the ball. Lady Morgan is there
and her husband and nieces. So is Hume ; who remarks that
they have two things here which they want very much in Eng-
land,— economy and morality.

2C)th Sept. Grand Review, which I don't see. Go out en
voiture, and find it difficult to make my way to the post-office
on account of the troops, and back to the Place Royale, on ac-
count of the crowd that had been to see them. Call on Messrs.
Stevenson and Burns, — not in. Hear that Mr. Patterson, with
his sisters, are at the Hotel de 1'Europe ; call, — not in. See all
the preparations made for the grand concert to-day. Returning,
call at M. de Latour Maubourg's, and ask where the corps is to
be. Sends me word, at the hotel of Count Werner de Merode,
in the Place Royale, in uniform. Have just entered my bureau,
when Mr. Patterson walks in. He has been at Antwerp some
three weeks, without my knowing it. I offer him cards for the
enceinte reservce ; he tells me to give them to Messrs. Stevenson
and Bums, which I do. Make a toilette and go to the hotel de
M. W. de Merode. After some half hour or so, the Latour

DIARY OF BRUSSELS, 97

Maubourgs and Hamilton come in. Afterwards their Majesties
and suite. The coup <Tmil presented by the orchestra on the
platform of St. Jacques sur Canderberg, composed of 424 musi-
cians of the different military corps in full feather, and of that
beautiful square filled with many thousands of people, at least
half of whom were well-dressed women, — was magnificent.
The performance of that colossal orchestra was, also, wonderful.
I was particularly struck with its execution in the overture of
William Tell. It was worthy of consideration that these bands
had never before played all together. Just before they began
this glorious piece of music, which was next to the last, (a me-
lange of the Marseillaise and the Brabancon,) it began to rain,
not very hard, however, and thousands of umbrellas were open-
ed and added to the effect of the scene. But the concert, how-
ever well-conducted, was, like all concerts, tedious, for it was
too long, — the first part alone lasting an hour and a quarter, and
the whole not being over until past 6, when the sky was be-
coming dark and the audience hungry. And never did I see so
large an assembly, gathered on such an occasion, discover such
perfect apathy. As the king and queen drove off, a very few
voices in their neighborhood uttered some scattering, faltering
vivats. The bad weather was unfavorable to the illumination
and fire-works at night, which, the papers say, were very bril-
liant. I saw a part of the former, — it was any thing else. The
fire-works I did not see, being so fatigued by to-day and yester-
day's work, that I was glad to get to bed about 10 o'clock.

27th Sept. Horrible day, rainy, dark and cold. Find the
race lakes place notwithstanding, and that their Majesties attend.
So I sally out, and arrive in time to see an English horse, called
Paradox, distance Count Duval's whole stud at once ; at the

which the poor little sportsman and Madame de B e are

doubtless very much chapfallen. Neither Count de Latour Mau-
bourg nor I went into the king's loge, but stayed in the one on
its right, where it was horribly cold. I had a long talk with
Lady Morris, who tells me she smokes cigars constantly, and is
positively going on Monday.

28th Sept. Mr. Patterson calls, and Mr. Serruys, vice-consul
at Ostend. While Mr. P. is with me, Mr. Fitzgerald comes in
with an atlas he bought for me, at a sale, some days back. We
have a long chat, which ends in my inviting them both to dine
with me to-morrow. Afterwards, I go out en voiture, and call
on my man Dubos. Return and go on foot to the Frekes', — not
at home. Thence to the Seymours ; see Madame for the first
time since the Prince's death. Tells me poor little Emma is
exceedingly distressed, and weeps continually, — that she has
vol. i. — 13

98 diary of Brussels:

just prevailed on her to go out and take the air ; mentions many
little attentions of the Prince to her, (and they were even more
numerous and delicate than I thought). She weeps, herself, as
she speaks, and tells me she is glad she can do so before mc, for
the world might think it ridiculous. The world ! As I go
down I see Mr. Seymour, and have a talk with him. Ask him
if he could reconcile it to himself to dine with me to-morrow.
After some hesitation, begs me to excuse him. Thence home,
and finding myself extremely unwell, (especially by that symp-
tom of a disordered stomach, chez moi, bad eyes,) I sally out
again on foot, and walk until 6 o'clock. As I pass, the proprie-
tor of a fine apartment in the Hotel de Gallcs (who wants to
have me for a tenant) shows me his stables, which are absolutely
under ground. This alarms me not a little.

I dine alone, and, at 10 o'clock, go to a soiree at Mr. White's.
Some English there of the name of Wyane, and very few be-
sides. Horribly cold and stiff, and so I soon drop off.

Most of the persons T invite to dine with me to-morrow en-
gaged.

29th Sept. — Sunday. Had a terrible attack of heart-burn
last night, which compelled me to get up. Want of exercise on
foot during these fetes. As I come down to fill up some letters
of invitation, comes one for me from the Grand Marshal of the
Court. Dinner, of course, blown up. Excuse myself imme-
diately to the gentlemen who had accepted, and in a. funk about
the time I shall appoint for it. Go out (the day being delicious)
in my landaulette open. Call on Mr. Patterson — not at home.
Take a drive ; go to Summerhauzen's, — then home. At Court
at 6. Before going there, send out my invitations for to-morrow.
At Court, give my arm to Lady Isabella Fitzgibbon, daughter
of Lady Clare, who walks with the French ambassador. This
young lady charmed me. She would be plain were it not for
her fine dark eyes — but she is so sensible and agreeable. Among
other things she tells me, whenever she hears of mother Trol-
lope's book, she thinks of Lady Wellesley, — whom, she has
often said, were she governess of a Princess Royal, she would
propose as the most perfect model of courtly manners. She has
never seen any body like her. I really enjoyed this dinner.
After it, Lord Cranstoun (who is there) comes up, and says he
has a grudge against me for making myself so agreeable to his
young country-woman, who had told him I paid her the prettiest
compliment she ever had in her life. (So much the more fortu-
nate I, for I really can't remember what it was, myself.) I tell
him if I did not please, it was not because I was not pleased,
for were I a young English lord, I should try to make her my
lady. He assents, — (he is a handsome young man, about four-

DIARY OF BRUSSELS. 99

aud-twenty, who seems to me to be thinking of nothing but
marriage, for he fastens upon every pretty English girl he sees
with a doting fondness,) — then he enters into a long conversa-
tion with me, which is partly provoked by my telling him how
i like the nobility of his country, for their perfect ease and na-
ture in conversation. For instance, Lady Isabella had been
speaking with me of her brother, (Lord Clare,) Governor of
Bombay, with all the unrebuked rapture of a girl of sixteen
conversing with one of her own age, — calling him an angel,
the best of men, brothers, etc.; I was charmed with her eloquent
affection, a,nd told her she, at least, must be the best of sisters.
The young lord just mentioned talks cleverly, after a fashion,
but a V Ecossaise,— that is, somewhat pedantically and scholasti-
cally, beginning at the beginning, assigning the reason of every
thing, etc., etc. Mr. Senior, who is at my right, breaks in on
my conversation, and compels me to join issue with him. He
thinks my feeling towards England no fair specimen of the
country, which, he is persuaded, (like all the rest of the Eng-
lish,) is decidedly hostile to the mother country. Says it is
desirable that the United States should be thoroughly well
represented in England, and asks if they have any chance of
seeing me in that situation. I tell him no ; however, I desired
it, not as being at all worthy of the distinction implied in his
question, but for the immense advantages a residence of a couple
of years there would give me. Begs me to come after the soiree,
and see them at their lodgings. I tell him I will if I can, but
think I sha'n't. Dr. Bowring is there, who looks shy at me ; I
suppose he thinks I have treated him cavalierly, as lam inclined
to do, or suspects me of having something to do with a severe
pickling Sir Robert Adair gave him, some days ago, for a piece
of flummery of his about the rights of man and the rascality of
diplomatists, at a patriotic banquet given during the fetes, at
which he, Hume and Senior assisted, — neither is he out there.
Mr. Patterson calls.

30th Sept. Before 1 go out this morning, Mr. McGregor, who
is to dine with me to-day, calls. While he is there, Mr. Senior
(who is engaged, and can't come) comes in. We reason high
of war, peace, Louis Philippe, and La Fayette, Leopold and the
Dutch, etc., etc. These are both very intelligent men. After
they are gone, I get into my carriage and go to the race, tempted
by the genial and fine day. Get to the course just in time to
see two infamous matches, in one of which, one of the two
beasts bolts, and, in the other, the winner comes in on an easy
trot, having double-distanced Lord William Paget's poor little
pony, his only competitor. Not a great monde there, but the
king and queen were. After my return, take a walk. Miss

100 DIARY OF BRUSSELS.

Freke, who is passing in. her carriage, stops and talks with me
about our meeting at Paris. At dinner we are only seven, every-
body being engaged. Conversation very animated. Mr. JNor-
tliey and Mr. Patterson remain with me until half-past 11, dis-
cussing the Belgian revolution, in which Mr. Patterson has,
|>erhaps, too much faith, and Mr. Northey too little. The latter
speaks of the Prince of Orange as a personal friend ; and says
there is no doubt but the charge, recently made in the Indepen-
dant, of missionaries from the Orange party to London and the
Northern capitals, is well-founded ; that, from his privy relations
with that party, he could have told 'em so long ago. I don't
commit myself further than by saying that, be the sentiments
of the people what they may, their apathy in political matters
exceeds all belief, and must never be left out of any estimate of
political chances ; for a people, without individuality and a lively
sensibility to their rights and duties, is a herd to be led or
driven by a few. At half-past 11, I am pretty weary, and go
out, it being a lovely moonlight, en voitnre, to the Boulevard du
Jardin Botanique.

1st October. Horrible fog and damp weather, inclining to
rain. Call up my servants and tell them they must be making
preparations against my departure in ten or twelve days. They
seem all au desespoir, for winter is at hand, and places hard to
be found. Coachman shows me signs of use and weakness in
my carriage ; at the which, being very much enraged, I write to
Jones, telling him to look to his bond. Go to my banker's and
deposit a draft for 1520 francs. Do nothing but fidget and fret
all day long. In the evening, to a soiree at Lady Wale's, (a new
comer, who shews violent symptoms of fashionable propensi-
ties,) where I meet most of the English habitues, and some 1
don't know. Shortly after I am there, Mr. Northey fixes me to
a whist table, where, in sad civility, I sit and play four mortal
rubbers, all which I lose. I then exchange a few kind words
with mafolie, and make my escape.

2d Oct. Go out and call on Mr. Senior, who is going to-
morrow to England. Promises to let me hear from him. Take
a walk. Fall in with Mrs. Seymour, and, on the Boulevard,
afterwards, with Mr. S. and Emma, — walk till 5. Dine alone,
at 6. In the evening, go to Latour Maubourg's \nst soiree. Few
people there, — the Morgans. Lady M. gets me to sit down by
her, and begins to talk about the provincial tone of Belgian
society here. Tells me she meets me no where but in the
grand monde. 1 am soon off, and speak to my little Preke, —
then to Sir Charles Morgan, — then some songs prettily sung by
their nieces, — then home.

NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.

The Publishers deem it due to Mr. Legare to say that they
are satisfied, from both internal and external evidence, that
he never intended this Diary for publication, but only as a
collection of private memoranda for himself, and, perhaps, his
friends. He may, also, have intended it as a note-book in aid
of some future publication, as he was frequently heard by his
friends to say (in reference to his diplomatic residence abroad)
that he had materials for a volume. It is also proper to add that
the difficulty of deciphering the manuscript may have led to
several errors in the text.

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

Antwerp, 6th May, 1835.

Having suffered a great deal, for some months past, from
disordered health, and, particularly, been confined almost con-
tinually to my house during the last month, I determined, as
soon as my convalescence were sufficiently advanced to permit
it, to set out on a tour of some weeks. It was, at first, my
intention to proceed immediately towards the Rhine, through
Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle ; my principal object in that excur-
sion (beside the re-establishment of my health) being to visit Bonn
and its University, and to make the acquaintance of Augustus
William Schlegel. This latter purpose I had a favorable oppor-
tunity of accomplishing, through my acquaintance with the
Marchese Arconati and his wife, who are at present there, with
their only son, an eleve of Schlegel's and the University. But
the weather continued (and continues) so unseasonably cold,
that I determined to begin with Antwerp, which I have always
considered as by far the most interesting spot in the Low Conn-
tries. So, having sent for post-horses, and having them put to
my landaulette, I set off from my house in Brussels, Rue des
Sablons, No. 9, at noon, on the second of May, and arrived at
half-past 5, at the Hotel of the Grand Laboureur, at Antwerp,
where I am now writing this.

The day after my arrival was Sunday, and a Te Deum was
to be celebrated at the cathedral, on occasion of the birth of the
second Crown Prince of Belgium. Magnae spes altera Romce !
Without being aware of this circumstance, I had made up my
mind to consecrate the day to that noble monument of the gran-
deur of Catholic Europe. Accordingly, immediately after break-
fast, I sallied forth all alone, (for I came hither without even a
servant,) and, at 12 o'clock, assisted at the extraordinary religious
service of the day, whose character I soon divined from seeing
the governor of the province and other authorities, both civil
and military, in the choir, and a double hedge of soldiers along
the whole length of the chief aisle. The effect of the fine music,
heightened by that of the vast and magnificent edifice, in whose
mighty spaces it was floating loose about like some aerial spirit,
and of those famous master-pieces of Rubens (the Descent and
Elevation of the Cross in the transverse aisle, and the Assump-
tion of the Virgin on the high altar), before which I stood, was

104 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

such as recalled the past, — the deep emotions of youth and yet
unslaked curiosity, which I once experienced (alas ! sixteen
mortal years ago) most intensely on this very spot.

After gazing upon those pictures and the cathedral for a long
time after every body, but a few straggling votaries of saints
about their images, or penitents in the confessionals, had left it a
vast solitude, I betook me to another object of profound interest
to me, not only because it is so grand in itself, but also because
it has been before my eyes and in my ears from my earliest
childhood, and, with occasional absences, as of late, continually
since, — the sea and its tributary waters. Long and rapturously
did I saunter about, in deep musing, upon the noble quays look-
ing towards that vast opening, through which the Scheldt bears
his here mighty flood to the ocean in which it is to be mingled
with that of our still mightier streams, and dreaming that I
could feel the influence of the soft pure air that breathes from
the face of the great deep, and hear the mysterious voice that
has always spoken to my heart from its ever restless and unfa-
thomable waters, and seems now to speak of my home.

At Jive o'clock, the hour of the Salut, I returned to the cathe-
dral to hear the music of that sweet office, and nurse within my
bosom the deep religious poetry that had possessed it for some
hours. It was at that service thai, in the month of August, in
the year 1819, then just turned of twenty-two, I for theirs/
time experienced the sublime and touching character of the
Catholic ritual. Never have I forgotten the impression made
upon me by the strains I then listened to, — strains of a melody
as soft and celestial as the light of the evening, with which they
seemed to me to be mingling, to express the gratitude and the
love of universal nature for its great Protector, at that most
touching moment of transition from the serenity of the bright
departing day to the repose and the stillness of the approaching
night, in which man was to abandon himself once more, in
weariness and helplessness and darkness, to the merciful care of
heaven. After the Salut I returned to my hotel, where I dined
alone, and received, in the evening, a visit from my most re-
spected countryman, our consul, Mr. Patterson of New- York.

On Monday, the 4th May, I visited, after breakfast, the cele-
brated ship-dock, as well as the fortification thrown up at its
mouth, to defend it against an enemy's fleet. This latter com-
pletely commands the approach to the town up the Scheldt, and
is a most formidable battery. This dock, although I had been
so often at Antwerp, I had never visited before. It is an impe-
rial work. Near it stands an immense building, on whose
facade is the inscription, "DomusHansae Teutonics, 15 or 16 — ."
After this stroll, I called on Mr. Patterson, and, having appointed
3 o'clock for a visit to Wapper's great unfinished historical

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 105

piece, — the tearing up the Prince Frederick of Orange's procla-
mation in the Grande Place at Brussels, on the second of the
four days of Sept., 1830, — I returned to my lodgings to repose
a little. At the hour appointed we call at Mr. Wapper's house,
and get a card of admittance to his atelier in the Temple. This
curious old building is the home and fortress of the Knights
Templars in this venerable city, and is built in the style of those
times, with towers at the corners, etc. By a steep, narrow,
winding stone stair-case, without any thing to hold on by to
help the ascent, we mounted up in darkness to Wapper's apart-
ment, where we saw three eleves studying and copying, and two
pictures, one already exhibited at Brussels (the Burgomaster of
Leyden refusing the supplications of the starving people, that
he should give up the town), and the new piece. It is (this
latter) very far from being finished, and I am not connoisseur
enough to predict what will be its efTect when completed. The
subject seems to me well chosen for a great national painting,
to be hung up in the Palais de la Nation, and well treated. The
wife, the father, the sister, bending over a wounded youth,
brought in from the combat, and exposed to the view of his
infuriated fellow-citizens, made still more furious by the sight
of their young and bleeding martyr, — the tumult of the press
about this group, — the crowd above it, tearing to pieces the last
mandate of their late masters, and scattering it in fiery derision
and defiance to the winds, — here are certainly materials for a
great work. I shall be curious to see it finished. The wife is
a true Bruxelloise, — with fair hair and soft features, stamped
with the deepest grief ; the father's tears are scarcely suppressed
while he appeals to his countrymen for vengeance ; but the sis-
ter is still marvellously indifferent, in my opinion, and if she is
intended to represent a silent, statue-like sorrow, great changes
will have to be made in her face.

I dined with Mr. Patterson and spent the evening with him,
and find myself better than I have been for eighteen months
past ; a divine sensation, which none that have not suffered
long under ill health know how to appreciate, and, still less, to
be thankful for.

Tuesday, 5th May. This is a great day at Brussels, and for
all Belgium, especially Antwerp, — the rail-road, intended to
connect the Scheldt with the Rhine, and now finished from
Malines to Brussels, is to be opened with great solemnity. Many
people are gone and going hence to assist at the spectacle.

After a walk upon the Boulevard for exercise, to help my

health, which I find every moment better and better, I call at

Mr. Patterson's to go with him to the Museum, which contains

a splendid collection of Rubens', Vandykes, etc., etc. There are

Vol. i. — 14

106 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

three, among the former, that are quite remarkable even among
master- pieces, — the "Breaking of the Legs," the "Adoration of
the Magi," and the original, in miniature, from which the great
artist painted the "Descent of the Cross", in the cathedral. This
last is the most delicious piece (of colouring, especially) I ever
saw. If an angel had laid on the colours, or drawn the shapes,
they could not have been brighter or more exquisite. Two of
the Marys at the foot of the cross, with their golden locks and
soft, silken drapery, are perfectly celestial. The picture, though
in other respects an exact copy of the great painting in the
cathedral, seems to me, if possible, superior to it. I have no
idea that the art can go beyond this vision of beauty in delicacy
or vividness of tints. I gazed at it again, as I had done former-
ly, with devouring eyes, and regretted that I was ever to leave
it. I remember I thought, when I first saw it, that, if any thing
could tempt me to commit theft, it would be this little gem.
The breaking of the legs of the thieves crucified with the Sa-
viour is of frightful power. One of them, in his terror at the
approaching blow, has torn one of his feet loose from the nail
with which it had been fastened to the cross, and the contortions
of his body in its agony, as well as the hyena grin upon his
face, while the blood is trickling from his perforated instep,
make you almost imagine the wretch howling in anguish and
despair before your eyes. The Adoration of the Magi seems to
me a less remarkable, tho' very fine painting. But Vandyke, —
not the peerless portrait painter, though there are here several
works of his in that kind that cannot be too highly praised —
but the rival of Rubens in historical painting, — what shall I say
of his two lovely "Ohrists upon the Cross", which adorn this
Museum. One of them is in miniature. The other is all that
it should be, — except the cursed little Cupid at the foot of the
cross, so utterly out of place. But the Redeemer himself, as he
sleeps in deep, majestic repose upon that instrument of igno-
minious punishment, henceforth the symbol of universal triumph
and immortal hopes, — one feels that it is the crucifixion of a
God ! Then the mater dolorosa, pale, fainting, almost dead
with grief, as she supports herself upon the fatal tree, and em-
braces His feet. Yet, how gentle a form of womanhood in its
devotedness, — how graceful and beautiful in her world-forgetting
wo. The outstretched arms of the only other person in the
piece, — the noble air and attitude as of prophetic inspiration ad-
dressing its prayers, not unmixed with imprecations, to the om-
nipotent sufferer. Then the heavens veiled in darkness and the
troubled sky. I felt, more than ever, that Vandyke is the So-
phocles of painters, and bears the same relation to Rubens as
that pure Attic artist to the gigantic, though rude, author of the
Prometheus and the Agamemnon.

JOURNAL OP THE RHINE. 107

I say nothing of the numerous other paintings that adorn the
walls of this interesting Museum, — except to remark, that a
Titian, — a genuine Titian which it contains, — certainly shows
to disadvantage, in point of colouring, by the side of the Rubens'
I have mentioned.

Wednesday, 6th May. It being rainy, uncomfortable wea-
ther, I do not go out to-day, but amuse myself with writing
these hasty notes to send to my mother and sister. Continue
well. Dine with Mr. P.

Thursday, 7th May. After reading an hour in bed, (my
German grammar,) I rise at a quarter before 8. Then my toi-
lette, shaving, etc., consumes, as usual, another hour. At 9, I
go out to take a walk. Enter the cathedral in passing, — no
service in the Choeur, and only some side-bar devotions to some
one of the Catholic saints. Return to my lodgings at 10, and
breakfast. Amuse myself with reading Tombleson's Rhine
Ufer, — a topographical and historical account of all that inter-
ests a traveller on the storied Rhine. As I propose going imme-
diately hence to Cologne and Bonn, I find in this book at once
an incentive and a preparation.

Friday, Sth May. Visit once more the church of St. James.
Another "Christ upon the Cross" by Vandyke — in miniature. A
beautiful picture : in very much the same style as the two al-
ready mentioned. Mr. Patterson pronounces it the J)est of all
the works of his favorite artist ; but, like Rubens', Vandyke's
master-pieces are all best.

This church is wonderfully rich in fine marbles, curiously
and richly carved wooden images, etc., statues, (one of the Fla-
gellation particularly remarkable) — in short, I do not believe
there is any thing at all, on this side the Alps, to be compared
with it in this respect. The eye of the visiter is dazzled and
perplexed by the variety and richness of the innumerable works
oi art, which give so much gorgeousness to the whole interior
of the building. I did not see, this time, because I had often
seen before, the famous picture over the tomb of Rubens, behind
the high altar, in which he is represented in the midst of his
three wives, with his child, etc.

Walk, in the evening, two hours on the wharf.

Saturday, 9th May. Do nothing, to-day, but walk about the
ramparts and read newspapers. See that Mr. Livingston has
embarked, on board the Constitution, for the United States.
Pine, for the last time during this visit, at Mr. Patterson's.

108 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

Sunday, IQth May. Go out, at 8, to the cathedral. Look at
the Descent and the Elevation. No service going on. Proceed
to the wharves, where I walk about half an hour, and return to
the cathedral. This time see the church full, and take my
stand under the organ, and immediately as you enter the church
by the principal door, so that I have a view of the picture of the
"Assumption"' over the high altar, at the distance of many hun-
dred feet, the whole length of the quire and nave. The priest,
going through some silent devotions, "shows scarce so gross as
a beetle." His form is absolutely lost in the immensity around
him.

Cologne, 21st May, 1835.

I arrived in this venerable old city, this evening, at a quarter
past 7 o'clock, in a sort of hack, of which great use is made in
these parts, (for I met I know not how many on the road,) and
which I hired at Aix la Chapelle for four rix thalers (15f).

My return to Brussels from Antwerp, on Sunday evening, 10th
inst., was extremely opportune. I found a dispatch from the
government waiting my arrival and demanding my immediate
attention. Besides this paper, which came to me through the
Legation at London, there were, within the nine days I passed
at Brussels, no less than three different packets arrived at Havre,
by which, after a long interval, I received letters from America,
and lots of newspapers. I stayed much longer at Brussels than
was my intention on returning to it, for I purposed proceeding
immediately to Aix la Chapelle and the Rhine. But I had pub-
lic business to occupy me, and it was not until I had written
and received several letters to and from Mr. Patterson, and sent
two dispatches to the department, that I felt myself once more at
liberty to go, for a few weeks, in quest of health. Helas ! I
stood in need of continuing rnes courses. I thought myself
quite restored at Antwerp, but, in travelling to Brussels, as the
weather was particularly bright and genial, I left the inside of
my carriage and took my seat upon the coachman's place. It
was all very well for some time ; but, towards evening, I found
the wind cold, and descended quite chilled from my exposed
elevation. The next day I felt a slight sore throat, which con-
tinuing, I rather inconsiderately took a severe dose, or rather
doses, of medicine. What with the remedy, and what with the
disease, I was very much pulled down in a few days ; relapsed
into my old dejection and blue devils, and felt that, a tout prix,
I must change the air.

By way of having nothing to think of, and getting over the
ground as rapidly as I chose, I determined to leave my own car-
riage at home in Brussels, and to take my place for Liege in the
coupe of a diligence. I left town, accordingly, on Tuesday,

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 109

19th May, at half-past 7 o'clock, in company with an officer of
some sort or other, (judging, at least, from his pantaloons,) and
an ancient lady, who kept profoundly silent until we arrived at
Liege, when, on the brow of the steep hill that overlooks the
town, she said to me, with a strong Anglo-Saxon accent, "c'est
un montagne bien perpendicular." I had no idea, from her
looks, that she was English. The officer was a Belgian or Ger-
man, from his accent, — an intelligent man, about fifty-five or
sixty, with whom I spoke about the times and revolutions. He
seemed (like many other people of the better sort in this coun-
try) to regard France and Frenchmen with horror. Speaking
of their first revolution, he said history told of no such atroci-
ties,— and it was easily explained, — it was an impious revolu-
tion; the whole nation continues to this day profondement cor-
rom,pue. Of the Belgian revolution he said the people, without
leaders, made it ; and then some adventurers set themselves up,
for a moment, to be its apparent authors. There was only one
thing the Belgians thought worse than a re-union to France, — a
restoration of the Nassaus. Bonaparte always played his va-tout,
and must, sooner or later, have lost all. Speaking of Poland,
he said its revolution was sui generis, and Europe would have
to suffer yet for that inexpiable partition ! This agreeable man
left me at St. Trond. I did not arrive at Liege until 8 o'clock,
having been a period of twelve hours travelling these twenty
leagues. Fatigued to death, my bones all aching, I crawled
along after a commissionaire with my portmanteau, to the Hotel
de Pavilion Anglais, and having swallowed two cups of tea as
soon as I could make them, went to bed at half-past 9 o'clock.
But hush ! what voice, sweeter than that of a nightingale, is, in
broken, interrupted notes, beguiling the solitude of some fair
creature in the neighboring chamber. It is, I learn, that of
Madame S , my neighbor at Brussels; the loveliest wo-
man, to my taste, I have seen this many a day, and whose de-
lightful, ravishing countenance struck me and haunted me, like
a vision of something unearthly, the first time I saw her. Ah !
said old Madame de Baillet Latour, on hearing me express my
raptures, you perceive she is in bad health and fanee ; but en
verite, etant demoiselle, elle etait jolie a faire tourner la tete.
With such a lullaby, and a body wearied and worn down, I fell
asleep, and never woke until 6 o'clock next morning.

Breakfast, etc., being over, on the 20th, at half- past 9, I go
down to the diligence office where I had taken my seat, and, to
my inexpressible horror, encounter there the same old Anglo-
Saxon dame whose silence had annoyed me so the day before.
I was tempted to ask her, on the spot, if her intention were to
extend her peregrinations beyond Aix ; for, if such were the
case, my plans should without hesitation be altered, so as to

110 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

avoid a third meeting of the sort. However, I imitated her si-
lence,— mounted after her into the coupe, — and, after receiving
our complement, a stout German, fresh from London, we were
off at 10 for the city of Charlemagne. The weather was de-
lightful, though, on getting out to walk up the high ascent
opposite to Liege, I found the sun rather too warm, and was
glad to raise my umbrella. The journey was not long, — a dou-
ble delay for examination of passports on the frontier, especially
on the Prussian side, included, we arrived at Aix la Chapelle
before 5 o'clock. We all went to the Hotel de Viile immediately
and got back our passports, which are examined here with ex-
treme strictness. I then proceeded to the Hotel de l'Aigle Noire,
and, after ordering dinner for 6 o'clock, went out to see about
getting on the next day, and cast a glance en passant over the
town, which I find wonderfully changed since auld lang syne
(1819), especially in the neighborhood of the great fountain and
the new theatre. Taste the water, and don't find it by any
means so nauseous as I expected. Sir Charles Wales told me,
last year, having heard it was good for the gout, he intended to
drink it, but, after the first attempt, he had posed himself with
the question, whether it were not better to bear the gout than to
take such a diabolical medicine. I was prepared for a potion
which could have increased the torments of Dives, — but really
think that, considering its "sulphurous and damned" character,
it is very far from disagreeable. The Hotel de l'Aigle Noire is
kept by a French-woman, and on y est tres bien et surtout a
tres bien compte. For a very good dinner, with a bottle of
Seltzer water, bed and breakfast with mutton chops, they charged
only 6f.50.

I rose early the next morning and visited the great fountain
near the theatre, where I drank a glass of the medicinal liquid
and then walked up to the cathedral, which I found very much
as I remembered it of old. As I hate descriptions, and have
never read Vitmoin's, I shall say nothing of the circular dome,
beneath which lies, on the floor of the church, a simple slab,
bearing the inscription — Carolo Magno. After looking round
me for a few moments, and especially listening to a mass sung
by children who step in here (says my guide) on their way to
school, I returned to the spring, and was about to descend by
the first staircase I came to, on my left, not observing that people
went down the other way and came up this. But if I was un-
observing, I was not unobserved. A little blue-eyed urchin,
about three feet high and nine or ten years old, begirt with a
Lilliputian sabre and dressed in a Prussian uniform, was posted
there to warn off the unwary visiter that should be about to vio-
late a rule of police, in a country where, as one sees at the first
glance, every thing is rule and the police is every thing. This

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. Ill

Tom Thumb flies upon me, — shrieking out in German, as he
fastens his little claws in my frock-coat, "you can't go down
this way, — go the other." I could not help smiling with com-
placency at this display of diminutive vehemence ; and was
immediately accosted by an agent of the police, of riper years,
who apologised for the intemperate zeal of his little comrade,
and showed me the way I ought to go. After drinking another
glass of the running sulphur, I repaired to the Black Eagle and
eat my breakfast.

At half-past 8, I got into the vehicle I had not hired the day
before. The one 1 chose was a very nice caleche, drawn by
two very respectable quadrupeds. This, on the contrary, was
an ugly, shabby little machine, driven not by the man himself,
but a servant or agent or partner of his, (contrary to his express
promise,) and tied to the tails of two beasts, whose great expe-
rience in the journey between Aix la Chapelle and Coin, was
but too visibly impressed upon their whole exterior. Yet they
did much more than they promised. The distance is nine Ger-
man miles, (about forty-five English). I was at the Cour Royale
at Cologne, at a quarter past 7, having stopped repeatedly en
route to refresh the cattle, and once to refresh myself, — having
dined at Bergham at 3-4 o'clock, where I had the honor to sit
down with a party from Aix to Coin, consisting of a tavern-
keeper and his wife and companion of that ilk. The woman
had very pretty round eyes, looking like many I had seen before,
and addressed me sometimes in French, hardened by her strong
German accent. One of the compliments she made me was to
request, in case I re-passed by Aix, to bear in mind that they
kept, ma foil I forget what house there, — but a wonderfully
pleasant one it was, by their accounts of it. Among other cu-
riosities, they have to show there many crutches left behind,
abandoned to the first comer's fate, by ungrateful cripples restor-
ed by the healing sulphur.

Bonn, May 23.

Arrived, at a quarter past 7, at the old Hotel de la Cour Impe-
riale. I found it, like the Black Eagle, all topsy-turvy, — under-
going repairs, painting, etc., for the approaching "campaign on
the Rhine," when England opens her golden sluices to enrich
all Europe with the droppings of her economy in travelling—
(for that is, now-a-days, the most general motive,) and, for them,
it is economy to be any where out of the sphere of ruinous
London vanity and ostentation. Two years ago, Lord Francis
Levison Gower, now Lord F. Egerton, was — as Prince Auguste
d'Arenberg, who was intimate with Lady Charlotte Greville, his
mother-in-law, told me — travelling on the Continent like a king,
because, having only £10,000 a year, he could not afford to live

112 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

in London ! Notwithstanding the prematurity of my tour, I
found the apartment, next to the one into which I was shown,
occupied by an English family. Mine was a rather gaudily
furnished room, with high ceilings, and better fitted for a salon
than a bed-room. But vain pomp, etc., I hate ye, when my
bones are broken and the exhausted body, absolute master, thro'
its very weakness, of its etherial companion, clamors for repose.
I called for tea, which was served in a silver pot, etc., and really
was very good. I made it too strong though, and hence, in
part, perhaps, the dismal sequel. At half-past 10, 1 went to bed :
the first thing I look to in a bed is the pillow and bolster, — in
short, the treatment which the head is to undergo during the
sleep that one has a right to count on. It was all wrong : the
only pillow with a case was too soft, and sank down to nothing
under the heavy occiput. I called for another : it was a stout
one, and with that (there were then three and a bolster) I was
mounted up too high, and should either fall from it in my rest-
lessness, or have my neck broken by the perpendicular posture.
Another defect, for a sore body, was the impenetrable hardness
of the upper mattrass. However, I expected my fatigue to carry
me through them all without a moment's sleeplessness. It was
not so. At half-past 12, I wake, heated, uneasy, with a feeling
such as I suppose precedes apoplexy, — except that, having lived
very low for the last four days, and taken so much exercise, it
seemed impossible. But I had left Brussels before I was rid of
my sore throat and the accompanying irritation of the blood,
which had been greatly increased by the fatigues of the journey
and an obstinate costiveness ; and hence, my present uncomfort-
able situation had produced the effect I experienced. I imme-
diately rose, — swallowed a dose of calcined magnesia (which I
always carry about me) and took a piece of rhubarb root into
my mouth. After lying awake and tossing about for nearly two
hours, I fell asleep again and woke at half-past 5. The medi-
cine having taken effect, I found myself better, and, at 9 o'clock,
went out to secure my place in the diligence for Bonn, and to
see once more the cathedral and the Jesuit's church.

I had a little hobbling fellow, about fifty-eight years old, for a
guide to these objects. He spoke some French and I some Ger-
man, and thus contrived to be not quite unintelligible to one
another.

At the Diligence office, I was once more struck with the om-
nipresence and obtrusiveness of the police in these countries.
As it is the first time, for sixteen years, that I have ever been in
the territory of an absolute prince, such things make a great
impression on me. The government has the exclusive exploita-
tion of all travelling by post : whether in your own or a public
carriage (scnell wagen). You are not allowed to take a place

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 113

in the latter, without presenting yourself in person, with your
passport en regie. If all be right, they take your money and
give you a paper, setting forth all the rules and regulations of
this mode of travelling, as that each traveller is allowed to take
with him gratis thirty pounds of baggage, — all excedant to go
by another wagon or diligence, etc. On this paper you set down,
with the utmost precision, your effects, which are to be sent to
the bureau an hour before the coach is to leave : and you are to
keep it by you, ready to be produced, as it may be required at
any stage of your future progress, etc., etc. This schnell ma-
chine takes three hours to go from Cologne to Bonn, 15 miles.

The cathedral — magnificent beyond description, so far as it
goes — was never finished ; but they are now at work upon it,
inside and outside, for that purpose. The Gothic carving and
painted glass of the quire and adjacent parts are richer than
any thing of the kind I remember. The glass especially, I think,
excels the so much and so deservedly vaunted present of Charles
V., in St. Gudule at Brussels. As I was only refreshing my
recollection, I did not ask to be allowed to renew my acquaint-
ance with the famous three kings, or Wise Men of the East,
whose real bodies are unquestionably deposited in a shrine be-
hind the high altar of this cathedral, and may be seen at any
time for eight livres tournois ; neither did I penetrate into the
sacristy, replete with curious relics. They were celebrating
mass, and I listened with profound pleasure to the deep-toned
organ, — the Christian instrument. The pillars in the nave of
the cathedral are said to be one hundred and eight in number,
and are of a prodigious circumference, — much greater than those
of the church at Antwerp. On the whole, however, I was less
impressed with the richness and magnificence of this church,
than with the vastness, the height and the naked simplicity of
that of Antwerp, which I had so recently seen, as to have all
the impression it made upon me still fresh on my mind. The
latter appears to me, judging only by the eye, much longer and
more spacious, — but then the cathedral at Cologne being in the
act of undergoing repairs, or, rather, of being completed, was in
some degree encumbered with the usual apparatus.

The Jesuit's church is a gaudy affair, like others belonging to
the same order which I have seen elsewhere.

Bonn, 25th May.

I left Cologne at 2 o'clock, in the schneli-post, and arrived
here at 5. Lodgings at the Stern, or Star : small room, but
neatly furnished, and a good bed with clean new sheets. As I
was to spend several days here, this latter was a matter of in-
finite importance. I ordered a simple dinner to be served : it
was very bad.

vol. i. — 15

114 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

The next morning (23d), I wrote a note to M. and Madame
Arconati Viconti, announcing my arrival, and, at the same time,
sent to M. Schlegel a letter of introduction I had received from
M. Arrivabene, to serve in case the Arconatis were not here. I
receive, by the return of my commissionaire, an invitation from
the latter to dine with them enfamille at 3, and am informed
by M. Schlegel that he will receive me at any time before 1.
At half-past 11, go out to make him a visit. On the way, 1
meet the Arconatis, who are just going, they say, to call on
some country people of mine at the hotel where I lodge, — Mr.
and Mrs. Sidney Brooks. After the usual compliments, pass on,
and am admitted at M. Schlegel's. Shown into the apartments
on the ground floor, 1 see, among other things, the bust of the
master in marble, — a very flattering one, as I found afterwards,
though M. Schlegel is rather handsome, in spite of a blink in
one of his eyes. His old woman servant presently comes down
again and asks me to walk up. After a moment's expectation,
an elderly looking gentleman, but still active and fresh enough
of his age, comes in, quite in dishabille, without cravat and in
slippers. I soon saw the whole man, and led him on from topic
to topic, in order to get as much out of him as possible. Speak-
ing of Pozzo di Borgo, he said he met him once at Vienna in
1808, when he (S.) was travelling with Madame de Stael. The
gaieties of that dissipated city were at their height. How is it
possible, says Pozzo, that people should enjoy themselves so
carelessly, while their country is trampled upon as it is. In
their joyous insouciance, they asked Madame de Stael if she
thought the peace would last till after the hunting and shooting
season : and here a loud laugh — (quite a frequent accompani-
ment of M. S's. conversation). Then we talk of the University
of Bonn, — of the perfect religious toleration that exists in Prus-
sia, where young men of the Catholic and Protestant commu-
nions study together, etc., — English politics, etc. I get up to
take my leave until we should meet again at dinner at the Ar-
conati's, but, as I am doing so, here, said he, is something you
must see. There is a likeness of Mad. de Stael (under it hung
a miniature image of Schlegel himself) taken after her death,
but exceedingly resembling her. Corinne is not so very ugly
in this picture, and has especially very pretty, tho' rather shrew-
ish eyes.

On returning to my lodgings I see Mr. Brooks' card, and
shortly after he asks if I can receive him. On my consenting
to do so he comes in, and I recognise in him an old acquaint-
ance,— a brother-in-law of Mr. Edward Everett. He hands me
two letters, — one of them from my friend Bronson, the other
from Mr. A. H. Everett. As I was about to make my toilette
for dinner, our interview was a short one.

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 115

At M. Arconati's, find them and a sister of tier's lately arrived
from Milan, — a girl of about nineteen years, I suppose, but not
pretty, though mild and gentle. She has long white eye-lashes.
Another person present was a M. Berge, who says he saw me
at dinner at Sir Robt. Adair's when I first went to Brussels.
After waiting some time for M. Schlegel, his carriage drives in
and he soon makes his appearance, "neat, trimly dressed, fresh
as a bridegroom." The savant seemed to be very completely
sunk in the petit maitre. At dinner, the conversation was very
various and agreeable. We talked of foreign countries, with
which M. Schlegel is very familiarly acquainted, — of races of
men, negro, quarteron, etc. The latter, he said, always retain-
ed the African features, flat nose, etc. I told him it was not so
chez nous, where some of them have the Caucasian face in its
perfection and are very handsome. A subject we talked a good
deal about was the criminal code and trial by jury. He is evi-
dently full of a reform in the former, which he regretted his
friend, Sir James Mcintosh, had not lived to accomplish. I
ventured to say that I knew no problem more puzzling, and less
likely to be soon satisfactorily solved, than what was the best
way of disposing of a felon, — that is, a determined criminal, —
and that the question would probably have to be answered dif-
ferently according to circumstances. Unanimity in the jury,
which he attacked, I stoutly defended ; affirming that, without
requiring that, there would be a very insufficient examination
of cases by these occasional undisciplined judges, and I was not
sure whether the institution would be worth fighting for without
it. "Nay, but," said he, "even with a majority of only seven to
five, we are very much attached to the system." A case was
mentioned in which a man. having been convicted on very
doubtful evidence, of a murder committed seven years belore, the
king of Prussia, of his absolute power, set aside the sentence, and
had the cause re-judged in Silesia, where the accused was ac-
quitted. H. M., in his zeal to do good, violated the forms. Speak
also of M. De Tocqueville's recent book on the Democracy of
the United States. Tell them I have not read it, and so get off
without giving a general opinion on the subject. Add that, from
some observations on it in the Debats, he seems to have seen
things in a truer light than foreigners usually do, — e. g., he
dates our republicanism, not as people on this side the Atlantic
absurdly imagine, from the Revolution, but from the very foun-
dation of the colonies, which I explain, adding at the same time,
that nothing could be more widely different than such a revolu-
tion, and one (like that of '89, for instance) where every thing
had to be pulled down and set up again ; witness the South-
American abortions.

After dinner, we retire to the salon to take coffee, which I

116 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

actually did ! vae mihi ! M. S's. libellus on the Hippolytus of
Euripides and the Phaedra of Racine being mentioned, I say
that 1 had read such a diatribe over, and considered it as in-
controvertibly just and an admirable specimen of comparative
criticism. He reads some lines from Pradon, of which the pur-
port was that Hippolytus, at Paris, must be gallant to please,
and not sauvage and intractable to Venus, as he was ; in short,
that Hippolytus must cease to be Hippolytus. The conversation
turns on other kindred topics, — Spanish theatre, license oi satire,
etc. Schlegel mentions no bad joke of Philip IV., (I think,)
who used to recite verses with Calderon, who had a wonderful
facility at improvisation. They were doing an auto, in which
Philip was God, and the poet, Adam. The latter had the parole
and kept it an unconscionably long time, until the creator, be-
coming impatient, interrupts him by saying, "Yes, I am your
creator ; and I repent me already of having made such a garru-
lous fellow," — un Adam tan hablador.

Presently M. S's. carriage drives in, and I am told the ar-
rangement of the evening is that the Arconatis shall go in their
carriage and take the Brooks' out to drive. M. S., who proposes
to me to join him in a similar promenade, gives Mad. Arconati
rendezvous at the Botanical Garden. We take leave, and get
up into a very nice caleche drawn by two fine horses, and driven
by a coachman in livery, with a footman to suit. I ask M.
Schlegel how it happens that, his account of the genius of So-
phocles being supposed just, (as I for one certainly think it, for
in reading it after, as well as before the original text, I have
felt it to be so, even to the encomium he bestows on the Attic
grace and sweetness of the CEdipus Coloneus,) so many ancient
critics seem to prefer Euripides — the r^aviwraros, as he is called —
and that not only in reference to tenderness, but generally. He
asks me whom I cite. I tell him Aristotle's Portius, and a pas-
sage or two in Plato's Dialogues, which, although I could not
refer to more particularly, I had noted in my study book, be-
cause they struck me very forcibly. The mineralogical cabinet
is in a fine ci-devant maison de plaisance of the ex- Archbishop
Elector. We went through all its apartments. In one of them
we meet with the Arconatis, and I make the acquaintance of my
nice little country-woman, Mrs. Brooks, who looks very Eng-
lish (being very blond, with soft, silky hair, and rather inclined
to be fatter than most American women) and speaks the verna-
cular without any nasal twang at all, — a rare thing for one of
my dear country-women. She tells me she has heard so much
of me from all her friends, especially Julia Livingston that was,
that she can hardly consider me as a stranger. I am charmed
to see her, and do my best to let her perceive that I am. Find
her speaking French extremely well. She is of a Boston family,

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 117

awl a niece of Bishop Dehon's. Our walk about the garden
was very agreeable, and, as we were about to leave it, we mount-
ed a flight of steps which lead up to one of the principal doors
of the palace, from the landing-place of which there is a fine
view of the Septmonts in the distance. Thence the conversa-
tion turns on the picturesque and the beautiful. M. Schlegel
says it is absurd to compare scenes in different countries, — that
every country has its own beauties, — the most sterile and ill-
favored is not without them ; witness Holland, which has pro-
duced such masters in landscape painting. I answer that, a
force de regarder beaucoup, they had at last seen, or imagined
they saw something. I see, said he, you are an incredule. Af-
ter a good deal of conversation, we return to the carriages. He
asks me to go home with him and drink tea, — an invitation
which I cheerfully accept. On our way, I ask after Hugo and
Savigny. They do not seem to stand very well in his estima-
tion. Repeats what somebody said, that the civil law was like
scenery in twilight, — you may make what you please of it.
Savigny, he adds, is of what they call the historical school. I
tell him, as I interpret the expression, I am half inclined to be
of that school myself ; and ask him what meaning he attaches
to the term. He explains it as being a sort of legislative neces-
sity, by which every age, nescio quofato, makes the laws that
suit it. I then say, all I mean is that the traditions of a coun-
try must be respected in its constitutional innovations ; other-
wise one of two things ensues, — either your constitution is dead-
born, as in Belgium now, or every thing is turned into chaos as
by the Constituent Assembly, and refer again to our own his-
tory. On the subject of the Constituante, he thinks justice is
not done it ; that, with all its errors and the evils they did or
did not lead to, the general result is good ; that to get what we
have, we must have demanded what they did, etc., etc. The
privileged classes never would have yielded to any reform less
unsparing.

Arrived at his house, I am shown up (this time) into his study,
where the first thing I see is another bust of himself, backed by
a half-length portrait. Amour propre, it seems, is no iconoclast,
or rather the contrary. I ask after Niebuhr, whose singularly
fine head we had seen at the country palace. Gives me clearly
to perceive that he was no friends with the great historian, whose
department (that, I mean, of Roman history) M. S. now actu-
ally fills, and some of whose opinions he disputes. Apropos of
his scepticism, I tell him that was obvious enough ; but what
made him remarkable was not the disputing, but the interpret-
ing the scanty and hardly intelligible remains of those early
annals. He says Niebuhr was altogether impatient of contra-
diction, and has no doubt but that his end was hastened by the

118 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

revolutionary events of 1830, which preyed inconceivably upon
his mind ; although he was here, (he adds,) so to express it, en
volontaire, and might have gone away when he pleased, not as
I, nailed to the spot by my house, etc. The conversation turns
afterwards on Oriental literature, to which (Sanscrit, especially)
M. Schlegel is now particularly devoted. Presents me with a
letter of his to Sir J. Mcintosh on that subject, which he sends
me the next day with a note.

I left him at half-past 9, and, on returning to the "Star", call
on Mr. Brooks to arrange about the morrow, when we are en-
gaged to visit the Drachenfels with the Arconatis. I had stipu-
lated for permission to go first to mass, (it being Sunday,) which
I never miss in travelling in any Catholic country where there
is a cathedral. The Brooks' agree to go with me, and acoord-
ingly we repair thither at 9 o'clock, but, after some delay and
difficulty (owing to the great crowd) in getting in, find the cere-
mony begins with a sermon, and that in German. After waiting
in vain for the fine music we expected, force our way out, and,
at about 11, set out with the Arconatis to the object of our morn-
ing's visit. Our party filled two open carriages. We passed by
the Godesberg, and reached the Rhine (which was very full and
muddy, with a strong current, and which we crossed in one of
their flat-bottomed sail boats) about five miles from the town.
Donkeys were waiting on the opposite bank, ready caparisoned
[here enter M. Arconati, and afterwards M. de Schlegel, to take
leave of me, as I go to-morrow, May 28] : the male part of our
company all prefer walking up the mountain, but Mad. Arconati
and Mrs. Brooks mount two of these long-eared dwarfs. Mrs.
B's. goes along very well, but Mad. Arconati's little beast can't
be thumped or pulled into any sort of usefulness, so that she is
fain to dismount and trudge along with the rest of us ; du reste,
the ascent is not very steep, and we are soon standing on the
esplanade formed a little below the ruined castle, and adorned
with a monument to the heroes who fell in 1814. The view on
all sides is delicious ; unfortunately for the picturesque, though
well for our bodily comfort, there was no sunshine, though the
weather was soft and genial. After enjoying this vast and beau-
tiful prospect for a long time, we repair to the sort of eating
house built here for the accommodation of visiters, and find a
collation prepared for us by the kind attention of onr friends,
the A's. I had a tremendous appetite, as we ail had, though it
was only 2 o'clock ; and, to make it better, (or, as it turned out,
worse,) there was champagne foaming and dancing in its crys-
tal bounds, and a bottle of the very finest Johannisberger, which
Mr. Brooks had himself bought at McHernich's altar, and
brought with him, as if to be offered up in libations on this
magnificent altar to the genius of the Rhein gau. After our

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119

repast, made agreeable by so many various attractions, not to
mention a delightful conversation, we descend once more to the
esplanade and feast our eyes upon the beauties of the scenery,
now somewhat varied by certain accidents of light, struggling
through the haze in the distance. After re-crossing the river,
and getting into our caleche with Mesd. Arconati and Brooks, I
find, to my great annoyance, that a sore-throat I had brought
with me from Brussels, and thought almost cured, has been so
much irritated by the mountain air and mounting exercise, not
to mention as many as four glasses of unmixed wine, (merum.)
a horrible debauch for me, that I am obliged to send for a doctor
on returning to my hotel.

This physician, recommended by Madame Arconati, was M.
Nasse, a man of fifty or sixty, a professor of the University.
He recommended an antiphlogistic treatment ; i. e., abstinence
and a tisane, — told me I was very wrong to take calomel, as I
was evidently inclined to congestions in the upper regions. He
was, I found, a most agreeable person, and I derived so much
pleasure from his conversation in the four visits he paid me in
three days, that I most cheerfully paid him a fee of five rix
thalers in taking leave of him. I had discussed with him all
the various systems of medicine. He seemed to like none.
When he heard I was an American, he said, "On dit beaucoup
de mal de vous." In truth they do, and no better proof of it
than that there is no spot so sequestered in Europe, but a clear-
sighted and quick-eared American finds it out in a couple of
days.

As he forbad my going out, this malady, which has detained
me up to this present writing, (28th May, 9 o'clock, P. M.,) four
days longer than I meant to stay, has also sadly curtailed the
pleasures and advantages of my sejour : in the first place, I had
to renounce a tea-party at M. Schlegel's, though he has repeat-
edly called on me since.

In the few hours, during which I have felt safe in going out,
I have been to the well-furnished librairie of M. Weber, pub-
lisher of the Byzantine Histories of Niebuhr, (continued by
Becker and the other philologists of the Berlin University,)
where, besides taking a note of many precious works, I buy
Schlegel's Dramatic Literature in German, and a translation into
modern German of the Nibelungenlied.

Nordhausen, Thursday, 22d April, 1836.

I left Brussels on Monday evening, ISth April, at half-past 9
o'clock, and travelled incessantly until I arrived at Aix la Cha-
pelle the next day, at about 4, where I dined. It was not until
nearly 7 that I set oft' again towards Juliers, my resting-place
for the night. Very good apartment and bed. 23d, at half-past

120 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

6, am off again for Dusseldorf, (6J German miles,) — thence to
Elberfeldt, where I dine. This flourishing manufacturing place
filled me with astonishment. I have seen nothing like it in
Europe. It has all the freshness and life of an American town
in one of the new States. It is built upon the banks of a stream,
which sets its mills in motion, and it completely fills up the
narrow but beautiful valley, for miles together, with factories
and dwelling-houses, — all remarkable for neatness and cleanli-
ness, and many for a degree of elegance and grandeur rarely to
be met with in great capitals. It is rather a collection of manu-
facturing towns, than one city ; and, all together, they contain
some sixty thousand inhabitants. I do not remember ever to
have had a more agreeable drive than this, from the time I
crossed the Rhine on a pont volant at Dusseldorf, until I had
passed Elberfeldt some three or four German miles, — making, in
all, a distance of about thirty English miles, — but from the last
mentioned station to the town (Nordhausen) in which I am
writing this, that is to say, for one hundred and fifty English
miles together, it has been all barrenness and desolation. The
road — a most excellent one, macadamized — runs the whole way
between very high hills approaching very near to each other, so
that there is very little prospect. On such an elevation, the
spring has as yet made hardly any progress, and so the trees are
bare and the heath brown. The towns and villages, with a
single exception, are the most miserable, dirty, ragged collection
of huts that can be conceived ; houses built of wood frames,
filled up with clay, and most of them decaying and dilapidated.
In short, every thing looks poverty-stricken and primitive. This
is more strictly true of Hesse, which one traverses through its
pretty capital, Cassel, which is really a charming little town,
and where I was almost tempted, in spite of my haste to be at
Berlin, to spend a day. As it was, I lounged away a pleasant
evening in looking down from its fine squares and walks upon
the beautiful garden on the hill-side, and the smiling green val-
ley into which it runs out to a great distance. The public
edifices, without being particularly fine, are still very respectable
in size and appearance, and the upper part of the town is laid
out with great regularity. There is a statue, in the square of
the palace, of the Grand Duke Frederick II., with the date 1783.
Was that the man who sold his troops to George III., to reduce
us to subjection ? and if yea, was it for that his country erected
this statue ? The peasants have rather a remarkable costume ;
the men (who seem generally fine, — at least, so far as I can
judge from what I saw in a residence amongst them of at least
twenty-four hours from first to last) wear boots or gaiters up to
the knees ; the women comb their hair all back from the fore-
head, and gather it in a knot on the top of the head, where it is

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 121

covered by a black patch, not unlike the calotte of a priest. I
must not forget to mention a rather curious incident. In the
morning before I set off, I strolled out to cast another glance
over the town and suburbs. I remarked very many people
walking with great speed down the town, to what I at first sup-
posed was a market-place. I go round a square, and re-enter
the same street, where I see still as many people all hastening
the same way. It now strikes me that this can be no every day
matter like a market, nor, indeed, any sort of business whatever.
There is something extraordinary occurring ; I rather think it
is an execution. I thought, however, no more of the matter,
until the head waiter, coming in to receive the amount of my
bill, tells me they are cutting off the head of an assassin that
had murdered three people, and that I shall pass very near the
spot. I did so, but met the crowd (an immense one for so small
a place) all returning, and saw the scaffold, but nothing on it
but some two or three men in cocked hats, — who were probably
the Jack-ketch and his suite. It seems they cut off heads here,
and with a sword, in the old-fashioned way. I should have
been glad to see the apparatus, but did not like to discover my
curiosity to so many people.

Madgeburg, 23d April.

I arrived but a couple of hours ago in this famous old town,
of which, as it was 9 o'clock when I got here, I have as yet
seen nothing. Lodging, Stadt-London, kept by an Alsacian.

To go on with my journal where I left off. I was not deter-
mined, when I left Cassel, how far I should travel before I
stopped again. Find the posting cheaper, but progress less, than
in the Prussian dominions heretofore. After going some twenty
miles, I arrive at the bank of a rapid stream, where a book is
handed me to write my name. Infer (for I can't comprehend
the German of the man "that offers it) that I am already at the
end of the Grand Duke's territory ; and, on consulting my map,
find that the stream above mentioned is the Weser and the
border. Weather charming. At 8, the moon shines beautifully
out, and the remainder of my drive to Nordhausen a true party
of pleasure. Moonlight and motion always make me meditative
and romantic. Think what an adventure it will be to pass
through the Hartz at this witching time. But then, Stolberg,
where the ridge of mountains begins, (it is about sixteen Eng-
lish miles across,) is more than two posts beyond Nordhausen ;
and the moon is only in the beginning of its second quarter,
and so her smiles upon her benighted wooer not to be expected
to continue even so long as a woman's empire usually lasts. A
mountainous journey always a long one, — witness a similar
vol. i. — 16

122 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

attempt, and the repentance it occasioned me, on the Saluda
mountain in 1830. besides, a morning drive, at this season,
must be so fresh and delicious in these regions ; and, if one
muses less, one sees more by sunlight. I decide, for once, to
sacrifice imagination to sense and the senses, and determine to
"turn in" at Nordhausen. Tell the postillion I mean to stop at
the Post, — which d'Arnin describes in the Itinerary he gave me
by way of cuphemisme, as an anberge invd'were. The sight of
the town, by moonlight, enough to make night hideous. All
the houses built after the fashion described above, — a frame of
wood, filled up with clay or bricks, so as to leave every rib and
rafter exposed to view, — giving to these deformed masses, espe-
cially at this hour, the appearance of stuffed skeletons. I verily
do not believe the least change has been made in this, nor, in-
deed, any other particular, in this whole country, from Elber-
feldt to Stolberg, since the thirty years war. I had no concep-
tion there was, in any part of Western Europe, such a miserably
lodged peasantry. Many of their huts strongly recalled those
of our slaves in the Southern States. — But this by-the-bye.

Arrived at mine host of the "Romische Kaiser", I ask for an
apartment, and am shown up two pair of stairs to a close, un-
ventilated room, wherein are two beds, both together narrower
than the one I left at the Hotel de Bellevue. I hate being at too
close quarters even with myself, and having found the inconve-
nience of being stinted in space the night before, the sight of
these couchettes oVenfer, — not enfer, like Gen. Evain's, — makes
me nervous. Yielding to the first impression, I rush out of the
room and down the stair-case, protesting to mine host, who
speaks a little French, that I can't think of lying down on such
a couch, and ask if he has nothing better. Nothing ; all beds
that he has ever heard of made just in the same fashion. I get
into my carriage, — bawl out in broken German to the postillion
to put his horses to again and take me to the Post. "Here is
the Post," says he. Very well, let me have horses and be off, —
I am better here. They are about complying, when I get down
and ask to be shown some other rooms. At length I make
choice of one, in which the bed is just as narrow, and the ceil-
ings much lower, but which has a window open, and is, of
course, well aired. Here I establish myself for better for worse.
The bed is made. Another shock for my nerves. There is only
one sheet, on which one lies down, — the place of the upper one,
as well as of blankets and counterpane, being supplied by a sort
of sack, covered with a linen case like a bolster-case. This
puzzles my servant exceedingly, — he is no conjuror, it is true.
After writing the first part of these notes, I enter with as much
resignation as was to be expected upon this new trial, and what

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 123

with extreme fatigue, and what with the idea of rising the ear-
lier to begin my mountain excursion, if I slept little, I make out
to pass the night well enough. Rise at 5.

The drive from Nordhausen to Stolberg, in this morning air,
as delightful as possible. The sides of the mountains are cov-
ered with wood, — the road is for the most part in a valley, and,
as you approach the latter place, along an impetuous, brawling
stream. I should suppose this excursion, in the summer, as
charming as possible to a man of woods and streams, as I am.
There are some evergreens, — something like stunted cedar, —
that give great freshness to the scene even now.

The chateau of the Count of Stolberg hangs in the air abrupt-
ly over the miserable village of that name. I get out of my
carriage, walk through the village, and clamber up the sides of
the mountain on which the chateau does not stand, but from
which you command a fine view of this part of the Hartz.

Soon after getting into my carriage, and making the best of
my way out of the filthy and ill-paved streets, (the latter to an
incredible degree,) — (by-the-bye, here is the house in which the
famous anabaptist peasant leader, Munster, was born, — who that
sees what their condition is now, can wonder that they found it
intolerable then ?) — I begin to ascend, and for sixteen miles am
crossing the ridge : at first on a magnificent macadamized road,
but, after getting into Anhalt, on a wretched, unpaved cross-road,
precisely such as I am accustomed to in some of the wildest
parts of the Southern country, as narrow as the bed I slept in
and as hard too. — though in bad weather, I suppose, from the
terrible ruts that are shaking me to pieces, just the reverse, and,
indeed, I do not know how it can be practicable at all. It is a
a fac-simile of that which leads from the turnpike to Guesbeck,
near Brussels. I tremble at the thought of what it must have
been a fortnight since. The Hartz mountain, as far as the pre-
sent turnpike goes, is completely wooded, and the Blue Ridge in
North-Carolina all over again, bating, however, most of its beau-
ties.

I arrive at a post station, where I am allowed to wait com-
posedly for half an hour. I was saved from desperation by a
rather singular occurrence. There was a posse of boys of va-
rious ages and sizes, from 17 and 18 downwards, singing psalms
(I suppose) in the street. They would stop before one house
and raise a stave, then another, and at last near my carriage.
They sang all the parts of a chorus, and very well indeed. I
love music (next to woman) of all things in this world, and
sacred music especially, — then in this solitude, — this mountain-
ous region of pure air and pure morals, etc., etc. Religion and
music— the worship of God and the worship of nature. In
spite of this agreeable distraction, however, do not forget I am

124 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

travelling, and so greatly annoyed by the non-appearance of the
postillion and his gear. The Prussian, who brought me hither,
having pocketed his drink geld, has coolly walked off, and I see
no living soul at all interested in my fate ; become impatient ;
make my servant rap at the door, — nobody comes; again, —
again. A girl shows herself, and, divining my wants, throws a
cloak about her (the morning air was shrewd) and runs to a con-
siderable distance. At last appear, in the offing, the Anhalt
postillion and his ragged concern. The whole thing dismally
poverty-stricken. Such fare as one gets in an old country house
of a decayed gentleman's family. Man very stout and stupid ;
beasts very spare, but not less dull than the man for all that.
When we come to mount the first long hill side, I feel the great-
est commiseration, — especially when the postillion lays hold of
the smaller and more willing beast, as if to drag him along.
Descend, en revanche, very well, and, at the foot of one of the
mountains, see a black obelisk. What can an obelisk in these
forgotten solitudes mean ? Get down, and, approaching, find it
is to the "Father of his Country"; of course, some Duke of An-
halt. Every country, like every man, has a father at least.
This poor little nation in the wilderness, like any other, has its
heroes. See, at length, after a drive of at least ten miles, at the
top of a high mountain, a vast prospect open before me, and,
descending, descry gradually all the varied beauties of a rich
champaign country, covered with green crops just sprung up,
and in the distance a towered city, — and, towering over it, an
Abbaye. See at once it was the seat of an Abbaye Princiere;
and that, as in so many other cases, the land was consecrated to
religion because it was fertile, or was fertile because it was con-
secrated to religion, — according to Catholic and heretical ver-
sions. Find myself still doomed to the rack of this infernal
cross-road, on which I travel till I come within two German
miles of Madgeburg, where I arrive as above.

Potsdam, 24th April.

I rose this morning at 6, and, at 7, was on my way, with a
valet-de-place who spoke only German, to see the citadel and
the cathedral. The former is famous for having been Trenk's
prison, and afterwards La Fayette's, etc. By paying a trifle, I
am let in by the keeper of it. Am much disappointed in the
horrors of the place ; indeed, except a rather short allowance of
daylight, none but such as exist in every prison, ipso facto. It
is a small guard-room, not under the earth, as I had imagined,
but on the ground floor ; nor yet damp and dripping, with water
oozing through it from the bed of the stream above, (this was
my strange conceit, heaven knows why.) but dry and comfortable
enough. The walls are adorned with rude drawings, Trenk's

JOURNAL OP THE RHINE. 125

dismal pastime, — all in keeping: an owl, a death's-head and
cross-bones, a coffin, — the date 1761, etc., scratched, or rather
cut, upon the stone floor, — and what surprised me most was a
head of the great Frederick himself, excellent well done ; near
by it that of Napoleon had been drawn, (by La Fayette dit-on,
but that can't be true,) but the face has been defaced, and it is
only by the air that one recognizes it. The view up the Elbe
towards Dresden, from the walls of the citadel, under the soft
morning sky of an April day, was charming.

The cathedral is now used as a Lutheran church. I went
half an hour only before their morning service (it is Sunday)
began, and so was very much hurried. Walked round its long
cloisters before the beadle came. The portal is very fine, and
as, of all the Iconoclasts, the Lutherans were the most tolerant,
some saints are still standing in their niches about the steeples,
of which there are two, (a rare thing comme l'on sait,) but not of
the highest. The interior of the church is exceedingly pretty,
though not on such a scale as Antwerp or Cologne. It owes as
much to Lutheranism as the outside, and more. The choir
stands as it was, with its fine altar-piece of a single block of
Carrari marble, and its curiously carved Stattes de chanoine ;
-images, pictures, etc. I did not know, until to-day, that wax-
lights were used — that is, I had forgotten it — in the Protestant
service. There were two burning upon the altar. Otho, the
Great, plays a prominent part in this church. Here is his tomb
and that of his Anglo-Saxon wife Editha. Then there they
are, the happy couple, in an old stone chapel, which I suppose
was taken out of some still more ancient church, (this dates
from the beginning of the thirteenth century,) as it stands, and
brought into this. Their majesties, cut in stone, cut but a sorry
figure there, — Punch and Judy.

A really curious thing in this church is part of the armor of
Tilly, who, in the thirty years war, destroyed and otherwise (if
it is not a bull to add this) most villainously entreated Madge-
burg, — all for its own good, as I have no doubt. It seems he
left nothing standing but the cathedral : had he not swept them
all away, Madgeburg would have resembled in its structures, to
this day, the miserable towns with the stuffed skeletons, duid-
lieburg included, through which I have just passed. Here are
his helmet, his general's staff, (two of them, one with a lock and
barrel,) his boots, (buskin, with heels three or four inches high,)
and his gloves of steel. I put my hand into one of these pon-
derous gauntlets, and thought of Wallenstein's Lager.

Speaking of Schiller reminds me of Goethe and Faust, and
Faust oi the Brockenberg. I ought to have recorded that, as I
came rushing down the last of the mountains which break sheer
off at the plain of Quidlieberg, looking to the left, I saw a peak

126 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

higher than the rest, all covered with snow. 1 have not seen
such a sight since I looked on Ben Lomond in April, 1S19 !—
horrid reminiscence. This peak was precisely the Brocken, —
(he seat of Faust's witches.

The journey from Madgeburg to Potsdam is sixteen mortal
German miles. You pass through a perfectly flat country, — as
flat as the low country of Carolina, — and resembling it, unfor-
tunately, in more respects than one. It abounds in ponds, —
called in Europe, I suppose, lakes, — so that it occurred to me
that, instead of march, one should read marsh of Brandenburg.
The highway is excellent for use, but detestable for ornament.
Besides these barren flats, it traverses for miles a wood of young
(that is, in appearance) pines ; and all the way, except in this
forest, especially from Brandenburg to Potsdam there, you are
in an avenue a perte de vue of Lombardy poplars. The Elbe
it is, I suppose, that swamps this whole district, — for one crosses
continually streams of considerable width, that are rushing with
great impetuosity. But that would prove the reverse of my
position, and shew that the Elbe drained the country, by receiv-
ing these torrents in its wide expanse. It is a noble river, and
would be so in America. At Madgeburg, which is forty-eight
German miles by water from Hamburg, it is said to be thirty
feet deep, and though divided into two branches, each is a
mighty flood ; but it is dry in summer, — dit-on, so is the Cou-
gar ce, almost.

In the course of this long drive from Elberfeldt hither, I am
struck with several things. 1st. Every man I meet bows with
profound, even deferential respect to me, — that is, to the man in
a post-chaise with a servant behind him. In France, the yriHons,
who are all philosophers, curse you. 2d. I had no idea one
could see so much poor land, such miserable towns and villages,
a population so vilely lodged yet so primitive and happy, — in
short, such evidences of things being just as they were a couple
of centuries ago, in spite of the schoolmasters and steam engines
abroad, — in the very heart of Europe. No Cockerel has been
here yet ; and, apropos of Cockerel, what a contrast between the
Ardennes as it now stands, — I mean the road from Liege to
Spa, — and the Ardennes of the Wild Boar, or the Hartz of to-
day. Only let a steam-engine make the tour I have just finished,
and you'll see. 3d. Every thing is regulated in Prussia. The
government has its hand in every thing ; and all goes on with
a mechanical exactness (though a little slowly withal) that
strikes one who has never lived under an absolute government.
At every stage or relai you pay in advance for your horses and
turnpike, — all but the postillion, — and a printed bill, receipted,
is given you. Every time the postillion approaches a toll-gate,
he winds his horn (a part of his uniform) and winds it twice,

JOURNAL OP THE RHINE. 127

and always in precisely the same manner, — the same monoto-
nous note from one end of the kingdom to the other. When
yon give him his drink-geld he thanks you. and quietly pockets
it without asking for more. At Madgeburg, I saw affiche be-
hind the door of my apartment a tariff for my host, (a French-
man from Alsace,) restraining him to so much for each dish of
tea, each slice of bread and butter, but which did not prevent
his contriving to make me pay seven francs for a bed and two
things he called bougies, which had already served, and will no
doubt serve again (their own master, j'entend) — the useful little
things. This maximum arrangement, however, I rather think,
was merciful. In short, one feels that one lives, moves, and has
one's being here, in the perpetual nurture and admonition of the
government.

To an American, accustomed to precisely the reverse of all
this, — that is, to every man's doing just as he pleases in all that
he has to do, as if he had no account to give, not even to him
that pays him, yet generally doing every thing perfectly well,
and with such results, in the long run, as there is no record of
in the history of human affairs, — this go-cart, leading-string
system appears very strange ; and it is for Prussia to shew (if it
can be shown) that its effects, on the whole, are really not dis-
advantageous to society. Certainly Elberfeldt seems a com-
mencement de preuve to that effect. Meanwhile, it must be
owned, that if every thing is government, every thing is, for
order and happiness merely, well governed. The honorable
fact, that this is a highly enlightened and m.oral government,
impresses itself upon the traveller as soon as he has had time to
look around him and observe the most superficial phenomena.

April 25. I am not ready to go out this morning until half-
past 7, and then I find the valet- de-place, who was to have con-
ducted me to Sans Souci, out. After waiting some time, stroll
forth. Am lodged at the Einsiedler, near the palace, where the
king happens to be at this moment, and is to remain until
Wednesday. Every thing military, — troop of lancers composed
of men in the flower of youth, beardless and generally fair,
particularly attract my attention. Fine new church, — stone, —
surmounted with a cross: Lounge toward the water, — to the
bridge, — then return through the parks of the palace, where the
valet-de-place overtakes me. I am and have been, since I found
I had lost a half hour and had my projects frustrated, very
bilious. Tell him it is too late, and I should go to Berlin im-
mediately after breakfast ; inwardly resolved to do no such
thing. Take my tea and coolly go forth with the said laquais
to see the famous little chateau : it is distant about a mile from
the town. Begin with the picture gallery, which contains about

128 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

two hundred pictures. More Vandykes than I ever saw alto-
gether. A likeness of some Prince of Orange, in the shape of
a little Cupid skating : a veritable little Love, — never was any
thing more delightfully beautiful. Several portraits by the
same great master ; one a chcval, — another (admirable) of the
sculptor Fiamingo. Many Rubens'; some in his daubing style —
especially a Susannah (like Charlotte in the Werther of the
Varietcs at Paris) and the Elders, — never saw such an uncouth
monster as the woman : but, en revanche, some very fine, though
none to be compared with those at Antwerp. Among these L
remark particularly an Adoration of the Magi, and a picture
of Rubens himself, surrounded by all his wives and his friends :
very pretty. The finest picture in the collection is a sleeping
Venus by Titian. Homer says of something that it is "softer
than sleep" — if you want to feel what that means, look at this
picture. It is very queer, but true, that this melting repose
reminded me of Taglioni's dancing. From this picture gallery,
(which, I forgot to say, is about two hundred and thirty feet
long and very fine, with gilt cornices, etc.,) I went to the little
chateau of Sans Souci. The building, it seems, was divided
between the royal host, who lived in the right wing, and his
literary friends, who occupied the left. A desk is pointed out
at which Voltaire used to write. In the king's apartment there
is no bed. It seems he died in an arm chair. My valet swore
to me the clock points now to the very hour at which he died ;
for it went down as the breath left his body. Always some
marvel for the vulgar. His library was an object of particular
curiosity to me. It contains, so far as I could discover after a
pretty close examination, nothing but French books, — that is,
books in French, — for all the classics, Polybius, Suetonius, Vir-
gil, etc., were translated, as were Macchiavelli (two copies), Don
Q,uixotte, etc. Most of them are historical works, — treatises of
the art of war, diplomatic correspondence. A book in quarto
was lying open upon the table ; the running title (as the printers
call it) was "Epitres Familiere? It was very dirty at the page
I saw, and had the appearance of having been much thumbed.
It is said to be just as it was left. There is a MS. correction of
a verse by Voltaire, in a fine, legible hand. The king had
written (and printed) "Chiche de mots mais" — Voltaire substi-
tuted "de mots avare". This was what he called "blanchir le
linge" of the great Frederick. The view from the front of the
chateau is very beautiful. I had not time to go to the "new
palace", and I am tired of palaces, and was fatigued with my
walk, and so returned to the Einsiedler, where, in half an hour,
I get into my post-chaise and am off for Berlin.

On my way (before I got out of the town) I passed an open
carriage, in which I thought I recognised Lord Wm. Russell,

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 129

whom I had seen once at Court at Brussels, with a lady by his
side. Soon after I meet the Crown Prince ; and, after a few
minutes' interval, Prince Frederick, followed by the Princess in
an open carriage and four.

The road continues wholly uninteresting and the country
barren. I arrived here (Berlin) at about 3 o'clock, and took
lodgings at the Ville de Rome. Immediately after, go to the
table d'hote and dine. After dinner, walk out to take a general
view of the town. See the greater part of the objects mentioned
by Reichard, in the course of a two hours' promenade. No
opera to-night ; so fain to come in and amuse myself with
writing this log-book. My virtu having been awakened by the
gallery of Sans Souci, I take out of my port-folio my sweet
little friend Emma S's. souvenir, a copy of the Cena of Leon-
ardi da Vinci, and gloat for some time upon its beauties.

The street in which I lodge is the great thoroughfare of the
city in its most fashionable quarter, and is bisected by a public
walk bordered with trees, whence, probably, its name, unter
den Linden.

I have read in my carriage the second volume of Balzac's
livre Mystique, which, although it shews the author to be un-
doubtedly a man of talent, does not please. It is a wild story,
intended to illustrate Swedenborg's nonsense. Also Madame
d'Abrantes' Memoires sur la Revolution, — a childish, confused,
though cleverish and interesting piece of tittle-tattle. The style
is colloquial and sometimes not quite de bonne compagnie. She
repeats the same stories over and over again, — rambles from her
subject perpetually, — and, at the end of the second volume, is
only at the beginning of her task. Avis au lecteur. Madame
d'Angouleme is (and deservedly) her heroine ; Bonaparte, her
hero, — peut-etre. The book, though purporting to blame the
anti-liberal conduct of the Restoration, and that unsparingly,
seems to be written with an eye to a possible re-restoration, and
if it is to be relied on, it is hard to imagine a dirtier gang of
ribalds in high places than those who surrounded the Emperor
of the French. She treats Talleyrand with unmeasured and
most merited contempt, — in words, at least, — Fouche also ; but
it is hard to say whom she excepts from the charge of treachery,
unless it be the Duke de Bassano. If she is to be relied on,
Bonaparte had completely lost his head when he returned from
Elba ; and still more completely all the prestige of his fortune
and name. To think of his dawdling in Paris to put on em-
broidered shoes or slippers and a coronation robe at the Champ
de Mai, instead of rushing forward to the frontiers ! Would
Caesar have done so ? He wanted to be sure that he was still a
monarch, — the bourgeois gentilhomme and his robe-de-chambre.
vol. i.— 17

130 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE,

Ney's conduct, according to her account, was madness or total
want of moral sense. She is in love Avith Metternich. I should
judge her to be spiriiuelle, but very foolish. There is a pathetic
story of a woman taken in adultery and shut up for mad, really
well told. — Another book I never read before, and of which 1
have read a great deal, is Johnson's "Lives ot the Poets." Dr.
Johnson is a horribly bad writer. His artificial periods and his
pomposity of phrase to express the baldest common-place, are
insupportable to me. Yet his criticism, in every thing that does
not soar above a certain heighj, is usually very sensible. For the
sublime or the pathetic, he had neither soul nor ear to compre-
hend them. Nothing can be more uuworthy of the mighty
theme, than his way of treating Milton, except his superficial
notes on Shakspeare. From his praise of Pope's Homer as a
translation, — his significant insinuation that the best scholars
have more pleasure in reading the "blind old man", so perverted,
(the translation is a good English poem, but — ) than in his
own matchless verse, — and his absurd remarks on "Samson
Agonistes" and Greek tragedy, — I shrewdly suspect the Doctor
was no Greek scholar at all ; nay, I am sure of it. Latin, I
dare say, he knew to a certain extent, — prosody especially, — but
for deep learning, he had none. His talent is colloquial, — inge-
nious argument, quick turns of thought, ready, pointed, witty
repartee, clothed frequently in metaphor which looks like rea-
soning, and does often bear a great abundance of maxims and
of moralities, uttered with oracular solemnity, even when rather
trivial, — and withal a taste for elegance, though false, and a
lively but not a sublime fancy, — these qualities, aided by very-
considerable and various literature, and by an invincible confi-
dence in himself and a most dogmatical surperciliousness in
regard to other people, account for his prodigious celebrity in
that day of talkers and clubs, and will secure to him a certain
(greatly curtailed, no doubt) reputation with posterity. But he
is in his true element when he speaks of Dryden, — Milton was
above his pitch. He had not as much heart as head, and not
as much soul as heart, and is never either very original or very
profound.

Tuesday, April 26. I passed the whole day, until the dining
hour here, (3 o'clock,) in the Museum, which was erected so
lately as 1826. The ground floor is appropriated to the statuary.
The picture-gallery, if 1 may use the expression, is arranged on
a new principle. [Teick made the catalogue of the statues ; I
don't know whether he was consulted as to the disposition of the
pictures.] They are divided into a great number of different
compartments, intended to illustrate the different schools and

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 131

the progress of the art, — Venetian, Flemish, etc. In this point
of view the gallery is extremely interesting to an amateur, and
the collection very precious, as it is very extensive.

Dine, by way of curiosity, again at a table d'hdte. Only
"mine host" and two guests, — very respectable persons ; one
saluted the other (an aged person, with good manners) as M. le
President. Scanty and ordinary dinner, — served from another
room by a dish at a time.

After dinner Sir G. Hamilton sends me word he will call at 6.
Accordingly does so. Gives me a horrid account of old Sir
Robert A's. conduct as British ambassador ; servile court to Car-
lists, — studious avoidance of all liberals, —kept out of the way
of our old friend, Count Joseph de Bail let, Belgian envoy, who
I know counted very much on Sir Robert's countenance in a
strange place. Regrets Brussels, which he thinks, as I do, the
pleasantest residence after Paris. Berlin dull ; one reception
a year, and only one, at Court, — after that, all over. Fortunately
he (Sir G.) was in time for that.

Takes me to the King-street theatre, where he sets me down.
They give the Barber of Seville, and a Cantatrice from Vienna
plays Rosina. Detestable exhibition. — which sends me home
in the course of an hour. N. B. The spectacle begins here at 6
and ends at 9. Dine at 2 and sic de similibus.

Took up Balzac's "Pere Goriot" this afternoon, and found it
so interesting that I laid it down with regret, and hasten to re-
sume it. Read till 11.

Wednesday, April 27. Before I am out of my bed-room,
some one knocks at the door. I open it and see a little laquais
in livery, who asks me if I be "Herr Legare", and, on receiving
the right answer, proceeds to invite me, in the name of M. An-
cillon, (to whom I had a letter from my friend d'Arnin, Prussian
minister at Brussels,) to dine with him to-day at 3. The hour,
as well as the form of the invitation, (verbal and without carte
de visit,) rather surprises me ; but heard from Hamilton, yester-
day, that the old minister (he is past 70) is rather an original,
and so, after asking the boy if he is sure of the hour and the
occasion, I accept.

On coming out, receive an invitation from Count Joseph de
Baillet to dine on Sunday or Monday, as may best suit my con-
venience, he being engaged every day till then. My arrange-
ments compel me to be off before Sunday, and so I have to
decline. I express to M. de Baillet the very sincere regret with
which this necessity inspires me, and the strongest wish to see
him in person. Sends me word he will call at half-past 11.

Presently after Hamilton writes me a note, informing me that
Lord William Russell, to whom I was to have made a visit to-

132 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

day, will be too much occupied with business, (his courier goes,)
but requests I will dine with him to-morrow enfamille, that he
may have a better opportunity of making my acquaintance. I
suspect a mistake of to-morrow for to-day.

This is a great religious fete of some sort or other, and I am
curious to attend divine service in the cathedral of this city, but
fear my arrangements will not permit it.

Before I go out, M. de Baillet comes in. Expresses his regret
that I cannot dine with him. It is his intention, he says, to
return to Brussels at all events in the month of June. Wanted
to go to Vienna in May, but requested by his Court to remain
here. Supposes it is on account of the Duke of Orleans' visit,
which he thinks (as it is) quite an event. Says the King of
Prussia has acted towards him (M. de B.) like a parfait honnete
homme, — having told him at his reception that, of course, the
Belgian revolution gave him great pain, but that it was now a
fait accompli, in which he had bound himself to acquiesce, and
would do so in good faith, — adding that he would go further
and say that, if the whole controversy had not been already set-
tled, the fault was not the Belgian government's but the King
of Holland's. I told him I was to dine at M. Ancillon's : said
he was glad to hear it, and had no doubt the old minister would
wish to have my opinion on the state of affairs in Belgium ;
advertised me, therefore, — after remarking that the whole policy
of this government was cautious and even timid, and directed
to the preservation of the status quo at all events, — that they
suspect the Belgian people of a propensity to France, which you
know, says he, does not exist : should be glad if I would contri-
bute to rectify this error. Tell him I shall not fail to do so if
occasion serve, especially as it were only telling a truth. Says
the king is determined to receive the French princes with all
possible distinction, but that his sons — especially the prince
royal — will do their part very much a contrecceur. Recommends
to me by all means to visit Charlottensberg, and not to miss see-
ing the mausoleum of the queen, and the statue of her majesty
by a sculptor who had been her valet, and whose talents for
drawing, etc., being accidentally revealed to her, she had him
sent to Rome to study his art, where he became one of the
greatest masters in it. There he executed this monumental
statue of his royal patroness after her death, — a first-rate like-
ness,— which, after many adventures, (it was captured by a
Barbary corsair and redeemed,) at length arrived at its destina-
tion.

Hamilton, by a note, informs me the error I suspected in his
invitation did in fact exist, and that both he and Lord William
being engaged to-morrow, we must adjourn over our expected
symposium for the present.

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 133

Go out to see the churches,— the cathedral first. Pretty church
in modern (and Protestant) style : vaulted roof, pillars. Observed
the altar adorned by three pictures, a crucifix and two wax-
lights. Learn that the preservation of these ornaments was a
part of the arrangement by which the government reconciled
the differences of the Lutherans and the "reformed", and so that
they exist in all the churches. Ascend the belfry (not very
high) whence, under a perfectly clear sky, a fine view over the
town. The great bell is 400 years old, and, when rung, is made
to discourse its music by rather a clumsy contrivance : one man
above swings it, while another by its side catches the clapper as
it comes with his hands and forces it into contact with the brass
above, then lets it fall upon the lower side.

This church contains the monuments of the Margrave of
Brandenburg, who secularized his dominions at the Reformation,
and of three of the kings of Prussia, — not the great Frederick's,
who is buried at Potsdam. The royal pew is here in a gallery.

Went thence to the old church of St. Nicholas, just before the
service began. I could see through a glazed window from the
corridor what existed or was passing within the church. Very
antique affair, built of brick. Service began at 2 with a hymn,
sung principally by a choir in a gallery, with accompaniment of
organ. After waiting a quarter of an hour, obliged to retire to
dress for M. Ancillon's dinner at 3. First put on boots, accord-
ing to our fashion at Brussels ; but, fearing lest there might be
ladies and a different rule here, and being an entire stranger,
think it safer to go in shoes. Do so and repent ; no woman-
kind and every body in boots. Arrived, am trotted through
several apartments au premier (including the dining-room) to
the salon of "His Excellency." Surprised at first sight of a
stout, hale looking man, whom I should have judged to be about
fifty-eight or sixty, had I not been informed how much was to
be added to that chiffre. Rises as I enter, — receives me very
politely and with an apology for having taken the liberty to
invite me so unceremoniously, but that the multiplicity of his
engagements made it necessary he should seize the first oppor-
tunity, etc., etc. I tell him I am very fortunate in seeing him
in a way that will enable me to see more of him, etc. There
was a Baron somebody, secretary of legation at Copenhagen,
who was just about to return to his post ; a Professor Michelet
of this University ; a young French painter from Metz, (very

clever and agreeable youth) ; a Mr. , the host and myself.

I see Arnin has given him a very particular account of me :
knows I am from the South, — that I have read Schiller, study
history laboriously, and am an amateur of Greek literature.
Talk of Belgium, in which I say almost all I have to say on
that subject in a few words. M. A. remarks on the singularity

134 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

of the fact of Belgium's coming out of the twenty years of
French contact and domination, quite uncontaminated in reli-
gion. I tell him it was what had struck me most forcibly at
first, — that, with all foreigners, I had been led to regard the
Belgians as an inferior sort of French, while, on the contrary,
there was hardly any resemblance between them, even in Hain-
ault and Brabant, and none at all in the Flemish country ; and,
of a French party, some noisy individuals about Mons, etc.,
constituted the whole. The King of Holland had lost his
throne by not seeing this palpable truth : he was haunted by
the idea of a reunion (as it is called) with France, and in try-
ing to counteract that imaginary tendency, wounded and revolt-
ed all the national sensibilities of this people, so singularly
wedded to their usages and traditions, that they have made two
revolutions, not to change, but to preserve them.

At dinner — a little tea-table, scarcely large enough to allow
elbow room to the six guests. Service and furniture very sim-
ple and ordinary, a maitre-d'hotel and two other serving-men.
Nothing on the table but a plate of oranges, two of sugar plums,
of various sorts, and one other — about a centre piece — it was, I
really forget what. Very frugal dinner served from a side-
board. I began with the bouillie, (which was the second dish,
the first I did not recognize, and so, with my horror of all stran-
gers, did not touch,) next, asparagus — next a supreme de volaille,
or volaille of some other sort aux champignons, followed by Jish.
Then hare — with a cake, and a jelly — and there, I think, was
the whole dinner. Good enough for me, however, — who in eat-
ing, as in other things, video meliora proboque, — deteriora se-
quor. Conversation of arts, music, literature. Find M. Ancil-
lon very agreeable, clever, enlightened and well-read — with great
douceur and kindness of manner, and an ardent love of talk, —
for I know my own by instinct. Speaks of Roman metaphysics
as studiously and systematically unintelligible: contrasts it with
the French style, — repeating the "what is not clear, is not
French," — hence the language of diplomacy, beaucoup parler
sans rien dire, — saying much without appearing to make a
mystery of it, say I, etc., etc. Talk of history. I remark that
to write, or even to appreciate history, perfectly, one must have
lived in the world, and even been engaged in public affairs.
M. Ancillon assents, but the literary men cry out against what
so trenches upon the privileges of their caste. This leads
to a long discussion of Herodotus, Sallust, Tacitus and Julius
Caesar, and the Lord knows what. M. Ancillon takes occa-
sion to say to me, "M. d'Arnin tells me you cultivate Greek
a good deal." I answer, rather confused, as I always am, I
know not why, when allusion is made to my studies of that
kind, — that I am a mere amateur, and amuse myself in that

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 135

way in my leisure moments. Whereupon, some one says he
did not know people took an interest in Greek, in America. I
tell him as much as any where else, except, perhaps, Germany.
"But England," says another. I am left to think, say I, from
all that I know of English scholarship, that it is rather super-
ficial. "But see how they quote Latin in Parliament." Horace
and Juvenal, I reply, — some of the Augustan authors and their
school books, — and that, too, merely for rhetorical purposes, —
"to draw a moral, or to point a tale", — nothing more. I have
seen an excellent scholar, bred in England, to whom Tacitus
was Greek. Then a discussion of Tacitus' Latinity. I assert
that every one, accustomed only to the Latinity of the Juve-
nal sera, would be embarrassed at the first reading of that
historian, and cite the "spatium exemplum" of the life of Agri-
cola — a use of example that occurs elsewhere in his works, and
no where in those of Cicero, or any writer of the Augustan
Eera. Another discussion thereupon. "None speak English with
purity, in America." All things considered, with surprising pu-
rity, though some provincialisms, many archaisms, and an
almost and universal tendency to a nasal twang, — which I at-
tribute, in a good degree, to the puritan habits of our ancestors,
and the cant of all sectarians — a thing, remarked not only in our
English fathers at' home, but among devout orders, cloisters,
etc. Conversation turns on M. de Savigny, who, I regret to
learn, is not in Berlin, it being a vacation. M. Ancillon says,
excellent as his works are, his lectures are still better ; delivered
with a charming ease, grace and clearness, and giving you the
idea of a man who is quite above the subject he treats of, and
makes a pastime of it. I tell him it is just the impression made
on me by his famous History of the Roman Law in the Middle
Ages. Speak of his general doctrine, and that of the historical
school, in opposition to Abbe Sidyes* constitution on mathemati-
cal or astronomical principles. Profess myself of that school
hautement. Say the merit of Tocqueville's book consists in
his being the only foreigner, except Heeren, who has seen that
republicanism is the primordial law and condition of American
society, and that our revolution was merely external and con-
fined to the question of sovereignty, and, chiefly, executive
power ; in short, that tout ce qui est republique has always
been so, — brought with them by our founders, — and only what
is federal is new. Much more said of this. Mention Elberfeldt,
and tell him the impression it had made on me, that it resembled
a flourishing American town. "I hear it looks like an English
town." "More American," say I; "for, after all, in English
towns there are always some unwashed holes and corners, the
filthy retreats of wretchedness, or rotting relics of the past, —
whereas, with us, all is hope and vigor." "One might know you

136 JOURNAL OP THE RHINE.

to be an American by this admiration of what is new? said one
of my neighbors ; "whereas many persons here admire a thing
the more for an antique and ruinous air." "In its place? 1 re-
ply, "a ruin is a fine thing, — on the Drachenfels, for instance, —
mais il y en a tout partout en Europe ; and it is as a rarity that
I admire a creation like Elberfeldt, which has more avenir than
past in it, and reminds you that, after all, the human race have
not seen their best days, — as Cicero said of Catiline's gang, —
vixereP The minister seizes the idea and heartily assents, par-
rying the ill-aimed blows of my not very quick-sighted adver-
sary. Apropos of ruins, speak of the chateau of Heidelberg, to
which I object that it is only of yesterday ; and a ruin, like
nobility, ought to be enveloped in the nuit des temps. An arti-
ficial ruin is as bad as what I have heard called, in America, "a
made gentleman." Speak of the prejudice against African blood
in the United States. At 5 take leave. M. Ancillon regrets my
stay is so short, and apologises again for having invited me so
unceremoniously. Mr. Wheaton spoken of with great respect,
and said by the secretary of legation to have been very much
regretted there, — his wife, too, — is she a distinguished woman,

says M. A. "Oui c'est une bonne femme." That is too true,

thinks I.

It is worth recording that, on my mentioning what Lord
Brougham had said in my presence, viz : that Talleyrand, Roe-
derer and Cambaceres, all agreed Si eyes was the veritable homme
du siecle, — M. A. cried out against it ; and, speaking of his
famous pamphlet, Qu'est ce que le Tiers ? he and the professor
assert that somebody (I forget whom) suggested to him the man-
ner of putting the question. What has the Tiers been ? nothing.
What is it like? what ought it and is it to be? everything:
Which is the sum and substance of the whole work.

This dinner and conversation make me very much regret the
necessity of leaving Berlin so soon. I leave M. Ancillon with
a profound respect for his abilities, and a great prepossession in
favor of his person and society, although he is, perhaps, some-
what ambitious in conversation. After dinner to Charlottens-
berg, about a league from the fine Brandenburg gate. You pass
through a wood like the Bois de Boulogne, before you arrive at
the palace and its garden, and which is traversed by the Spree.
There is a chateau (not very magnificent) — a hot-house of great
length, filled with exotics. Then there are groves now resound-
ing with the voices of nightingales on every bough ; and that
sweet stream flowing quietly through these tranquil recesses ;
and the mausoleum of the queen but, to my eternal mortifi-
cation, I find that I am debarred from all access to the interior,
for want of some precautionary arrangement which I wist not
of, and so have not made. The loss is irreparable, — yet the

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 137

depth of the enjoyment which I find in my hour's ramble in
these shades, under such a delicious evening sky, reconciles me
to the disappointment, and I return to my hotel at 8 in peace.
Oest tout dire. There are many people, it being a fete day, and
remark that one sees, in all places of public resort, individuals
obviously of the lowest order, — that is, of the shabbiest appear-
ance. At the picture-gallery, the other day, I saw a fellow so
dirty and ragged, that I am sure a French sentinel would have
driven him away with scorn from the gates of the Tuilleries,
the very day after the revolution of 1830.

Leipsic, 29th April, 8 o'clock, P. M.

1 arrived here just now, and, after applying unsuccessfully for
lodgings at two hotels, (the town is swarming for the fair,) 1
establish myself for the night at a rather shabby, dirty-looking
place, called the Stadt-Wien.

I passed yesterday at Berlin, which I left after 10 in the eve-
ning, in a very unedifying manner. Indeed I did nothing that
I can remember but lounge for an hour in the picture gallery,
and pay and receive some visits. I called on Hamilton at his
lodgings, which are very comfortably and prettily fitted up ; he
is dans ses meubles, and was not a little proud of having the
opportunity of showing them to one who will report on them at
Brussels.

After dinner, Lord Wm. Russell calls : find him quiet, unaf-
fected and gentleman-like, — very English, and so a little stiff
and angular. Tells me M. Ancillon has the name of being
rather insincere in his relations with the corps diplomatique,
though he is sure the imputation is not just, — the frequent vacil-
lations and retractations, that have occasioned it, being caused
by the absence of firmness, or consistency, or something else in
the Prussian government, whatever that is and wherever it may
reside, — a thing, it seems, not easy to decide. The king is get-
ting old and loves repose, and so is not unwilling to be freed as
much as possible from the troubles of business, — though with
his great memory he is very firm and positive. After about a
half hour's conversation, his lordship retires with regrets, etc.

• Count de Bail let succeeds him, and stays with me until I am
getting ready to set out.

The night is perfectly bright with moonlight and fair weather,
but it is excessively cold, — my servant says freezing.

At half-past S, I arrive at Wittenberg, and alight at the London
tavern, near the church in which are the graves and pictures of
Luther and Melancthon. After shaving and drinking tea, I go
out upon the (to me) most interesting excursion of the sort I ever
made, accompanied by, beyond all comparison, the most singular
cicerone that ever conducted me. He was an excessively small
vol. i.— 18

138 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

man, — much shorter than myself, — with a wo-begone counte-
nance, such, I thought, as beseemeth a sexton, carried, in advance
of the rest of the body, at an angle of 45 from the back, while,
by some means, natural or artificial, but quite incomprehensible
to me, he took the longest and made the most rapid strides ima-
ginable. He spoke to me at first in German, but, finding that he
seemed to be quite an fait in reading the Latin inscriptions on
the tombs of the reformers, I asked him ih that language if he
spoke it. He answered me immediately in the affirmative, and
went off full gallop in a style worthy of Melancthon himself,
and which quite surprised me. — to such a degree, indeed, that I
took the liberty of asking him who he was, <n.c <roSsv si, etc. He
told me he was a man of letters, it being found necessary that
the wdituus of those interesting edifices should be so. He was
charmed to find how perfectly intelligible my pronunciation was
to him, — which he said was very often not the case. To in-
crease his surprise, I told him I was an American, legationem
apud Belgarum regem nunc obiens ; but his fluency was much
greater than mine, from frequent practice, and, what is still more
remarkable, he spoke generally with the greatest ptirity, and
with a certain swelling, rhetorical pomp of style, like the pre-
faces and dedications of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
When I complimented him, he declined the honor with such
phrases of studied humility, and such acknowledgments of the
singularis tua humanitas vir amplissime, et doctissime, etc.
However, like other Germans, he slights quantity : e. g., occur-
red— with the second short. — But, for Luther himself, (of whom
my learned beadle is a prodigious enthusiast,) you see his like-
ness at all ages here, up to the very article of death. The ar-
dent apostle ! the invincible champion ! the audacious icono-
clast ! the sage and serious reformer of morals and opinion ! —
you see it all in his robust form, his capacious head, his square,
broad visage, with firm-set under-jaw, — in that deep, grave coun-
tenance, and fixed look, etc. The inscription on his tomb-stone
in the church, (a little oblong slab in the pavement, covered with
a sort of trap-door,) merely records the day of his birth and that
of his death : Melancthon's the same. After my curiosity had
been satisfied here, we proceeded to the monastic building in
which the famous Doctor lived and lectured. There is a table
at which he sat, — an old, worm-eaten wooden slab, bearing its
experience upon its face ; then the professor's pulpit, from which
he delivered his productions. Likenesses oi the two princes of
Saxony, Frederick and John, accompany those of Luther and
Melancthon, both here and at the church. They are remarkable
for the same expression of deep, solemn earnestness, befitting
men that had a conviction, and a conviction to fight for. I told
my little mystagogue that, standing in that room, I felt that I

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 139

was in templo quodammodo orbis terrarum libertatis, — at the
which he was not a little pleased. In the first room are the let-
ters Petr. in chalk, (I think,)— an autograph of Peter the Great,
another mighty founder. To preserve it, it has been covered
with glass. Here is a book in which pilgrims inscribe their
names. I added to it mine. The first name, in the first volume,
is that of the present King of Prussia, written with his own
hand. That reminds me that Wittenberg is no longer Saxon,
and that the ashes of Luther lie in what may be called foreign
ground. To be sure, the King of Saxony is a Catholic, and
perhaps it is fit that the chief of Protestant Germany should
have the guardianship of its most precious and sacred shines.

Potsdam, Frederick, Voltaire, Wittenberg, the unfortunate

Elector, Luther. — What a contrast..

Dresden, 1st May.

It was my intention to have stayed somewhat longer at Leip-
sic, and I had accordingly obtained from my friend Ticknor,
(now at Dresden,) and presented a letter to the famous Herman,
and another to a great Saxon jurist, — I forget whom. But, after
walking about the town, filled with booths and wares and their
venders, and its charming faubourgs adorned with sweet groves
and pleasure gardens, and showing, too, hundreds of carriages
and other vehicles, covered with temporary sheds, my impatience
to be at Dresden, where I expect letters, and my desire to make
the most of my short time overcome me, and I order post-horses
and set off at 12 o'clock, hoping to perform the day's journey
(only fifty-two English miles) in ten hours. To my most vexa-
tious disappointment, however, I do not arrive until half-past 1
in the morning, — having spent rather more than an hour, on an
average, upon each German mile. The night, however, was
bright with a moon near the full, though exceedingly cold for
the season ; and, as my anger, "which I nursed to keep it warm",
prevented my sleeping, I enjoyed, or rather saw that I might
enjoy, if I pleased, the pretty drive along the valley of the Elbe,
reflecting now the beams and bright face of the moon, and now
the broad shadows of cliffs and trees. It was past 2 when I got
under the cursed sack which was to serve for both sheet and
blanket, and half-past 8 in the morning before I woke in my
new habitation, Hotel de Saxe. My servant had been ordered,
over-night, to go to the post-office before he came in to me in the
morning, and accordingly announces that there are two big
packets for me there. A commissioner is dispatched and brings
me in a letter from Petigru, enclosed in one from Vail, and an
answer from M. de Muelnaere to a letter I wrote him, on leaving
Brussels, to order my boxes to be passed without examination at
Antwerp. Find that Ticknor lodges very near me, at the Stadt

140 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

Rome. Send to him to let him know I am come. He sends me
word he will call as soon as I ean receive him, and accordingly
comes in as I am about to sit down to my toast and tea, at half-
past 9. Proposes to me to go to Court with him at 12. All the
world to be there : the royal family being about to go elsewhere
for the belle saison, and holding a drawing-room oVadieu. I
decline, though inclined to go. Too much fatigued to put on a
Court dress, which I took the precaution to bring notwithstand-
ing. Walk out at 11 to the Catholic church, where high mass
is celebrating. The royal family there. Church condemned
for bad taste by connoisseurs ; showy and fresh ; built by Au-
gustus III. Thence walk on the bank of the river : charming
promenade and prospect, — a decided advantage over Brussels,
this said stream, — by which one may descend to Hambro'. But
note the river is seen to its greatest advantage now, being rather
full : in a few weeks, the dry weather reduces it to a paltry
stream, winding amid pebbles. There is the advantage of the
Rhine, and what makes it incontestably the king of German
floods. There is a noble stone bridge here.

Prague, 7th May.

During my stay at Dresden, which was rendered most agree-
able and profitable to me by my friend Ticknor and his amiable
wife, (for without them it was impossible I should have turned
my time to so much account,) I had not a moment's leisure, or
at least inclination, to add any thing to these notes. Of the five
days I passed there, I dined four times with the T's., and once
with the British minister, Mr. Forbes, son of Lord Granard, and
(nephew ?) cousin of my friends the Hastings'. Apropos of din-
ners, they are all simple in Germany, — consisting of a few dishes,
brought on in succession. At Mr. Forbes' we were en partie
carree. He is a very agreeable man, the Ticknors say towards
fifty, — 1 should have guessed about thirty-five, — true Irish, with
a brogue subdued, making his English mouthy, sans f agon,
gay, and intelligent withal. Shows us Palmerston's protest
against the doings at Cracow. Well put, but too good an argu-
ment for a man that means action.

The first day being Sunday, I could only lounge in a Protes-
tant country. Having dined, we went out in Ticknor's carriage
to a sweet garden and wood in the neighborhood, where there
was music. Then home and took tea. Afterwards to Mr.
Forbes', and thence to Count Strogonoff's, a Russian of distinc-
tion, married to a Portuguese of the family of Almeida, now
established here. They receive every Sunday. I met there
with M. de GouriefF, some time ambassador at Brussels, who
made many inquiries about it. He is a regular Russian of the
heavy, sensual Slave or Calmuck stamp. M. de Strogonoff looks

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 141

more like a Christian. I sat down by Madame's tea table, and
talked with her the whole evening. She asked who was Portu-
guese minister at Brussels : told her. What sort of man ? Here
I was tempted to /aire V amiable at the expense of my colleague
Da Camera, of whom I was going to make a caricature. But
my better feelings triumphed, and it was well they did, for I had
scarcely made some short answer, when Madame S. added, "he
is my cousin."

On Monday I went, at half-past 9, with Ticknor, to the famous
Gallery, through the various divisions of which we wandered
leisurely, and at length sat, for a moment, in the Italian room :
that is, the room of the RafFaelle (Madonna di Santo Sisto), five
Correggios, three Carlo Dolce's, etc., etc. We met in the gallery
an Englishman, who appeared to be a perfect connoisseur and
was an enthusiastic admirer ; and an American, whose nativity
I suspected not by his accent, but by his pronouncing the gal-
lery (before he had penetrated far beyond its threshold, too) very
much below its reputation. To do him justice, however, I
must add that, when we met with him afterwards in the Italian
room, he seemed to think there was something to be seen.

I visited the gallery every day that I was in Dresden. It is
remarkable for the variety as well as the value of its treasures.
All the masters of all the schools are represented there, among
its two thousand and odd pictures. All tastes, therefore, are
gratified, and an amateur sees the manner of each celebrated
artist exemplified by a master-piece. Not only, however, the
great masters are there, — names of universal renown, — but,
amidst the blaze of the constellations are smaller, though bright
and beautiful lights, which one passes over without observing,
at first, but which one that knows the gallery well points out to
a stranger, and which afford amusement for many a day of cu-
rious study. It is, especially, in these well-chosen little pictures,
scattered with the greatest profusion over its walls, and in its
exemption from the trash that makes the filling" up of other
collections, that its peculiar character consists. Add the Histori-
cal Gallery, the Grime Gewolbe, the Historical (Antiquity) Col-
lection.

Munich, 11th May.

Is it possible ? Four days gone by since I wrote any thing
in this journal, — and 50 German miles (210 English) passed
over ! The consequence of this rapid change of place is that
my diary is turned into history — which is quite a different thing.

At Dresden, I made the acquaintance of Retsch, who has
illustrated Faust, etc., and saw his Album. The drawings very
fine. The man himself struck me more than his works. He is
sur Vag-e, as the French say, — but has remarkable eyes, light

142 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

frey-blue, which he looks out of like a cat. Ticknor proposed
should hear Tieck read a play of Shakspeare. He is, you
know, the renowned collaborateur of Schlegel in his translation,
and is famous as a reader ; but once he begins he must go thro'.
This rather alarmed me, yet I consented, but unfortunately he
was ill.

It was with great regret that I left this fine, intellectual, fa-
mous city, on the evening of the 5th, (at 7,) on my way to
Prague, which I did not reach until the next day at 7 P. M.!
having been all the while, except an hour passed at Topliz in
shaving and breakfasting, travelling the twenty and a half Ger-
man miles between Dresden and that place.

I arrived at the frontier between 12 and 1. I was ordered
out of my carriage to see the commissary of police, or whoever
he was, who was sitting before a desk in a small room, with his
night-cap on and in a dressing-gown, evidently predisposed to
be very churlish and insolent. I looked as civil as I could, and
proffered my passport, asking him in German if he spoke French.
He answered : on which I remarked, "das is Schlimm," — mean-
ing, "for me." "Not at all," said he, "this is Germany." The
tone with which this was said discouraged all disposition to
sociability, and, after waiting (standing, for he did not ask me
to be seated) for some time, he gave me back my passport and
lighted me out of the room ; then, having given some order to
his snppot about proceeding to examine my baggage, adding
vehemently "it is midnight", slapped the door upon us and re-
tired. The postillion motioned to me to propitiate my examiner,
into whose hand I slipped a rix-dollar, at the same time quietly
slipping myself into my carriage. I made hardly any progress
during the night, losing regularly half an hour at least at each
station. It was soon after day-break that 1 found myself on the
summit of the mountain, (Erz-Gebirge,) from which you look-
down upon the fatal field of Culm — Bonaparte's Ulnt — in 1813.
There are three pillars erected in commemoration of that deci-
sive victory, — an Austrian, a Prussian and a Russian, — at some
considerable distance from one another. The prospect from my
mountain stand-punkt, under the gray light of the morning,
was magnificent.

After driving some posts farther, I arrived at Topliz, and
alighted, for the purposes already mentioned, at the "Stadt Lon-
don," where it is worth noticing that my breakfast, consisting of
bread and butter and eggs with tea, cost me two florins Austrian ;
i. e., about five francs French, — the iniquitous publican having
added to what others, or rather more than others of his class
charge for this simple meal, a florin for the use of the small
room in which I stopped an hour to eat it.

The country about Topliz, and for some leagues further, 1

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 143

found charming ; and I have a fancy to pass some weeks in this
valley, enclosed, or rather encadree in mountains, seen at some
distance. The beauties of the spring were not wanting, but a
little more foliage would have been still better.

The rest of my drive 40 Prague, through a hilly tract of
country, very sterile and covered with moors, — reminding me
continually of some parts ot Northumberland, and of its wan-
dering gipsies, (Bohemians,) — was excessively slow, and still
more fatiguing. Still I did not regret it, for there is something
peculiar in this wild looking region ; and I was still more recon-
ciled to my journey and jolting, when I arrived at Prague, which
is a most remarkable city. To say nothing of the space it oc-
cupies in history, that which it covers in nature is quite extra-
ordinary. I entered it by a gate from which you have a view
over the whole city, which, beginning there, runs down the side
of a mountain so steep that the wheels have to be locked, into
the Moldau, a rapid and wide river, which is rushing to lose
itself in the name (for it is the thing) of the Elbe. The part of
the city on this mountainous side of the river, is not apparently
more extensive or populous than the other, but struck me as
more busy and important. The streets, or rather street, from
the said gate to the bridge, (a very long one, of stone, and very
massive, adorned with statues of saints, etc.,) was animated with
a throng not unworthy of London. (The population of the
city is said to be 110,000.) On the same side of the water is
the royal palace, in a wing of which Charles X. and his family
now reside., The archbishop's residence is near the palace, and
so is the cathedral, which, indeed, makes a part of it. These
edifices are built upon the highest part of the city, and hang
sheer over it, as the castles of feudal lords usually did.

The morning after my arrival, I appointed to sally forth at 7
with a valet-de-place, but when I went down stairs he was not
visible, and so, determined to disappoint him for vexing me, I
set out by myself. After walking in a great market-place, then
filled with country people, and its neighborhood, I took a fiacre
and ordered it to drive to the church of St. Nicholas and the
cathedral. The former was on the same side of the river with
my hotel, ("The 3 Linden") — the latter, as I said, makes part of
the royal palace in the upper town. These churches are well
enough, but do not strike one accustomed to those of Antwerp
and Cologne. There are, however, old monuments in the ca-
thedral which speak of the past. In the view I had of the city
from the eminences, I was surprised at the vast multitude of
spires and steeples, — more than I ever remember to have seen in
the same space, — and. in fact, there are ninety-two churches and
as many palaces here. The king's is quite a town of itself, —
with its appurtenances, that is. It contains seven hundred apart-

144 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

ments. An edifice struck me as I was returning, and at the
foot of the height, which I descended another way than by the
high street, — I asked the hack driver what it was. "Wallen-
stein's", was the answer. It was in rather a modern style, not
unlike Talleyrand's hotel at Paris, though on a smaller scale.

In general, the appearance of Prague is very unlike that of
any other city I have seen. The first impression it makes is
decidedly that of antiquity, but not of mere antiquity, like the
villages in North Germany, for there is nothing mean or shabby
in it, but of historical consequence and long established wealth.
Such, I imagine, must be the air of Venice, or any other old
Italian capital.

I left it at 11 to come to Munich, from which it is distant 50^
German miles, (upwards of 200 English miles). I anticipated
a most fatiguing journey, but, to my great surprise, I performed
the first fourteen posts in ten hours, — more rapid travelling than
[ remember any where else in Germany for the same distance.
But from Pilsen to Ratisbonne, where, after travelling all the
night of the 7th-8th;— I slept that of the 8th-9th (at the "3
Helme") — I went slowly enough. To be sure I had to cross the
Bohmer Wald, — and a wood it was. When we were laboring
up the steep ascent between Klentz and Wald Munchen, I saw
one of the neighboring peaks still covered with snow, and no
longer wondered at the exceeding cold night I had passed in my
carriage, or at the eager air of the morning : but the weather,
during the two days from Prague to Ratisbonne, was beautiful
beyond expression. The cold continues still, (11th May) — in-
deed snow (some flakes) fell here this morning, nor should I be
surprised to see more to-morrow. Every body is complaining
at this prolonged winter, though the vegetation is more advanced
than one would expect to find it in such an atmosphere.

I arrived at Ratisbonne at 7, (8th May,) and immediately sal-
lied out to go into the cathedral, if possible, but returned disap-
pointed. My time is too short to admit of my staying more
than a few hours in this old famous city. I order post-horses at
half-past 6 in the morning, and, rising at 5, (I had shaved over-
night,) I go out as soon as possible and see the two things I was
most curious about, viz : the cathedral, — a fine Gothic church,
the best I have seen since I left the Rhine, — and the river, the
Danube, which I saw for the first time, and the old stone bridge
over it. The stream, or rather streams, are very rapid here, and
as I looked at it bubbling and whirling by the island, below the
bridge, covered with mills, whose wheels are turned by its cur-
rent, I wondered how they escaped its vengeance during what
we call in America its freshets. But precautions have been
taken to break and control the flood as much as possible, by long
jetees of stone, etc., running out into it in different directions.

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 145

I forgot to say that at Wald Munehen, while I was waiting
for my passport, etc., a paper they give in Bavaria to all persons
travelling by post, called an Extra-post-St underpass, (in which
are recorded who you are, whence you come, whither you go,
at what hour you arrived at the ustatiori'\ and at what hour you
were again set in motion, — what is the length of the ustatiorC\
and how much you have to pay for it, — in short, a very precise
and comfortable piece of information, which accompanies you
from stage to stage during your whole progress, with the requi-
site accessions at every relai^) a Frenchman comes down, is very
comme ilfaut, civil, salutes and tells me he hears I am a French-
man,— that he has a difference with the Austrian douaniers,
though his passports be all en regie and he have letters for
persons at Prague, — that he had written to M. de Montbel, etc.,
etc. When he hears I am from Brussels, says he has a mind to
go there himself, —that, should he do so, he would go to see
Madame de Me rode. "Do you know Mad. de Merode ?" Yes,
but which of them do you mean ? He seems rather puzzled by
the question, but, after some circumlocution, gives me to under-
stand he means Countess Henri, —becomes communicative and
confiding ? — tells how he had made an ouvrage maguifique for
some part of the Catholic service, but that his mother, who is
rich, did not approve it, or him, or something : elle est severe,
ma mere, — elle me tyrannise, etc. I tell him if he is a maker
of such sort of ouvrages, he is just the man for M. de Merode,
who had written a book in co-partnership with his cousin, the
Marquis de Beaufort, entitled "L'esprit de vie et Pesprit de mort,"
highly spiritual and especially Catholic, disapproving even Bos-
suet for his ideas about the independence of the temporal power
and the liberties of the Gallican church. My Frenchman doesn't
seem familiar with such things ; speaks of his child, which, of
course, he loves, for he is a jils unique, and whom every body
at Wald Miinchen loves too, — says his happy and simple (they
are the same) papa.

It is Sunday. The streets of this village, as of one I passed
the day before, are filled with people gathered as to a fair.
Young men with flowers (artificial) in their hats, children and
old men.

At another post-station, there was a multitude of country wo-
men looking out at a window, — then music and waltzing. The
simplicity of these mountaineers contrasts strangely with the
manners painted by Balzac and Paul de Kock, whose ni Jamais,
ni Toujour 's, I have read ces jours ci, I found, par parenthese,
less immoral in their tendency, though more cynical in their
paintings, than those of his less decried contemporaries, who
pervert the head, which is worse than exciting the senses.

I have for once had enough of mountains and woods, and
vol. i. — 19

146 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

begin to sigh for a more level country, — for I travel slowly, and
that is to me suffering.

9th May. Leaving Ratisbonne, at half-past 6, in the morning
of the 9th May, I passed through Landshut on the Isar, and
along its pretty valley, to Munich, where, however, I did not
arrive until a quarter past 9, — 16 meilen.

Itith May. Taking a valet-de-place, learn, to my great dis-
appointment, that the picture-gallery is invisible. They are just
arranging the new Pinakothek, which it is not permitted to
enter. Console myself, as well as I may. at the Glyploihck,
which is a pretty building on the Konig's Platz in the Maxi-
milian Suburb. Having bought a catalogue, and made my
remark on the margin of it, I have only to say, in general, that
it is an extremely interesting collection, — arranged with skill,
and exhibited to the best possible advantage in splendidly and
characteristically decorated halls, lighted by windows in the
roof. I passed a couple of hours here, — all that was allowed
me, for it was shut at 12, and is not opened to-day, it being re-
served for the king, — and confined myself principally to the
Egyptian compartment, the Antiques and Canova's Venus and
Paris.

At 2, dined at the table flhote of the Cerf d'Or, where 1 am;
found the company numerous and rather good ; fare detestable ;
as Talleyrand said of us, leur luxe est affreux. This German
cookery is neither simple and wholesome like the English, nor
refined and delicious like the French, but an odious, or rather
monstrous deviation from the one, without the least approach to
the other.

After dinner, I went out again with my valet-de-place. Saw
the cathedral, — brick building some 300 and odd years old, with
two towers covered with globular roofs, like mustard pots. It
contains a monument in bronze of the Emperor Louis de Ba-
viere, extremely rich and well executed.

Thence to my banker's ; and then, through the Isar gate, to
a promenade on the other side of the river, which runs along its
bank, on a height from which one has a fine view of the whole
city. The weather fine, but excessively cold. The Isar gate is
painted without with very fine frescoes. We re-entered the city
near the palace, and passed through the beautiful English gar-
den, as it is called, — an extensive park or grove, through which
a stream of blue mountain water is made to run (as if it were a
branch of the Isar) with rapid current, giving great freshness
and animation to this delightful promenade.

I returned to the hotel towards nightfall entirely overcome
with fatigue, and determined to leave Munich xibout 1 to-day

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 147

Send a letter from M. Overschi de Merisch to his uncle the
Archbishop of Tyne, the Pope's Nuncio here, with my card and
an offer, as I was obliged to leave Munich next day, of my ser-
vices in case he had any thing to send to Brussels. Monseig-
neur is brother of my friend Mad. Jos. d'Hoogvorst, and of the
Count de Mercy d'Argenteau, a good Belgian house. Throw
myself on a sofa and fall asleep immediately.

Stroll out, after breakfast to-day, to take a further view of the
town, leaving it to chance to direct my footsteps. The Faubourg
Maximilian, which is in this neighborhood, is already very airy
and well built, and will, some years hence, be, I doubt not, quite
elegant. The older and far greater part of the city very inferior
to similar parts of Brussels.

When I return to my lodgings, at 12, intent upon my depar-
ture, I find a card from a Mr. Parkman, an American, and a
pressing and most flattering invitation from the Nuncio to dine
with him to-morrow. Considering the manner in which Mad.
d'Hoogvorst urged me to see him, and my reminding her son
(for she was not in Brussels when I left it) of her request to be
informed when I should set out, I felt almost obliged to accept
the invitation, and so postpone my departure till to-morrow eve-
ning,— determined- to give up Augsbourg and travel all night to
Nuremberg, the horribly cold weather notwithstanding.

I have scarcely sent an answer, when Mr. Parkman comes in.
Tells me the Nuncio spoke to him some days ago of my intend-
ed arrival, and that he dines with H. E.; and that I shall find
there some ladies and gentlemen of note in their beau monde
here, of which, it seems, the Nuncio's house is the head-quarters.

II y a compensation en tout et partout, — if I expect a good
dinner to-morrow, I eat a detestable one to-day, by the side of a
German speaking English with an Englishman on his other
side, and with whom I did not exchange one syllable. Inde-
pendently of my unforgiving repugnance to people that address
themselves to me in broken English, I am not at ease at a table
oVhote, and feel, whenever I am at one, all the depth of my mis-
anthropy, or whatever such a temper deserves to be called. I
hear my name, "Mr. Legree", distinctly pronounced. This shews
I am in company with people who have heard of me in America.
I listen and hear further, "at Brussels", etc. It is a conversation
between an American, or German established in America, and
his wife, and an Englishman, vis-a-vis. He has heard of my
being here through the Mr. Parkman, (for my name, in the list
stuck up by the entrance of the hotel Lepare, is Mons. Legare,
particuHer,) and knows who I am without knowing me.

After dinner visit, the Alter Heilige chapel, which is just built,
in the Byzantine style, as a chapel of the palace, and far from
being finished. What I go to see are the fresco paintings in the

f 1^ JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

ceilings, — and beautiful things they be. Thence to the Arcades
that line the HofT-Garten, also painted in fresco : one series of
the pictures representing the great epochs of Bavarian history. —
erection of the Electorate, storming of Belgrade, etc., — another,
some of the principal landscapes of Italy. These latter have all
their names in golden letters under them, and, above, an epi-
graph in verse by his most poetical majesty. Thence into one
of the book-shops in these buildings ; offered the Carlsruhc
edition of Herder, in forty-four volumes, (unbound,) for 39 flor.
Sadly tempted to buy. While there, the bands of two regiments
play in the garden some of the airs of the Pre aux Clercs, etc.
The young man in the shop tells me these fine public walks are
not frequented, — the people giving their leisure moments to the
estaminet, as in Belgium, Yes, say I, beer and tobacco every
where dispose to rest. Saw, also, the monument of Prince
Eugene by Thorwaldsen in the Jesuit's church. Not very much
struck. Return to my lodgings7 and employ the evening in
scribbling this stuff.

Thursday, 12th May. After breakfast, to the Leuchtenberg
palace to see the gallery, — this being one of two public days in
the week. Unfortunately shut up to-day, because there is a
great fete. By dint of perseverance, am conducted, with a short
old woman speaking French very well, though with an accent,
and a youngish man, whom I found imploring, into the gallery.
I take it into my head, I know not why, that this is Mrs. Trol-
lope. My great object was Canova's Graces and Madeleine. I
see and am ravished. This is worthy of Greece.

The gallery of paintings is small, but select. There are three
delicious Murillos : a Madonna, beautiful as woman can be, etc.
A head of St. John by Carlo Dolce, the pendant of his Christ at
Dresden. Some Paolo Yeroneses, — a head by Raphael, — land-
scapes by Salvator Rosa, Domenichino, Vernet, (a beautiful one
by Joseph, especially,) Ruisdell, — pieces by the Dutch masters, —
three Rubens', several Vandykes, (children of Charles I.), a
capital cartoon, or drawing of the Cena of Leonardo da Vinci,
etc., etc.

We have to decamp in an hour, for some princess, I forget
whom, is coming to draw there ; and I go thence to walk about
the streets, which are unusually thronged, as are all the churches,
on account of the fete. See men and women drinking beer to-
gether in open piazzas, — Bocks-keller.

The coiffure of the women here is like that I have remarked
elsewhere in Germany. Hair drawn up into a knot on the top
of the head, and surmounted with a sort of tinsel covering,
which I am not sufficiently master of the language of millinery
to describe. Another thing that strikes is the number of peasants,

JOURNAL OF THE RHINE. 149

and the strong mixture, owing to the neighborhood of the moun-
tains, of rustic simplicity and originality in costume and man-
ners. About 3, I go out again to walk before dinner, (half-past
4,) into the English garden. Find that the water in the streams
led through the park is not blue, as I thought, but a bright green,
(rio verde of the Spanish romance) ; and that there are two
crossing each other, of which one is made to tumble over rocks
some three or four feet down, and to send up quite a pleasing
and respectable murmuring sound. A good many people come
into the park towards 4 o'clock, as I am going out to dress for
dinner.

I am precise, — indeed, I suppose a few moments before the
hour, for I am the first of the guests that arrive, and Monseig-
neur is not yet in the salon. Comes in immediately, however,
in half-dress, with chocolate-colored stockings, etc. I am struck
with his abord, which is extremely graceful and courteous. He
is rather above the middle size, slender though well-proportioned,
apparently about fifty-five, but in good preservation, (if that is
his age,) and withal I think handsome, — a striking likeness to
his sister, Madame d'Hoogvorst. His entry is soon followed by
that of his secretaire, and then successively by the arrival of
about sixteen or eighteen other guests, — my countryman, Mr.
Parkman, being the very last, and somewhat impatiently waited
for. Among the personages I saw here were Prince Mavrocor-
dato, (the Greek minister,) Count and Countess Cetto, Mr. St.
John (of Lord Bolingbroke's family), etc., etc. Dinner very
good — for Germany ; mine host, however, is a Belgian, and so
are many of his sujets, says my servant. Hoifse very comfort-
able, and rendered:, indeed, somewhat splendid by gilded cor-
?iiches, and the rooms too narrow. At table, I am between
the secretary (successor, as I find, of my colleague Monseigneur
Gizzi, Internuncio at Brussels) and my compatriot, whom I dis-
cover to be a most confirmed ninny. Among other persons at
table, was one sitting even above Mavrocordato, who, Parkman
tells me, is a great man at Court here and a soi-disant converted
Jew. I have a great deal to say to my Italian neighbor, but
nothing worth repeating, except that he is a devoted admirer
and friend of Gizzi, (who is a lawyer of the Rota), and informs
me the Lazzaroni are always under the absolute control of some
ecclesiastic or other. At dinner, Parkman tells me the conver-
sation generally turns on play, old Countess Cetto being griev-
ously addicted to it ; and, accordingly, as soon as dinner is over,
the whole company, following the lead of the Nuncio and this
veteran gamestress, go up stairs, where I see two tables set with
cards, etc., on them. At one of them they play Napoleon points :
at the other some trifle, — it is at the latter the Nuncio always
plays. Before they have made up their parties, the Russian

150 JOURNAL OF THE RHINE.

minister comes in accompanied by two youths, who, it seems,
are his new attaches, one of them, I believe, his son. This
frustrates the card-playing project. Segars are brought out in-
stead, and we go out into the large balcony with the ladies,
(Madame Cetto and her daughter,) and fall to smoking. I find
my poor silly countryman is a butt. Mad. Cetto calls him "Mr.
Virginee", adding she doesn't know why she doesn't remember
his right name. She bids him smoke like the rest. He answers,
"I would do any thing I could to please you, but il ne foome
pas." "Ah, vous ne foomez pas," — "Monsieur ne foome pas," —
"Comment, il ne foome pas," etc.; and so it goes round, till the
whole room is full of the foome of the poor Yankee, who
listens to all this quizzing with the most unsuspecting simpli-
city and bonhommie imaginable. St. John comes up and talks
with me. Says he was born in America, and his family have
possessions there still. In the midst of our confab, the Nuncio
comes up and takes me into another room to see a very striking
likeness of his sister. It is getting late, — 7 o'clock, — and being
determined to leave town at 8, I take my leave of this very
amiable and gentleman-like pers6n, — who looks confoundedly
like an homme a bonnes fortunes, — and has the undefinable
ways of a polished roue de bonne compagnie, — after many com-
pliments and words, of course, de part et d) autre.

When he first entered the room and spoke to me, I thought I
had never met with any body whose manners pleased me more ;
but, before I took my leave, I thought him rather too frisky and
juvenile for one of his age and dignity. His breeding has been
military. In 1&23 he was the King of Holland's aid-de-camp,
and is now only an archbishop in partibus.

Frankfort on the Main, 16th May, 9 o'clock P. M.

I arrived here this evening, at 7 o'clock, — having passed
through Augsburg, Nuremberg, (where I spent the night and
half the next day,) and Bamberg, (where I also passed twenty-
four hours,) and alighted at the Hotel de Russie.

Augsburg is a fine city — the exterior that is, — but, for histori-
cal interest and old monuments, commend me to Nuremberg,
which forms, with Wittenberg, the most interesting couple of
objects I have seen in Germany. Here every thing is as full of
Albert Durer and Peter Fischer, as at Antwerp of Rubens and
Matsys. The old castle, with its gallery of paintings, etc., — the
church of St. Laurens and the cathedral. St. Sebald's tomb in
this latter, —and. in the former, the tabernacle in stone, Gothic
style, by Kraft, and a window of painted glass, not inferior, if
not superior, to that in the cathedral of Cologne, or the famous
present of Charles V. to St. Gudule at Brussels. An extremely
interesting object is the painting, by , of the great feast

JOURNAL OP THE RHINE. 151

given in 164S, in the long room of the town-hall, (a noble pile
of various dates and styles,) on occasion of the peace of West-
phalia. The table is surrounded by all the great notabilites of
the day, — said to be good likenesses. Those that struck me
most were Piccolomini, Banner, Poppenheim, (very handsome
figure,) one of the counsellors of embassy, etc.

The general face of the country, from Munich to Nuremberg,
mountainous and sterile, as on the other road, but from Nurem-
berg to Bamberg, (seven and a half German miles,) along a
pleasant valley, the drive was quite delightful.

This last city is situated on both sides of a little river, which
here begins to be navigable, and falls, just below the town, into
the Main. Cathedral and castle on the hill, towering over the
town. The former a noble church, full of Henry II. and Cune-
gonde. Said to be built in the twelfth century. Arches not
pointed, except some few.

NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.

We remark of this Journal, as we did of the preceding Diary,
that it was not intended by its author for publication in its pre-
sent shape, and also that the difficulty of deciphering the manu-
script may have led to many verbal errors, especially in names
of persons and places.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Mission to Belgium,
Brussels, 26th Sept., 1832.

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of the United States —

Sir, — I arrived here only on the 21st inst., but have been so
seriously indisposed ever since, as to be almost wholly incapaci-
tated for any sort of occupation. I made an effort, however, to
go out yesterday and present my credentials to the Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, and had, subsequently, an audience of the king.
My unwillingness to suffer another Havre packet to sail without
giving the Department some account of what has occurred
during the first stage of my mission, will, I trust, excuse any
appearance of haste or brevity in that account.

"I arrived in Paris on the 19th of August, and remained there
about four weeks. My stay was longer than I originally inten-
ded that it should be, but many considerations weighed with me
to protract it. The two most prominent were the fact, known
to all Europe, that the politics of Prance and the politics of
Belgium are, as things stand at this moment, precisely the same,
and their interests (in respect of their continental relations, of
course) completely identified ; and my own entire want of expe-
rience in the new and delicate function committed to me by the
government. It was of great importance to me, as a diplomatic
agent accredited to this Court, (itself a new one,) to have the
advantage of being presented to one, with which it is, by every
sort of tie, so closely connected ; and I avail myself of the
occasion to express my gratitude to Mr. Rives for the pains he
took to promote the objects I had in view. After the necessary
delays, which need not be mentioned, I was presented to the
King of France at Neuilly, and had the honor, ten days after-
wards, to dine with the Court at the same place. The interest
(as strictly affectionate and domestic as any that occurs in private
life) which the reigning family of France feels in every thing
connected with the welfare of Belgium, ensured to me a kind
reception from them, and, in my conversations with them, I
endeavored to pave the way to a similar reception here. The
day after I dined at Neuilly, I set out with Gen. Wool on my
journey hither. He begged me to act as his interpreter at the
vol. i .—20

154 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

important post of Douai, which had been particularly recom-
mended to his attention, and a stay there of about two days, for
the purpose of inspection, was the only delay in our journey.
As soon as I conveniently could, after my arrival here, I sent a
note (of which a copy is herewith transmitted) to the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs, notifying my arrival to the acting min-
ister, (Gen. Goblet,) and requesting him to appoint a time at
which I might present my credentials. We had an interview
yesterday, at noon. He expressed himself, on behalf of his
government, most favorably disposed towards the United States,
and observed that lie thought we had a deep and peculiar interest
in the prosperity of Belgium. I replied to him in general terms,
that, as a growing, prosperous and enterprising nation, the Uni-
ted States have, indeed, a deep interest in the welfare of all
other nations, and especially in whatever has a bearing upon
the freedom of navigation and commercial intercourse. After
a few moments of such conversation, I took the liberty (which
I prefaced by as many apologies and palliations as I could ex-
press in French) to request that he would procure me as early
an interview with the king as was consistent with the perfect
convenience of his majesty, assigning as a reason for my solici-
tude upon the subject, that Gen. Wool, who had been sent abroad
by the government for purposes which I mentioned, was at
Brussels, and would remain in Belgium but a short time. I
therefore wished to have an early opportunity of presenting him
to the king, since I could not doubt but that here, as in France,
every facility would readily be afforded him by the government,
and the juncture (on the very eve, apparently, of hostilities) was
a most interesting one. The minister told me he would make
my wishes known to his majesty, and that he thought it quite
likely I should be received in the course of the day. Accord-
ingly, a few hours afterwards, both Gen. Wool and myself were
invited to dine with the king. I was presented to him by the
Grand Marshal some time before dinner. The reception I met
with was such as I had been led to think it would be, and I
expressed to his majesty, in a very few words, the gratification
which the people of the United States felt at the happy consum-
mation of the Belgian revolution, in the establishment of the
present order of things. The king conversed with me in a very
statesman-like manner, about the points of commercial contact
(if I may so express it) between the two nations. Amongst
other things, he dwelt upon the prospect of resuscitating com-
pletely the fortunes of Antwerp by making it almost a free port,
and securing to it the undisturbed navigation of the Scheldt.
In fact, I have understood from our consul in that city, that, in
in spite of all its present difficulties, (which are very great,) its
commerce is very much increased, and that it bids fair soon to

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 155

divert a very considerable part of the trade of the Rhine, from
Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

"Gen. Wool was afterwards presented to the king, who did
him the honor of inviting him to breakfast at the palace this
morning, and to go immediately afterwards, in the royal car-
riage, to see a great review which is to take place to-day in this
neighborhood.

"1 have subscribed, for the information of the department, to
three of the leading newspapers of this city : two of the minis-
terial, and the third on the opposition side of political questions.
Even from the very few numbers which I send by this opportu-
nity, the government will perceive that the King of Holland has
finally and flatly rejected all overtures to a compromise of the
disputed points, and that the controversy will, apparently, now
have to be decided by force of arms.

"The young Duke of Orleans is here on a visit to his sister,
and Marshal Gerard has gone to the northern frontier of France
to put himself at the head of a corps oVarmze, ready thence, at
a moment's warning, to come to the succor, or even to dispense
with the services of the Belgian troops, should the French and
British governments think fit to enforce the decision of the con-
ference. It is possible, perhaps probable, that the King of Hol-
land will yield to the first demonstration, by an unequivocal
overt act, of such a purpose on the part of those governments.
The prospect of a general war, growing out of the Belgian
controversy, seems diminished by the interest which Prussia has
in the free navigation of the Scheldt, as well as by the reception
given at the Courts both of Austria and. the power just men-
tioned, to the ambassadors of Belgium. What effect the very
important and rather difficult question of the Spanish succession
may have, upon the peace of Europe and the destinies of its
governments, is another affair. The name, at least, is of evil
omen.

"Before closing this communication, I have to state that a
rumor, not groundless, it is said, prevails here, that the ambas-
sador of his Prussian majesty, at Paris, has protested against the
French army of the North's crossing the Belgian frontier in case
of an open rupture with Holland. This looks more threatening
than any thing I have as yet heard. And, even while I write
these lines Gen. Goblet, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs ad in-
terim, speaking with me about the prospects of his country,
(which he did a good deal, at the conference, to improve,) betrays,
without expressing, a deep anxiety on the subject.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration,
Your ob'dt. servant,
[Signed] H. S. Legare.

156 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Brussels, 17th Oct., 1832.

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — Nothing definitive, nothing" from which safe conclusions
may be drawn, has yet transpired on the subject in controversy
between Belgium and Holland. The King of Holland adheres
pertinaciously to his views of the question, and is thoroughly
supported in his determination by his whole people. On the
other hand, it is quite impossible that this government should
consent to the terms which he exacts : there seems, so far as I
can judge, to be the greatest unanimity among the Belgians on
that point, however they may differ on others. But then the
difficulty seems to be the unwillingness of the three Northern
Courts to suffer any coercive measures to be adopted by France
and England. Lord Durham, who passed through Brussels
some days ago, on his return from a special mission to St. Pe-
tersburg and Berlin, was satisfied with the results of his nego-
tiation. This I have on very good authority. Shortly after his
arrival at London, a cabinet council was called and another
meeting of the conference was held. The English newspapers,
within a day or two, announce formally that a combined Eng-
lish nnd French fleet is about to blockade the ports of Holland,
with the consent of the northern powers.

Meanwhile, military preparations are going on here with great
activity, as well as on the northern frontier of France. You
will soon have heard that the King of the French has formed a
cabinet, at last, at the head of which is Marechal Soult, and
which is already pledged to the public to pursue the system of
Casimir Perier. In all events, I have no doubt that Louis Phil-
ippe will do whatever he can to defend the throne of his son-in-
law, from personal no less than political reasons, both of which
are very strong in favor of that course. The family tie, which
unites these monarchs, is very different from that cold political
relation which royal marriages generally produce. It is, unless
I am egregiously deceived, a hearty and affectionate union, and
will produce, as far as it may lie in the parties principally con-
cerned, all the effects of a similar connection in private life.

I dined at Court a few days ago, and had a very long conver-
sation with the king, which turned principally upon the com:
merce which is likely to subsist between this country and the
United States. He dwelt much upon the consumption of to-
bacco, rice and cotton, but observed to me repeatedly, at inter-
vals, that our tariff, especially in respect of woollens, bore very
hard upon our customers here. I told him a recent reduction
had taken place, and I did not think it at all impossible that
some further modification of the law would be made, as soon as

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 157

experience should show, as it would, that the revenue arising
from the customs under the present act, would be a great deal
more than we should know how to dispose of advantageously
to the country.

It appears to me very desirable that the Dutch system of
restraint, so far as Antwerp and the Scheldt are concerned, should
be got rid of, and a free communication with the States of the
Rhine be opened, as I trust it will be, under the auspices of this
government. I am persuaded the system of policy which King
Leopold will adopt, so soon as he shall be freed from the diffi-
culties of his present position, will be, in all respects, consonant
with the principles of enlightened reason and good government.
I am so much struck with the admirable sense and temper which
are displayed in his whole conduct and conversation, that I am
tempted to repeat what I have already had occasion to remark,
that it is impossible the Belgians should have made a happier or
a wiser choice.

I did not receive, until yesterday, the trunks containing the
archives of the legation. I immediately disposed of them in
the office of the Chancellerie and verified the inventory. . Hav-
ing heard from Mr. Rives on the subject of an allowance, under
the head of contingent expenses, for office hire, I have provided
myself with a suitable apartment for that purpose, for which I
shall send in a quarterly account of three hundred irancs. If
clerk hire be allowed me, my claim for it will amount to the
same sum, which is what I give to the person occupied in the
Chancellerie. I would take the liberty of remarking here, that
without an allowance of the kind, the situation of a Charge
d'Affaires, by no means, as I know from experience, desirable in
itself, becomes in the last degree irksome and disagreeable. I
think the Executive ought to press it upon the consideration of
Congress, that it is far from being an advantage, in any point of
view, to the American people, to send its representatives abroad
with inadequate compensations. It is to expose them to per-
petual mortification, and to make their whole life a painful
struggle to reconcile inevitable expenses with necessary, how-
ever sordid parsimony.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Mission to Belgium, \
Brussels, 27th Oct., 1832. S

To the Honorable the Secretary of State

of the United States, Washington,—

gir^ — On the subject of the Consular department, I think it my
duty to inform the government, that our system of leaving these

158 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

agents to procure what recompense they may, for their trouble
and services, by accidental perquisiies, leads (I understand and
have reason to believe) to a great deal of evil. In the more im-
portant sea-ports, such a system may do very well, but, in the
great majority of cases, it seems impossible that the character
and conduct of the men who are willing to accept such appoint-
ments on such terms, should be consistent either with the inter-
est or the dignity of a great, and especially a great commercial
people.

I know that these things are subjects of legislation, and more
proper for the consideration of Congress than of the Executive,
but it is the duty of every one connected with this high depart-
ment, to give it all the information which his opportunities ena-
ble him to gather. As a citizen of the United States, I feel the
more sensitive to every thing which involves, in any, however
slight degree, the honor of our country, — because her great
example is now more than ever becoming the subject of inquiry
and discussion, and the payment of the national debt, and the
unexampled prosperity of our finances, enable the government
to adopt any system which is called for by the true interests of
the country.

In this connection I would remark, as you will gather from
the newspapers I transmit with this communication, that the
spirit of emigration is spreading in Germany to a most extraor-
dinary decree, among the more substantial classes of country
people and tradesmen, who bring out to our country considerable
accessions of industry, intelligence and capital.

I have the honor to be, etc., etc., ,

[Signed] H. S. Lecare.

Legation of the United States, ^
Brussels, 2Gth Nov., 1832. ^

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — At the date of my last dispatches (for I have regularly
written by all the packets from Havre since my arrival here) the
French were crossing the frontier. Ten days are since elapsed
and they have made no progress whatever towards the accom-
plishment of their chief object, except that their army is collect-
ed about Antwerp. The summons to surrender the fortress,
which is to be formally made, has not yet gone forth, and there
seems to be some doubt when it will. I suppose, however, in a
few days something decisive may be expected. In the mean-
time, from the papers you will perceive that there is no disposi-
tion whatever, on the part of the King of Holland, to recede

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 159

from the position he has hitherto maintained. What the actual
application of force may do, it may be difficult to conjecture, but
we may safely affirm that he has exhibited no alarm or weak-
ness at its approach. Meanwhile a debate of great interest is
going on in the house of representatives here. The minister of
foreign affairs made a full expose of the conduct and results of
the negotiations at London, (of which a copy is herewith trans-
mitted,) and a discussion has arisen on the general state of the
nation, thus set forth, in framing the answer of the house to the
discourse of the king. The question may be thus summed up.
The house, — that is, the opposition in the house, who were
strong enough to put in a majority of members of the committee
on the address of their own party, — charge the ministry with
having deviated from the spirit of those acts by which the
Chambers declared their adhesion to the articles of the 15th
Nov.. 1831, commonly called the Twenty-Four Articles, in hav-
ing agreed to the intervention of France and England, the only
object of that intervention being, to put the parties to the con-
troversy in possession of the territory to which they are respect-
ively entitled under the Twenty-Four Articles, without having
any effect (except a very contingent and undefined one) upon
their execution in other respects. The consequence of this, you
are aware, will be to give up to Holland one-tenth (400,000) of
all the population of Belgium in Venloo and Limbourg, and part
of Luxembourg, in exchange for the citadel of Antwerp and its
dependencies, without any thing being decided as to the debt,
the navigation of the Scheldt and the Meuse, the internal com-
munication by land and water, etc. The ministry reply by
citing the very language of the Chambers, enjoining it on them,
above and 'before all things, to insist upon the mutual evacuation
of territory ; and that language does, in fact, seem to be suscep-
tible of the interpretation put upon it by the ministry. But the
opposition reply that the evacuation pr eatable spoken of by the
Chambers meant, and could mean, only an evacuation de gre-a-
gre, not a compulsory one ; and they urge with vehemence, that
to abandon 400,000 of their brethren, who have shared in all
the glory and the guilt of the rebellion, to the Dutch govern-
ment, would be as base as it is impolitic to exchange that terri-
tory for the citadel alone, which is no fair equivalent for it. But
then a party, somewhat between the ministry and the opposition,
say, rather sceptically, however, that the ministry have not con-
sented and will not consent to cede that territory, without taking
security that Holland will pass an act of oblivion in regard to
it. On this point, I am not quite sure that thevanswer of the
ministers is explicit. For the present, they seem to hint an
assent to the necessity of some such stipulation. In the mean-
time, they deny that the evacuation was either said or meant to

160 nil'LOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

be a mutual evacuation by consent. There appears to me to be
much force in the view of the opposition, for there is all the
difference in the world between the King of Holland's estopping
himself by a voluntary cession of the fortress and abandonment
of the Belgian territory, from even setting up any claim upon
it, and his being forced out of it by England and France, medita-
ting and even menacing a recapture ot the posts, and, indeed, a
complete restoration of dynasty. But then comes the practical
question, which puzzles many who do not approve of the con-
duct of the ministers so much as to make the result of the dis-
cussion still uncertain, —What is to be done ? The armed inter-
vention with the concert of this government is a fait accompli ;
approve or disapprove of it, what do you propose ? They inter-
fere as arbitrators to execute a treaty which they have virtually
dictated. The only condition precedent to their interference
(the invitation of this government) has been fulfilled. Here
they are, — think or do what you may, the alternative presented
is either to acquiesce in what cannot be undone and make the
most of it, or to disavow it altogether, break off all negotiation,
and right ourselves as against Holland by open war. If a ma-
jority of the Chambers should adopt this latter course, the con-
sequences cannot be anticipated. For my own part, I think a
general war would ensue, — for the Northern powers, whose
panic about revolutions is probably somewhat diminished within
the last year, would perhaps be glad to avail themselves of such
an occasion to absolve themselves from the bond of the Twenty-
Four Articles. But will France and England consent to Bel-
gium's adopting so perilous a course? Any war would be
unpopular and almost impracticable in England, situated as she
is, — and the French cabinet, which is a very able one and in-
clined to peace, and which, besides, as is manifest from the
results of all their recent parliamentary triumphs, have gained
a complete ascendant over the popular mind in France, — would
naturally do all they could to prevent any change in the existing
condition of things. This is, however, all speculation, and you
know how to appreciate the conjectural predictions of politicians.
I perceive that in South-Carolina the advocates of nullification
are completely triumphant. Should they proceed to any decisive
measures of opposition to the law, I shall probably sue for my
recall. Things will have been settled here, and, in such a crisis,
I feel that my post is not in a foreign land.

Accept the assurances of my high consideration, ,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

•4

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 161

Legation of the United States, )

Brussels, 27th Dec, 1832.

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — Since my last dispatches the citadel of Antwerp is fallen
into the hands of the French, and Gen. Chasse and his whole
garrison are prisoners, — but whether prisoners of war, as the
victorious General has called them, or prisoners of a denomina-
tion yet unknown to the public law of Europe, is a great ques-
tion for the diplomatic corps. The whole expedition was a
novelty in the history of nations. It was not to make, but to
prevent war, that the French army entered into Belgium. They
came to enforce a contract, — to execute the law which the con-
ference had enacted. Marshal Gerard was doing what a sheriff
does who has a writ of habere facias possessionem in his pocket.
Like a sheriff, he had a right to overcome, by all the force neces-
sary for that purpose, the resistance that was opposed to him.
But, the trespasser once turned out, and the rightful owner put
into possession, he has no right to keep the former in custody.
The English ambassador was, I understand, very uneasy at the
first announcement of the capitulation, especially upon the use
of the term "prisoners of war") — but it seems probable that no
serious difficulty will arise out of this verbal difference. The
probability is that the French will crown their really (quaere
tamen) brilliant expedition, by setting the Dutch troops at large
in a few days. Whether they will themselves return so soon to
France remains to be seen. The King of Holland has been,
since the taking of the citadel, summoned to surrender two
other forts, which were at first under the command of General
Chasse, but were afterwards detached from the citadel. His
answer is not yet officially known, but no doubt is entertained
but that it will be in the negative. The same stubborn, impene-
trable obstinacy, or the same confident anticipation of a general
war in the spring, which made him expose so many brave men
to destruction in the citadel of Antwerp, can scarcely fail to
make him dispute every inch of ground to the last.

By this happy result, the Belgian controversy is really re-
duced to a single point, — and that a very subordinate one, — in
which, besides, this government is not much more deeply inter-
ested than the States in the interior : I mean the quantum of
the toll to be paid for the navigation of the Scheldt, — or, to ex-
press it more accurately, of the indemnity which Holland is to
receive for its liberty.

Matters must be very clumsily managed indeed, or some very
untoward and unexpected events arise, to prevent a final settle-
vol. i. — 21

162 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

ment of the question in favor of the present order of things in
this country and the peace of Europe, and that in a short time.
I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, 6th Jan., 1833. $

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of ihe United States, —

Sir, — Since my last despatch nothing of the least importance
has occurred here. The French army, of which the head-quar-
ters are at present here, is returning to France without having
taken the forts of Lillo and Liefkenshock. The Dutch prisoners
have been marched into France, and, contrary to the expectation
I intimated in my last letter, there has hitherto been no manifes-
tation of any purpose on the part of the French government to
release them. You will perceive, from the newspapers, that the
Northern powers have recently made public their dissatisfaction
in reference to the course pursued by England and France ; and
Russia, especially, seems disposed to carry it with a* very high
hand towards the latter power. As to the British cabinet, al-
though the results of the recent elections are as favorable to it
as could have been hoped. I am very certain that they do not
feel quite easy in their new relations with France, and that they
will be extremely indisposed to take another step in the way of
coercion (by force, I mean) against Holland.

But* the politics of Europe are become comparatively insigni-
ficant in my eyes, since the publication of the proceedings of
the South-Carolina Convention. I am not called upon to discuss
that subject, at present, but it is my duty to inform the govern-
ment, that no event has recently occurred which has excited half
so much interest in Europe. I am firmly persuaded that, except
the few radicals and theoretical republicans scattered about the
cities and universities, all parties are filled with hope and joy at
the appearance of a danger so imminent, impending over the
"republique modele", as it is tauntingly called. Depend upon it,
sir, that if the wise and moderate counsels of the country do
not prevent those discontents from breaking out into flame, the
cunning of European diplomacy, and the arms, it may be, of
European power, will not long be wanting to encourage and
strengthen the fatal spirit of resistance. There never has been
an era in modern history, the reign of terror itself not excepted,
in which crowned heads of every name and description might
be expected more cordially to unite in such an undertaking, — to

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 163

say nothing of the commercial interest which all Europe has in
getting rid of your restrictive measures, and the competition of
the industry which they are supposed to foster.
I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

P. S. The lively interest, which the very peculiar posture of
affairs in this country gave to its news, having ceased to exist, I
shall, it is probable, be a less frequent correspondent of the de-
partment hereafter. Mr. Clay, secretary of legation at St. Peters-
burg, bearer of despatches to the government, arrived here last
night, and will proceed forthwith to his destination either thro'
Havre or Liverpool. From a conversation with him, I learn
that the government has refused to allow office-rent at St. Pe-
tersburg. That being the case, I suppose I must expect the
same rule to apply to my own case, and shall not urge, for the
present year, a claim founded I conceive upon obvious reason
and even necessity. The archives of the legation occupy two
closets. The minister is particularly charged with the care of
thern. No official business, of any importance, can be transacted
elsewhere than in a bureau, and, least of all, where a small in-
come requires that a public functionary, however elevated his
political rank may be in the opinion of mankind, shall spend as
little as possible upon house-rent. Neither desiring nor expect-
ing, myself, to participate in any advantages that may result
from a change in the policy of the government, I cannot choose
but declare as a citizen of the United States, jealous of the honor
of a great country, and that country one, for reasons already
stated, an object of universal jealousy and hostility, that an
entire change in the system of our diplomatic agencies is abso-
lutely necessary. Gentlemen, worthy to represent such a nation
as ours, in so exalted a social station as the corps diplomatique
occupies in all civilized countries, must be placed above the de-
grading sacrifices of feeling to which every American minister,
without exception, is at present subjected.

Legation of the United Slates, )
Brussels, 17th Jan., 1833. $

To the Hon. Edward Livingston,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, —The King of Holland has, at last, made an overture to
France and England, which is likely, I should think, to lead to
a satisfactory settlement of the question. The language of the
ministers is singularly contrasted with that hitherto held by the

164 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Dutch government. I have seen the communication in the
hands of one of the diplomatic corps here.

In consequence of the king's absence, (at Lille with the French
Court,) who is expected to return to day, nothing, I suppose, has
yet been done by this government.

The peace of Europe seems about to be settled upon a surer
basis than hitherto. I am sorry to have to add that the lament-
able proceedings at the South will have signally contributed to
that "result, by precluding the possibility of any movement in
favor of further reform, and, of course, reconciling absolute
monarchs, in some degree, to those already made. Let me add,
sir, that the message and the proclamation of the President have
made a profound impression in Europe, which is unanimous in
extolling the wisdom, patriotism and moderation that charac-
terize those papers. It is the universal sentiment that, if our
institutions are not predestined to end in early ruin and dishonor,
they will be saved by the administration of Gen. Jackson.

I have heard nothing directly from the South, so that I do not
know as yet what to think of our prospects. The proceedings
of the "Convention" are characterized by a precipitation and
recklessness only equalled by that of the Governor who sum-
moned them so hastily to the work of ruin. They have pro-
scribed, trampled upon and outlawed the whole Union party. I
am looking- with the greatest anxiety for intelligence from my
friends. If they think I can be of any use in the scene of
action itself, I shall ask leave to return to them. If our cause
is hopeless there for the present, I may as well remain here until
ulterior events shall enable the government to determine at what
post I can render the best service to the country. I have been
profoundly afflicted at the posture of affairs at home, but I do
not know how it is that my hopes are greatly revived within a
few days, and I begin to think that these threatening events
have only been permitted as a lesson to us all, — one which I
have long expected we should receive, and which may end in
infinite good.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, April 11th, 1833. \

To the Hon. Edward Livingston, etc., —

Sir, — Since I had the honor of writing to the department, the
affairs of this country have made no progress whatever towards
a final settlement, but rather, I should say, the reverse, — M.
Dedel has been substituted by the King of Holland to M. Van

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 165

Zuylen Van Nyvelt, but it is, I fear, simply a change of men.
The negotiations between the new Envoy and Lord Palmerston
and M. de Talleyrand have not yet begun, — at least, Sir Robert
Adair, though anxiously expecting intelligence upon the subject,
got none by his courier yesterday. There seems to be good
reason, in the meantime, for believing, that the King of Holland
is determined not to agree to any terms that the English and
French negotiators would entertain, for a moment ; and, indeed,
I have been informed, by a person that has correspondents at
the Hague, that he still dreams of a restoration. Indeed, his
capital and, as he thinks it, conclusive argument against the
terms offered him by the mediating parties, is that his throne
would not be worth the trouble of occupying it on such condi-
tions.* And there may be some truth in that view of the conse-
quences likely to result to Holland, from the emancipation of
Belgium and the complete establishment and administration of
its government on large and enlightened principles.

But the question for a practical statesman is what remedy is
there for the evil : will keeping up an immense military force
merely to wait, year after year, for some fortunate turn in the
chapter of accidents, while the country is loading itself with
debts and taxes, and even hazarding its whole existence as a
commercial nation, answer that purpose ? The King of Holland
seems to have satisfied himself that it will, and as he is said to
have his supplies for the year, he is independent of public opin-
ion, if it be not favorable to his policy, for that period, at least.
Meanwhile, the situation of Belgium- seems to me to be full of
difficulty. A debate took place, the other day, relative to the
war budget. An amendment was proposed, of which the object
was to limit the supplies to be granted for the keeping up the
present establishment to six months, with a view to coerce the
ministry into the adoption of some decided course, and, at the
same time, to enable them to say to the Courts of Paris and
London, you must either settle this question within that time,
or consent to our righting ourselves by open hostilities, — or, in
short, guaranty us against any possible invasion of Holland, after
we shall have reduced our army. It does, indeed, seem to be a
very hard case for a country which is, for the first time, assum-
ing its station as an independent commonwealth, to be compelled
to keep up, at an expense most disproportionate to its resources,
a military establishment as great as it could possibly maintain if
hostilities were actually broken out, when the period of such
hostilities is indefinitely postponed by those who control its des-
tinies. This is the more galling, as there is some reason to
suspect that the Belgian government is now secretly dissatisfied
with the Twenty-Four Articles, and has a mind to form (if the

* Remarkably verified in his recent abdication*

166 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

thing were possible) a triple alliance with France and England,
with a view to secure itself the left bank of the Scheldt and
North Brabant, instead of acquiescing in a state of passive neu-
trality and taking only what the mediating powers are pleased
to allot it.

If the reports we hear of Ibrahim Pasha's progress and pur-
poses are to be relied on, the affairs of Turkey, as to which
France, and perhaps England, regard with jealousy the sinister
interest that Russia is said to manifest towards the Porte, will
tend still farther to embroil the politics of the great powers who
have made the boasted balance of Europe subservient to their
own domination and encroachments, and suffer nothing to be
done by any of the minor States that does not promise to pro-
mote their interests.

All speculations about the chances of war are necessarily very
unsatisfactory. Appearances for the last four months have cer-
tainly been very much against the probability of such an event ;
but, in spite of the reluctance evidently felt by the Northern
crowns to support the pretensions of the King of Holland openly,
I should not be surprised if his obstinacy were yet so far suc-
cessful as to bring on serious difficulties, if not an open rupture,
between the despotic Courts and England and France. I think
the peace of the continent, as I had the honor of intimating on
a former occasion, is in much less danger now than it was some
months ago, not only because the new administration in France,
and the Whigs of England, have proved themselves, since the
opening of their respective assemblies, much more powerful at
home than was generally supposed last summer, but also because
of the policy adopted by those governments, which has been
any thing but revolutionary. Recent events, too, have thrown
discredit upon the pretensions of the elder branch of the house
of Bourbon, and tended to reconcile many, who have been hith-
erto well disposed to it, to the new regime.

In the Moniteur of to-day, (2d April,) which is herewith
transmitted, you will see a very clear, precise and condensed
expose of the state of the military service here, made by Baron
Fvain, Minister Director of the War Department. You will
there see the absolute necessity the administration are under of
keeping up their present establishment, until the mediating pow-
ers shall think proper to take upon themselves the responsibility
of coercing Holland into compliance by more efficacious mea-
sures, or shall at least guaranty to Belgium the undisturbed
possession of her independence and neutrality, at their own risk
and expense. On this part of the subject, it is sufficient to
observe that a serious difficulty has already arisen between the
French government and this, touching the expenses of the two
expeditions of the French army in '31 and '32. In settling the
/

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE* 167

new public law of Europe, by which the monopoly of war
seems likely to be secured to the Great Powers in their quality
of Armed Judges, it becomes necessary to regulate the important
matter of costs. The notion was accordingly broached in the
French Chamber of Deputies that Holland had justly incurred
the poena temere litigantium, and that an indemnity against the
expenses of those expeditions ought to be reserved out of the
debt or part of the debt to which Belgium is made liable by the
Twenty-Four Articles. This is a novel and curious question
in this new jus belli et pads. Under the old law of force, it
was a very simple plan to make the weaker party add this to its
other sacrifices ; but how will that apply to a case like the siege
of Antwerp, which is not an act of war?

Some time ago, in conversation with Sir R. Adair, he men-
tioned to me that you had negotiated a treaty with Baron Behr,
which had alarmed the government here, as I could plainly
perceive it had given umbrage to him. He began by asking me
if I knew him, and then proceeded to say that "the Yankees
had been too many for him in a recent negotiation." I replied
that there was always a great deal of ability in the public ser-
vice of the United States. "No doubt of that," said he, "and
our government ought to be careful whom they send to Wash-
ington." But what have they been persuading the young diplo-
matist to do? said I. "Oh !" he replied, "to consent that free
bottoms should make free goods, and I don't know what all
besides : the ministers here are all alarmed and disavow the
having granted any such powers," etc. I could see that the in-
veterate commercial jealousy of England was awakened, and
that my estimable and respected friend (for I owe him many
kind offices) had been protesting against some supposed encroach-
ment on the sacred province of the English law of prize. How-
ever, I have since heard that no such treaty has been negotiated.
You know best. I thought the conversation characteristic enough
to be worth repeating.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

From Mr. Livingston to Mr. Lejrare.

Department of Slate,
Washington, 13th March, '33.

Hugh S. Legare, Esq., Charge d'Affaires U. S., —

Sir, — A variety of urgent business, during the session of Con-
gress, has prevented my acknowledging your several very inter-
esting despatches up to No. 11, and what must appear more
extraordinary to you, has not given me leisure to transmit to

169 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE*

you a treaty of navigation concluded here with the Belgian
minister, and ratified by the Senate. As it contains no articles
on which any difficulty was likely to arise, no particular instruc-
tions seemed necessary to urge its ratification at Brussels, the
notice of it was deferred from time to time to make way for
more pressiug business. A copy, which I expected from the
Senate, not being yet prepared, will be enclosed to you by the
next Havre packet. I now write in some haste, and have only
to add the expression of entire approbation, both of the President
and this department, of the punctuality and ability with which
you have discharged the duties of your mission.

The situation of our diplomatic agents abroad has not been
unattended to, as you will see by the enclosed report.
I am, sir, with great respect, etc.,

[Signed] Edw. Livingston.

P. S. Since writing the above despatch, a copy of the recent
treaty with Belgium has been made and is forwarded herewith.

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, May 27th, 1833. $

To the Hon. Edward Livingston, etc., —

Sir, — Since I had the honor of writing to you, a preliminary
treaty has been signed at London between the King of Holland
and the two great powers. Its principal provisions, as you will
perceive, (for it is published in all the journals,) are an indefinite
armistice, the provisional liberty of the Scheldt until a definite
settlement of the controversy, and the application to the Meuse
of the tariff established by the treaty of Mentz. On the other
hand, Holland gains immediately the following advantages : the
raising of the embargo, the liberation of the prisoners made at
the taking of the citadel of Antwerp, and the restoring of the
relations between the parties to the footing on which they stood
before the expedition of the French last November. This result
was, no doubt, brought about by a note of the three northern
powers which was sent in a few days after I wrote you my last,
and the adjustment of the Turkish controversy, which at one
time seemed to wear a threatening aspect. Still, the negotiation
remains open, and it is hardly to be expected that the King of
Holland will so far depart from all the analogy of his conduct
and character, (for he is essentially litigious,) as to bring it with
any unnecessary speed to a close.

I mentioned, in my last, that 1 had said nothing officially, and
that nothing had been said to me, about the treaty negotiated by
the Belgian envoy at Washington^ This unaccountable silence,

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 169

taken in connection with what I told you in a former letter that
Sir Robert Adair had said to me on the subject, led me almost
to entertain a suspicion that this government did not mean to
ratify it without some modification, — favorable as the terms of
neutrality are to so weak a maritime power as Belgium. But
the mystery has been since explained. The minister of foreign
affairs* called on me the other day and asked me if I had a copy
of the treaty, begging me, if I had one, to let him have it, as
that sent by M. Behr had not come to hand. I, of course, com-
plied with the request, and, a day or two after, at Court, the
king said to me en passant, with a smile, uWe have made a fine
treaty, as its conditions are quite agreeable to the neutrality
which is a principle of our existence." In this connection 1
ought to mention that the admitting of linen, etc., into the Uni-
ted States, duty free, by the new tariff, has given immense satis-
faction here, fully one-third of the manufacturing industry of
the country (I am informed) being employed about those parti-
cular products, and the separation from Holland having deprived
it, hitherto, of all its markets, and produced the greatest possible
distress.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] . H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United Stales, i
Brussels, 2d July, 1833. \

To the Hon. Louis McLane,

Secretary of State of the United States. —

Sir^ — Permit me to begin my official correspondence with
you, by congratulating you and the country upon the choice
which the President has made in you of one in every respect
worthy to be the successor of Mr. Livingston, and pre-eminently
qualified for the first department of the administration. I had
the honor, in my last despatch, of stating to the government
that a preliminary treaty had been signed between France and
England on the one part, and Holland on the other. Since that
time nothing decisive has occurred, but there is every reason to
expect as speedy a termination of the controversy as is consistent
with the dilatory habits and litigious character of the King of
Holland. The English minister, Sir Robert Adair, tells me
there is very little doubt but that an Austrian ambassador will
soon arrive at Brussels. You will at once perceive all the im-
portance of such an event. The Exequatur of Mr. Marck has
been obtained and transmitted to him.
I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

vol. i. — 22

170 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Legation of the United State.% {
Brussels, 2d July, 1833. ^

To the Hon. Louis McLane,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — Since I had the honor of writing to yon, I have received
your letter of notification announcing your having entered upon
the duties of the Department of State, a iact of which I had not
been oilicially advertised when I ventured to oiler you my con-
gratulations upon it.

The negotiations of the conference have not made the pro
gress which was expected, but neither do the difficulties that
embarrass them arise from the quarter where they were princi-
pally apprehended. The conference is come to a stand, because
the Belgian ministry will not consent to allow Holland to levy
any duty on the Scheldt that shall exceed one per cent, per ton
of merchandise, — at least, without adequate compensation for
any concession beyond that amount. In this preiension they
found themselves upon Lord Palmerston's theme, as one of the
abortive projects of reconciliation offered to the parties litigant,
last summer, was called. The compensation they claim is a
reduction of the debt, or part of the debt, for the payment of
which Belgium was made responsible by the treaty of Nov., '31,
commonly known as the Twenty-Four Articles. It is difficult
to imagine that the five powers, after having done so much to
preserve the peace of Europe and made concessions to the spirit
of revolution, of which I am quite sure they all repent now,
with the exception, perhaps, of France, will suffer themselves
to be thwarted by the forwardness of the very party to whom
they have already sacrificed so much, and that so reluctantly, (1
speak here their language). The Belgian ministry think they
play a sure game, as the preliminary treaty is better than any
definitive arrangement they can expect, — and their wish would
no doubt be to prolong indefinitely so advantageous a status (/no.
I Jut, after the siege of Antwerp and the blockade, it is hardly to
be expected that the officious powers will shrink from coercive
measures in regard to the other party to the controversy, which,
beyond all doubt, owes its present existence as a party to what
they have done, if not to what they are now doing.

The interference of France, after the disastrous affair at Lou-
vain, in 1831, saved the throne of Leopold ; and I do not know
any thing but the throne of Leopold, identified as he is by mar-
riage with the destinies of the reigning family of the Bourbons,
that presents a very serious obstacle to the partition of this coun-
try, which, J believe, has been all along in M. de Talleyrand's
eye, though 1 do not assert that it has. The recent birth of a
prince has certainly done much to consolidate the new State.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, 171

Absolutely the only appearance oi popular enthusiasm, I have
observed since my residence here, took place at the ceremony of
the baptism, which was performed on the Sth inst., in the cathe-
dral of this city, with great solemnity, by the Archbishop of
Mechlin himself. This child, thus laid by a Protestant father,
as a peace-offering, upon the altar of the church, seems to have
won the heart of a country more exclusively under the influence
of religious feelings than any other in Christendom. Unde-
bauched by the atheistical contamination of France during so
many years of temptation, the Belgians are as good Catholics
now as they were before Luther preached, and nothing but an
inexplicable apathy in political matters, which prevents more
than half the whole number of electors from now approaching
the polls, prevents their spiritual leaders from doing just as they
please there. The consequence, however, of this apathy is, that
the liberals, as the opposition call themselves, send to the cham-
ber of representatives a bold, noisy and persevering minority,
which, without being able to carry any measure of its own,
embarrasses and alarms an inexperienced ministry, by incessant
fault-finding, to such a degree, that it may be almost said indi-
rectly to govern the country. This party has been all along
urging the government to slip its leading-strings and to right
itself by itself, even at the risk of having to tilt against all
Europe. It seems to me easy enough to foresee the immediate
result of this Quixotic policy, should it be adopted, if not all its
consequences. The question would soon be whether France
should have this barrier of the Rhine ; but I am very sure no
Belgian plenipotentiary would assist at the future congress by
which the question would be settled, whether affirmatively or
otherwise.

A very superficial glance at the present temper and situation
of Europe will, I think, be enough to satisfy an impartial spec-
tator that its policy is peace, and peace not sought in the spirit
of peace, but (paradoxical as it may be) of a deep and settled
hostility. Undoubtedly, there is no example of a dynasty more
thoroughly detested by men who differ in every thing else, than
that of Louis Philippe. The republican party in France, which
might have prevented his being a king, but chose rather to give
him the name, as they fondly thought, without the power, have
been disappointed in what a little reflection might have taught
them were most extravagant and even contradictory expecta-
tions. To hope to govern France and Frenchmen without a
strong executive, — call the government what you will and or-
ganize it as you may, — is the greatest of all practical absurdities,
and I own I am at a loss to see wherein consists that glaring
breach of promise and departure from principle of which the
present administration in that country is accused. Be that as it

172 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

may, however, the democratic or revolutionary party there and
all over Europe looks upon the king as an apostate from all his
professions, while the despotic courts and their dependents, on
the other hand, would declare a war of extermination against
him, if they durst, for an apostacy of a different sort. The
revolt of Poland no doubt prevented a general conflagration,
which, at that time, would have been terrific, because it would
have sprung out of a struggle for life and death between the
principles of legitimacy and revolution. Since that period there
has been a reaction in favor of order, and even many of the
stoutest champions of constitutional government seem to think
it more in danger from the despotism of anarchy than from that
of thrones. The course of the French government, too, on
which every thing in European politics now, more than ever,
depends, has been such as to reconcile the conference to its ex-
istence, at least so far as to acquiesce in it for the present and
wait events, rather than run the risk of exciting the fearful spirit
of the revolution again by an i]l-timed attack upon the most
remarkable of its works. The fear of the liberal party, first, at
Paris, and, by its influence there, throughout the rest of Europe,
seems to me to be, just now, the great preservative of peace,
which is thus, as you perceive, merely an armed neutrality, but
for that very reason, perhaps, less likely to be disturbed than if
it was only protected by the usual safeguards. It is obvious,
however, that such a state of things throws every thing into the
hands of the great powers, and makes the independence of the
others little more than nominal. It does not suit the five arbiters
of Europe to go to war ; if a minor power, therefore, insists
upon settling a controversy of its own by force of arms, they
have only to adopt, in their discretion, measures to make it
harmless to themselves, and, perchance, as in the case of Poland,
useful. A number of States, in the neighborhood of each other,
form a society whether they will it or not. On our continent,
the community has hitherto been directed by the peaceful ex-
pression of the opinions and will of a majority of the States
that compose it : in Europe, where sovereignty is more refrac-
tory and submits only to the sword, the compulsory confedera-
tion is absolutely controlled by a very few of its most powerful
members.

I send you copies of the letter of the minister of foreign af-
fairs ad interim, notifying to me the birth of a prince, and of
my answer. It is the first occasion I have had to express, in a
formal manner, what I believe to be the sentiment of our people
and the principle of its government, and on that account, how-
ever brief and casual the communication, I think it proper to
submit it to you. I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 173

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, 8th Sept., 1833. $

To the Hon. Louis McLank,

Secretary of State of the United States—

/Sir, — With respect to the treaty you will have received my
dispatch No. 17, in which I mention what the king said to me
upon that subject incidentally at Court. As many weeks have
elapsed, however, I thought it well to lose no time in calling
upon the minister of foreign affairs for a definitive answer, the
more especially as their not having received their copy of the
treaty seemed to me to imply a degree of carelessness, on the
part of their envoy, which was hardly excusable. I accordingly
addressed to Count F. de Merode, who, in Gen. Goblet's absence,
is charged ad interim with the portfolio of foreign affairs, the
subjoined note :

Mr. Legare to Count Felfx de Mdrode, Minister of Foreign Affairs of H. M. the
King of the Belgians, ad interim.

Legation of the U. S. of America, }
Brussels, 26th Aug., 1833. $

The undersigned, Charge d'Affaires of the United States, has the honor,
in compliance with express instructions from his government to that effect,
of calling the attention of Count F. de Merode to the subject of a treaty
of amity and navigation, concluded at Washington, on the 23d January
last, between Mr. Livingston, Secretary of State of the United States,
and Baron Behr, Minister resident of H. M. the King of the Belgians.

The undersigned, by reference to the treaty in question, transmitted to
him by the Secretary of State, perceives that the ratification of it by the
respective parties are to be exchanged within the present year, and he is,
therefore, not surprised that some solicitude is felt by his government to
know what steps have been taken here towards the fulfilment of that stipu-
lation. The undersigned is entirely persuaded that the silence of H. M's.
minister hitherto upon the subject of this treaty, is owing to any thing but
indifference to its objects or a disapprobation of its provisions ; and it will
give him sincere pleasure to be able to convey that assurance to his gov-
ernment, on the authority of an official communication of H. M's. Minister
of Foreign Affairs.

The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity to repeat to Count
F. de Merode the assurances of his distinguished consideration.

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

This note having been submitted to the king in council, I
received, some days after, the following answer :

Answer of Count F. de Merode.

Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, >
Bruxelles, 5th Sept., 1S33. $
Monsieur le Charge d'Affaires, — J'ai en l'honneur de recevoir la com-
munication officielle que vous avez bien voulu m' addresser sous la date
du 26 du mois dernier, relativement au traite d'amitie et de navigation

174 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

conclu ii Washington 1c 26 Jan. dernier, entrc M. Livingston, Secretaire
d'Etat des Etats Unis, et M. le Baron Behr. Ministre resident de S. M.

Vous n'ignorez pas, M. le Charge d'Atlaires, les circonstances inde-
pendantes de notre volonte, qui ont suivi l'envoi de le document.

L'instrument du traite est parvenu depuis peu de jours seulement au
gouvernement du Roi.

II a ete transmis ;\ Bruxelles par M. le General Goblet qui l'avait recu
tout reccmment a Londres.

Maintenant son contenu est sousmis a l'examen du Roi. S. M., dont
j'ai pris les ordres, desire M. le Charge d'Atlaires, que la resolution finale
soit remise antant que possible, a l'cpoque on M. le General Goblet sera
de retour a Bruxelles. En me chargeant de vous communiquer ses inten-
tions, elle m'a invite a vous exprimer en m6me temps le regret qu' elle
eprouve de ce nouveau retard.

Agreez, M. le Charge d'Affaires, l'assurance de la consideration la plus
distinguee.

[Signe] Le Ministre d'Etat charge par intcnn du Portfeuille des

Affaires Etrangeres,

Comte Felix de Merode.

I confess I was not satisfied with this answer ; and the sus-
picions which I formerly entertained, but which had been in a
good degree removed by the casual conversation I had upon the
subject with King Leopold, in May or June, (who had already
seen the copy of the treaty sent to me,) were awakened anew.
The incident, which I had the honor of mentioning in No. 15,
shews that the bare report of such a treaty had given serious
umbrage in a certain quarter, and as there is no little want of
decision in the councils of this still unsettled government, —
which, indeed, cannot be considered as snijiwis while its desti-
nies are so absolutely controlled by others, — nothing seemed
more probable than that the doings of the inexperienced envoy
had been disavowed in the manner there mentioned. Why else
should there be any hesitation at all in ratifying what, as you
justly observe, comes within the very letter of his instructions?
I thought it, therefore, expedient to write a short rejoinder to
< Jount F. de Merode's note, in which, without seeming to enter-
tain the smallest suspicion of any such embarrassment on the
part of the government, I should pretty broadly hint that its
refusing to ratify would be considered by the President as an
event so entirely unlooked for as to require a very full explana-
tion. I accordingly sent, yesterday, the subjoined note :

Legation of the U. S. of America,
Brussels, 7th Sept., 1833.

The undersigned, Charge d'Atlaires of the United States of America,
has had the honor to receive Count Felix de Merode's note in answer to
his own of the 26th ult.

The undersigned was aware, from a personal communication of Gen.
Goblet, (hat there had been an extraordinary delay in the transmission of
the treaty from H. M's. envoy in the United States, and had accordingly

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 175

informed his government of the circumstance as soon as it came to his
own knowledge. But an interval of many weeks having elapsed since
the conversation referred to., he felt it to be his duty to lose no time in
complying with the President's instruction that he. should address to the
Minister of Foreign Affairs the inquiry which he has had the honor to
make, and should respectfully but earnestly request the final decision of
H. M. upon the subject. The President was the more surprised at this
delay because of the pressing manner in which the negotiation was in-
vited and the basis of the treaty (in its present shape) proposed by Baron
Behr, — to say nothing of the obviously salutary and equitable principles
of public law embodied in it, — did not permit him to doubt that what that
minister had done was strictly within his powers and instructions, and'
would be unhesitatingly ratified by his government.

Under the pleasing persuasion that no serious impediment stands in the
way of a result, at least as desirable to Belgium as to the United States,
whose rapidly growing power might tempt them to enlarge rather than
restrain the rights of belligerents, if they did not think it the true interest
of nations to sacrifice advantages of that sort to principles more conducive
to their lasting peace and well-being, — the undersigned cheerfully acqui-
esces in H. M's. desire that the conclusion of the business be postponed
until Gen. Goblet's return. He, at the same time, takes the liberty to state
that it is extremely desirable he should be able to communicate the result
to his government before the middle of October.

The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity, etc.

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

And there the matter rests for the present; but, as I dine at
Court to-day, and shall not send this dispatch until Tuesday, I
may possibly gather some information on the subject in the
meantime, and will, of course, communicate it to you.

With respect to Gen. Goblet's absence, it is as undefmable, I
suppose, as the business which occasions it. He is joined with
Mr. Van de Weyer in the commission for negotiating with the
conference at London. When those negotiations are to end, or
even how, is as far from being ascertained now as ever ; and I
thought it necessary, on that account, to limit the delay to a
month. As to the treaty being but just the other day submitted
to H. M's. consideration, 1 happen to know that it is only a
diplomatic pretext, — Gen. Goblet having, as I mentioned to your
predecessor, borrowed my copy of it as long ago as the 20th of
May, with a view to the concocting of the speech from the throne
at the opening of the present session. And, by the way, it de-
serves mentioning that even this advantage did not prevent their
committing themselves most grossly before the world, by repre-
senting, in that speech, the reduction of our tariff on linen goods
as obtained by the address of their envoy, and made a stipula-
tion in this very treaty !

I personally like the ministry here, especially Gen. Goblet, and
I do not think that, upon the whole, the king could better him-
self by a change, but their total want of experience and know-
ledge in public affairs, and of the self-reliance which springs
from a consciousness of these qualities, exposes them daily to

176 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

many difficulties, which they fall into in endeavoring to avoid
others not half so serious. They have yet to learn how essential
courage is to true political prudence.

10 o'clock, P. M.

It was even as I suspected. At Court, this evening, I took
occasion to mention the subject to M. Lebcau, prime minister,
who told me the only difficulty was as to a particular article, (he
did not know which,) which would, it was feared, prove offcn-
sive to England. I replied I supposed it was the provision that
the flag should protect the cargo, — a principle proclaimed by all
the great powers of Europe during the American war, and which
no nation but one possessed of a decided naval superiority had
any interest in questioning or opposing. He reminded me how
completely they were in the hands of England, until a definitive
treaty were signed. I then expressed myself with the earnest-
ness and candor which our previous communications warranted,
declaring that a refusal to ratify a treaty of such a character,
concluded in such a manner, would, under any circumstances,
be highly offensive, but most especially would it be so if justified
by no better reason than the displeasure which a third power
might choose to conceive at an agreement between two others
with which it could have nothing to do. That Great Britain
should affect, as she had done in the war of '56 and after the
rupture of the peace of Amiens, to interpolate new rules into the
law of nations, was a piece of arrogance not to be borne ; but
that she should interfere with arrangements by which two inde-
pendent nations were endeavoring to prevent all future causes
of misunderstanding, by mutually renouncing the exercise of an
inconvenient right, (if right it is,) was going a great deal farther,
and assuming a tyrannical dictatorship, to which no people that
had the least idea of what the words national independence
mean could think of submitting for a moment. He told me he
would turn the matter in his mind, and speak with me farther
about it in the course of a few days.

You may depend upon my doing all I can to awaken the
ministry here to a sense of the degradation, in the eyes of the
world, which will be the consequence to Belgium of the acquies-
cing in that extravagant and insolent pretension of Great Bri-
tain,— convinced that in doing so I shall be giving a counsel in
which she is, in every possible point of view, more interested
than the United States. It is now very clear what is meant by
waiting until Gen. Goblet's return. He will not return until a
definitive treaty with Holland be signed, and then the ministry
of King Leopold will probably ratify yours, — having nothing
more either to fear or hope from Great Britain. In the mean-
time, to provide against all contingencies, you will do me the

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 177

favor to instruct me what course is to be pursued, should it be
proposed to omit the article referred to or to modify the treaty in
any other way.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, 9th Oct, 1833. $

To the Hon. Louis McLane, etc., —

Sir, — With this dispatch I also send copies* of some notes
that have passed between this legation and the department of
foreign affairs. The first two are on a mere matter of etiquette,
to which I attach importance only because, and so far forth as,
it is considered as important by European States. In that point
of view, the relative dignity of the United States may be in-
volved in a compliment paid or refused, and, where that is the
case, I would cavil about the ninth part of a hair.

Gen. Goblet, in consequence of the suspension of the confer-
ence at London, being returned to Brussels, I called on him im-
mediately in order to come to some understanding with him On
the subject of the treaty. He was not at the hotel of his depart-
ment on Saturday, when I made him my first visit, but I saw
there and had a long and rather remarkable conversation with

* Count F. de Merode to Mr. Legare".

Bruxelles, le 24 Juillet, 1833.
Monsieur le Charge d) 'Affaires, — Je m' empresse de vous informer de l'heureuse
delivrance de sa Majesty la Reine qui a donne" le jour a un Prince.

Je suis persuade, M. le Charge d'Affaires, que le gouvernement des Etats Unis
ne saurait etre indifferent a 1'eVenement dont j'ai l'honneur de vous faire part,
parce qu'il est de nature a consolider le nouvel e"tat Beige.
Agre"ez, M. le Charge" d'Affaires, l'assurance, etc.

Le Ministre d'Etat charge" par interim, etc.,

Comte Felix de Merode.
A M. Legare", etc., etc.

Mr. Legare"'s answer.

Legation des Etats Unis d'Amerique, )
Bruxelles, le 25 Juillet, 1833. $
Monsieur le Comte, — J'ai eu l'honneur de reeevoir la note par laquelle vous m'
avons fait part de l'heureuse delivrance de S. M. la Reine.

J'ose vous assurer, M. le Comte, que le plaisir sensible que m'a fait un eVene-
ment aussi touchant et dont la tendance a consolider les institutions, que le
peuple Beige vient d'e"tablir avec autant de sagesse que de bonheur, est si import-
ante, ne manquera pas de trouver de l'echo parmi le peuple Ame>icain, qui, sans
se meler jamais des affaires inte"rieures des pays Strangers, ne laisse pas de s'in-
te"resser vivement au sort de tous les gouvernments constitutionnels quelque
soit d'ailleurs leur cate"gorie politique.
Je vous prie, M. le Comte, d'agre"er l'assurance etc.

Le Charge d'Affaires des Etats Unis d'Amerique,
(Signe") H. S. Legare.

vol. i. — 23

178 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

the Secretary-General (a sort of head clerk, I believe) of the
department, M. Nothomb, author of the Essay on the Belgian
Revolution, which I have sent you, who is considered as a young
man of great promise, and, especially, as better versed in the
diplomatic relations of his government than any other of their
public men. He is, besides, a leading member of the Chamber
of Representatives. I characterize him thus particularly for
reasons that will be obvious in the sequel. After apologising for
the absence of Gen. Goblet, he entered into conversation with
me on the subject of the treaty, in the course of which he gave
me very clearly to understand that the government here is in the
most pitiable embarrassment imaginable, between the irrevocable
act of its envoy at Washington on the one hand, and the high
displeasure of England on the other. I told you in my last that
M. Lebeau, the virtual, if not the titular head of the ministry
here, had confessed as much, but he did so in very general
terms. M. Nothomb, on the contrary, dwelt and in detail upon
the precipitancy of Behr, and let out some things that made me
think more seriously of the whole affair than I had been dis-
posed to do at first. Thus, he pointed out what he considered
as the flagrant inconsistency of his signing such a definition of
blockade at Washington, at the very time that the combined
fleets of England and France were violating the principles em-
braced in it, avowedly and solely for the benefit of Belgium. I
could not help observing to him that I had not before been led
to think that the blockade last winter was a mere blockade by
proclamation, and said, if that were the fact, it did, indeed, seem
a little ungracious in Belgium to be denouncing by implication,
at least, the very means by which she was profiting, although,
as the arbitrating powers had taken the whole matter into their
own hands, she could not strictly be held responsible for the
character or the use of those means. As to that he thought dif-
ferently,— repeated that the blockade was merely constructive,
(fictif,) — and seemed so deeply to deplore the ill-advised forward-
ness of the envoy, that I began to think they were going seri-
ously to maintain the principle of which they had found the
first fruits so very palatable. I had not been before aware that
any objection to the treaty had been taken by the English gov-
ernment on that ground, which really appeared to me too clear
for controversy, but it occurred to me now that England might
choose to avail herself of the immense ascendant, which the
present situation of the Continent, and especially her close alli-
ance with France, have given her, to indemnify herself for any
trouble or expense she may be put to for defending the liberties
of mankind on terra Jirma, by narrowing them down as much
as possible at sea. I seriously assure you that I am very much
impressed with the gravity of the subject in this point of view.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 179

I should not, from the success of this first experiment, be at all
surprised to find her law of prize gain ground pari passu with
the triumph of constitutional principles on the continent. France
and England are arbiters of this part of Europe under existing
circumstances. They abandon the North to the three other
powers, but every thing on this side the Alps and the Rhine
seems, for the present, to be given up to them, and to divide
between themselves the land and the sea may be the most effi-
cacious as the most simple means of perpetuating that good
understanding by which they rule so absolutely.

To talk of the independence of these minor powers, under
existing circumstances, is to be guilty of the grossest abuse of
terms. I told M. Nothomb as much, and hinted darkly that
the world might begin to ask what was gained for the dignity
of human nature by establishing nations that, after all, could
never be sui juris. He replied to this that he felt all the force
of the remark, and knew what denunciations they must be pre-
pared to meet with for this (as it appears to me) deplorable but
inevitable subserviency. He mentioned to me some things which
showed how much the subject of discussion, or rather of indig-
nant reprobation, the exercising even of so much free will, as is
implied in concluding a treaty so perfectly innocent, had been at
London. Some member of the House of Commons, for instance,
asked Lord Palmerston whether Holland, meaning Belgium, had
not negotiated a treaty with the United States on principles in-
consistent with the maritime pretensions of Great Britain. The
blunder of this bungling politician enabled the secretary to get
out of the difficulty by a simple negative ; but, while he congra-
tulated himself and the cause on the lucky escape, he seems to
have given that government to understand how much displeased
he was at having been exposed to the peril, and how necessary
it was that they should save him, forever, from the recurrence
of it. I must add, while on this topic, that the information, I
mentioned that Sir Robert Adair had received, of what had been
done at Washington, long before I had heard any thing about it,
came, says M. Nothomb, through Mr. Bankhead, — a fact which
shews the necessity of greater discretion in our diplomatic af-
fairs. M. Nothomb told me the minister would receive me on
Monday, at 12, (I send a copy of the note in which he formally
announced it afterwards,) and, in the meantime, begged me to
consider how a request to prolong the term allowed for an ex-
change of ratifications would be received at Washington. I
replied that, in the very embarrassing situation of this country,
if its ministry thought it consistent with what they owed to its
rights and its honor to make that request, — especially consider-
ing the accidental delay in the transmission of their copy of the
treaty,— I was disposed to think, though I had no sort of author-

180 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

ity for saying so, that the proposal might possibly be received
with indulgence.

On Monday, I called at 12, according to appointment, and was
received by General Goblet, who began by telling me, in a very
positive manner, that they had determined to apply to you for a
prolongation of the term. I replied that, if that were their de-
termination. I had nothing more to say upon the subject, — my
instructions being only to urge the immediate ratification ; but
I would take the liberty of stating, with great frankness, my
views, as well as those I believed my government to entertain in
relation to the several points in question, — beginning, as I had
done with M. Nothomb, by drawing a wide distinction between
the declining to negotiate any treaty at all, and the refusing to
ratify one already concluded, in compliance with explicit instruc-
tions, and at the pressing instance of the very party so refusing,
especially if there be ground to suspect that its conduct had
been influenced by respect for a third power. Upon this being
so broadly intimated, (for both M. Lebeau and M. Nothomb
had confessed the fact of such influence having been attempted
to be used, with all the naivete in the world,) he assured me I
was quite mistaken, — that they had no idea of maintaining the
legality of constructive blockades, — that their objections to the
treaty were that it was, on the one hand, incomplete in some of
its practical provisions, while, on the other, it dealt too profusely
in vague generalities, which, being already a part of the common
law, it was superfluous and even worse to insert into a conven-
tion of the kind, etc., etc. I saw that Gen. G., like a more wary
diplomatist, was rather shocked at the unguarded confessions of
his colleagues, and would fain remove the impression they might
have made upon me. I thought it as well to let him have his
way in that respect, while I proceeded to shew that, whatever he
or I might think of a declaratory treaty, the matter of fact was
that in all those, with hardly an exception, into which the Uni-
ted States have hitherto entered with other nations, precisely
such articles as those so much censured in the one in question
are to be found. I thereupon handed him a list of references to
them as they are published in Elliot's Diplomatic Code, which I
had previously sent to his office. To shew him the light in
which you regarded, and had good reason to regard, their hesi-
tation to ratify, I sent him a great part of your last letter to me
on the subject, and especially the extract from his instructions
which Baron Behr was so unguarded as to show to Mr. Living-
ston. I dwelt very much upon the disinterested conduct of the
United States in this whole matter of maritime warfare, in which,
although we might promise ourselves as rich a harvest of spoils
as any other nation, and more than any but England, it had been
our systematic and unceasing effort to abolish those barbarous

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 181

practices, which had been long ago exploded on land, and which
were a reproach to so civilized an era. He seemed to think we
should never succeed in persuading any great maritime power
to adopt principles which would deprive it of its chief, if not
only reward, the plunder of its adversaries ; but promised I
should hear from him before Friday, (day after to-morrow,) when
I told him I should send off my dispatch, and wished to be able
to communicate something precise and definitive to you. In the
course of the evening I reflected much upon the whole subject,
and, although still continuing to regard it as involving far more
the interest and credit of this government than of my own, I
came to the conclusion that it was too important an occasion
(especially considering the obvious instrumentality of England
in preventing the completion of an arrangement between two
friendly States, to which not a single reasonable objection can
be made) for mere verbal communications such as I had held
with the several ministers. I therefore sat down and committed
to writing the following remarks, which I transmitted to the
department of foreign affairs this morning. (The two first para-
graphs relate, as you will perceive, to other matters.)

Mr. Legare" to Gen. Goblet.

Legation of the United States of America, >
Brussels, 8th Oct., 1833. $

The undersigned, Charge d'Affaires of the United States of America,
has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Gen. Goblet's letter of notifi-
cation on resuming the duties of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and
begs to assure him that the pleasure he has been so kind as to express at
the renewal of their official relations is most sincerely reciprocated.

The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity to call the attention
of Gen. Goblet to a note — relative to a claim of an American captain,
whose ship was stranded in a recent gale on the coast near Ostend, to be
exempted from duties for the articles saved from destruction and sold for
the benefit of the owners — which was addressed by the undersigned to
Count Felix de Merode the day before Gen. Goblet's return to Brussels
was announced in the newspapers. All the information possessed by the
undersigned upon the subject having been communicated in that note and
the accompanying documents, the undersigned craves leave to refer Gen.
Goblet to them, and to request him, as a special favor to himself, to let
him know the result of the application as soon as may be consistent with
the forms of office and the nature of the case. The unfortunate claimant,
who is living, out of employment, upon the little he has saved, does not
feel at liberty to return to his country without being able to justify himself,
should he, contrary to what he says is the law and the usage of Belgium,
be compelled to pay the duties in question, by producing an express deci-
sion of the government to that effect.

The undersigned begs leave, also, to be permitted to say a few words
on the interesting subject of the conversation he had the honor of holding
yesterday with Gen. Goblet. Having since reflected much and seriously
upon its importance, he feels it to be his duty, before this government has
taken any irrevocable step in the matter, to submit, in writing, a very sum-
mary statement of his views in regard to it.

182 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

And, in the first place, he would remind Gen. Goblet of the manner in
which the negotiation was invited by this government, — of the inptructions
given to its plenipotentiary, — and of the conduct of that minister in urging
the consummation of a work, which it seemed to be the principal object of
his mission to accomplish, by at once proposing a projet diflering in no
essential particular from the treaty finally agreed on, and (that the Amer-
ican government might understand that by rejecting any of its provisions
it would be disappointing the expectations of a friendly State) by commu-
nicating to the Secretary of State an extract from the instructions of H.
M's. then Minister of Foreign Affairs, so explicit as to leave no room for
doubt but that-the projet so offered was within their spirit and even their
very letter. It is true that the right of declining to ratify was, as usual,
reserved, but the undersigned trusts he will be excused lor justifying, in
anticipation, the impression which, he fears, will be made at Washington
by the unexpected exercise of that right in the present instance, by citing
a venerable authority to shew "that to refuse with honor to ratify what has
been concluded on by virtue of a full power it is necessary that the sove-
reign should have strong and solid reasons, and that he should, especially,
be able to prove that his minister has deviated from his instructions."
Cases might easily be put in which such a refusal would be accompanied
with irreparable harm to the other party, and would, therefore, amount to
a flagrant violation of justice. That the case in question is not such a
one does not in the least affect the right or the duty of the undersigned to
enter a protest against the principles involved in it, and to assure General
Goblet that should the proposal (which he yesterday declared his intention
to make to the President through Baron Behr) to prolong the term limited
for the exchange of ratifications be acceded to by the government of the
United Slates, it will be a most striking proof of its moderation as well as
of the lively interest which the American people feel in the welfare of a
free State just admitted into the family of nations, and still struggling
with the difficulties of a position not definitively ascertained.

The undersigned had the honor, in the conversation alluded to, to state
the views of his government as to the two great principles of public law
embodied in the treaty, about which alone there seems to be any hesita-
tion on the part of this government. It is, therefore, unnecessary for him
to do more, in the present communication, than barely to repeat the obser-
vation that, although both of them are equally demanded by the advanced
civilization of the times, yet, as mere points of doctrine, they stand upon
very different grounds. The principle that "free ships make free goods",
may be still subject to controversy, although all the great powers of the
European continent, so late as half a century ago, recognized and declared
it to be a settled maxim of the law of nations ; and the undersigned
shewed, in his conversation with Gen. Goblet, by reference to a collection
of the treaties heretofore entered into by the United States, that, with a
solitary exception or two, this rule has been adopted in all of them. When,
therefore, a proposal to the same effect was made by the Belgian envoy,
in conformity with express instructions from his government, the President
had the greater pleasure in complying, as he thought, with the wishes of
the friendly power inviting the negotiation, because, in doing so, he was
only conforming to the uniform practice of our country. But, with regard
to the definition of blockade, the undersigned emphatically repeats what
he had the honor of saying yesterday, that the American government
considers the Law of Nations as perfectly clear on that point, and that,
having already, in defence of the incontestable rights of neutrality, waged
war with the greatest maritime power in the world, the undersigned is
fully persuaded that it never will, be the sacrifice what it may, consent to

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 183

any arrangement by which its unalterable adherence to those principles
may be, either directly or indirectly, drawn into question.

The undersigned felt it incumbent upon him, under the circumstances
of a case which he considers as a very grave one, to submit this repre-
sentation to the Minister, with a view, if not of altering his expressed de-
termination, at least of preparing him for the impression which the an-
nouncement of it will probably make at Washington. He does not
dissemble, at the same time, that he is sincerely desirous of seeing the
matter brought to an amicable settlement, and has no doubt but that his
government will do all it can do, without compromising its rights and its
dignity, to make that settlement as agreeable as possible to His Majesty's
government, convinced that, in doing so, it will be consulting the interests
of Belgium at least as much as its own, and strengthening the claims of
justice by the generosity of its conduct.

The undersigned begs Gen. Goblet to accept the assurance of his high
consideration.

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

You will have remarked that I speak, in the preceding- note,
only of two points of public law. My reason for doing so was
that no other had been mentioned in our conversations, but I
have no doubt their objections go to what is agreed to in rela-
tion to contraband and the trade on the coasts or with the colo-
nies of belligerents, as well as to those points, because England
is just as jealous about her rule of 56 as about any other of her
maritime pretensions, and to know what the Belgian government
thinks, it seems, you must ask what Lord Palmerston would
have to say in the House of Commons. I ought to add that
Gen. Goblet mentioned we had failed in our attempt to insert
'these same provisions into our recent treaty with Russia. I was
obliged to answer that I could not undertake to contradict, how-
ever I might doubt the accuracy of what he said, not having
seen the treaty, — a notable example, permit me to remark, of a
very great and prevailing defect in our diplomatic communica-
tions, which I have had more than one occasion to lament in
my own experience. * * *

To return to the treaty, — I have to remark, in conclusion, that
deeply interested as I am in the success of a revolution which
has unquestionably done much to shake the confidence of the
autocrats who, trampling into the dust the far greater part of
Europe, are still threatening the rest of it, I cannot shut my
eyes to the fact, demonstrated by every thing I have seen and
heard here in the last twelve-months, but especially by recent
events, that it was brought about without the consent, or at least
co-operation, of the classes that have the greatest influence in
Belgium. The clergy might seem to be an exception, but really
are not, for (as one of them, a member of the Chamber of Rep-
resentatives, on my asking him what their agency in that event
had been, remarked to me) they did not ?nake, but having found
it made they have hitherto preserved it. I have not time to illus-

184 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

trate his equally just and pregnant observation here, but assum-
ing it for the present, I proceed to observe that the consequence
of the fact above stated is, if I may be allowed the expression,
a total distrust of every body in every thing. I was led, at first,
to think the Orange party a very small and contemptible faction.
I am satisfied now that I greatly underrated its importance in
every point of view, and especially as to the influence of capital
and that sort of connection between lord and vassal, or rather
patron and client, which has been less dissolved in these pro-
vinces than in any part of Europe that was much exposed to
the operation of the revolutionary regime of France after '93.
This party, like the King of Holland himself, make up in im-
placable vindictiveness and dogged obstinacy what they want in
strength, or wanted in activity, courage and skill in 1830, — and
they are encouraged to do and to say the most extraordinary
things, by the apathy of the rest of the people and the conse-
quent weakness of the ministry. These latter, to be sure, are
of the liberal party, as it is called, and so have not the confi-
dence of the Catholic leaders, whose support is, nevertheless,
absolutely essential to them. And thus it is that, openly opposed
by the bulk of landed proprietors, the merchants, manufacturers
and other capitalists, — but feebly supported by the great body of
the clergy and its adherents, — and, with a question involving
even the existence of the government still unsettled, and depend-
ing for a settlement absolutely upon the kind offices, or rather
the powerful intervention of England and France, no adminis-
tration ever found itself in so precarious and embarrassing a
situation, and, with the best intentions (as I really believe) in the
world, it is compelled to do things for which nothing but a want
of free agency can furnish a sufficient excuse.

The admirable good sense and firm character of the king,
together with such connections in Europe as made him the only
possible choice of the Belgians, will probably triumph at last
over all the difficulties of his position ; but the conduct of his
government, meanwhile, will often call for indulgence. I frankly
own I should be pleased to see the President extend it to the
very extraordinary case under consideration, — without, of course,
making any sacrifice of the clear rights or even the just pride of
our country. But, of course, the government is the only proper
judge how far it is proper, or even possible, to make such a con-
cession.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 185

Legation of the United States, }
Brussels, 11th Feb., 1834. \

To the Hon. Louis McLane, etc., —

Sir, — Before I proceed to inform you of what I have done
towards the fulfilling of your instructions in regard to the treaty,
I beg to be permitted to remark that Baron Behr seems to ima-
gine, from the tenor of Gen. Goblet's correspondence with me
or with him, that he had been charged with negligence by the
government, through me, for not transmitting their copy of the
treaty with more expedition. Whatever I may have thought at
the time or expressed in my dispatches to the government, you
are aware, from the copies of my letters sent you, that I did no-
thing more, in my correspondence with the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, than express the surprise very naturally excited by their
long silence about the existence of the treaty, and call for such
an explanation of it as we had an undoubted right to demand.
I shall be very much obliged to you, therefore, if you will do
me the favor to assure M. Behr that his inference as to any cen-
sure, expressed or implied, upon his conduct in that correspond-
ence, is wholly without foundation in any thing that I had
written. An equivocal expression in Gen. Goblet's reply to one
of my notes, which struck me at the time as wholly gratuitous,
was owing, no doubt, to a misinterpretation of my meaning, ex-
pressed, as it was, in a language foreign to him.

I lost no time, after receiving your letter, in inviting the gov-
ernment here to the negotiations authorised by your instructions.
This I did in a note, of which the following is a copy :

Mr. Legare" to Count Felix de Merode.

Legation of the United States oj America,
Brussels, 13th Jan., 1834.

The undersigned, Charge d'Affaires of the United States, has the ho'nor
to inform Count P. Merode that, by a despatch which he has just received
from the Secretary of* State of the United States, he has been instructed
to declare to H. M's. government that, in consequence of the explanations
given both by the late Minister of Foreign Affairs and by H. M's. Minis-
ter resident at Washington, the President has been pleased to accede to
the proposal made by H. M's. government, to extend the term for the rati-
fication on the part of that government of the treaty lately concluded be-
tween the two governments, until the 1st July next.

But, as this common purpose of the high contracting parties can now be
accomplished only by a separate and independent convention, and Baron
Behr has given the American government to understand that he is not
furnished with the new powers necessary to the negotiating of such a con-
vention, the undersigned feels the liveliest satisfaction in being able to in-
form Count Felix de Merode that he has received from the President a
full power to treat upon the subject with any person who shall be duly
authorised by H. M's. government to enter into such a stipulation, and
that he is ready, on his part, to execute the single and separate article in
vol. i.— 24

186 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

question, at what time or place soever H. M's. government may choose to
appoint.

The undersigned cannot but flatter himself that the sincere desire, thus
manifested by the President to cultivate and strengthen the amicable rela-
tions so happily established between the two countries, will be appreciated
by H. M's. government, and that the accidental delay, which has occurred
in the settlement of this important business, will only have made the con-
clusion of it the more satisfactory to both parties.
The undersigned, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

A M. le Comte Felix de iU erode, etc.

Having every reason to believe that the Belgian ministry are
disposed to avail themselves of every pretext to defer as long as
possible, if not altogether to refuse, the ratification in question,
I did not choose, in a note of which the object was merely to
invite negotiation, to say any thing of the additional prolonga-
tion of the term necessary for the exchange of ratifications. In
limiting the delay until the 1st July for their action upon the
subject, we had given them all they had ventured to ask, and
quite as much as they had a right to expect. Some time after I
had sent in this note, I had a casual conversation on the subject
with M. de Merode, who told me they had it under considera-
tion, and would probably propose some modifications. Thinking
it as well to let them state all their objections formally, I did not
press him to let me know what they were on that occasion ; but,
having since received from him no official communication on the
subject, and wishing to be able to give you some information of
a definite character in this despatch, I thought I might venture
to send in the subjoined note, to which I may perhaps have a
reply before I send this letter :

Mr. Legare" to Count Felix de M6rode.

Legation of the United States of America,
Brussels, 8th Feb., 1834.
The undersigned, Charge d'Aff'aires of the United States of America,
being about to send off despatches to his government, and extremely de-
sirous to inform it, as far as possible, what is likely to be the result of the
overture which, in compliance with his instructions, he had the honor of
making, in his note of the 13th ult., to the acting Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs, begs to be permitted again to call the attention of Count Felix de
Merode to the subject, for the purpose of requesting that, if it can be done
without putting H. M's. government to any unnecessary inconvenience, the
undersigned may be informed of the order that has been taken or is like-
ly to be taken by it upon that overture. The undersigned is, at the same
time, far from wishing to be understood as either exacting with impatience
a precipitate determination on the part of this government, or doubting in
the least that its course will ultimately be such as the President has been
led to expect, but as the proposal made by him through the undersigned
was merely a compliance with the wishes of H. M's. government, commu-
nicated in the most explicit manner, both by the late Minister of Foreign
Affairs at Brussels and by the Minister Resident of the king at Washing-

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 1S7

ton, he will naturally look for a ready acceptance of it here. The under-
signed would, therefore, be most unwilling, if it can be avoided, to an-
nounce, without explanation, to the President, that his note of the 13th ult.
has not been answered, and thereby, perhaps, give rise to doubts for which,
he flatters himself there is no reasonable foundation, and which a word
from the official organ of H. M's. government might at once dispel.
The undersigned avails himself, etc.

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

To Count F. de Merode, etc.

In a newspaper, to which I called your attention some time
ago in an unofficial letter, you will have read the speech of an
opposition member of the House of Representatives, who ex-
pressly charges the ministry with being prevented by England
from ratifying the treaty. I could not imagine at the time
whence he had got the information, however ill dissembled and
even openly avowed to me the fact had been by some of the
ministers themselves, but I have since learned that he had it from
the best authority, which I do not feel at liberty to mention. I
will only add that, if Gen. Goblet's absence from his office was a
sufficient excuse for delaying to ratify last summer, his resigna-
tion and the impossibility of definitively supplying his place
ought to be as good a one now.

Such is the state of public affairs here, that no man of suffi-
cient weight and character has been found willing to succeed to
the post which his appointment to the mission at Berlin leaves
vacant. Anticipating the very thing that seems likely to occur,
viz : that the government here would not ratify without some
modifications, and those touching principles of the greatest pos-
sible importance, and as little settled and as much in danger
now as when our war was declared in 1812, (with the single ex-
ception of impressment, a pretension probably abandoned forever
in practice,) I begged to be instructed how to act in that event.
Your despatch, however, not contemplating that possibility, con-
fines my power to the execution of a single article, and that,
(judging from the form of the treaty with Mexico, sent me as a
model,) in effect, an adoption of the whole treaty as it stands,
and an agreement to ratify it on or before the 1st July. Under
these circumstances, 1 do not feel myself at liberty to deviate, in
the least, from this interpretation of your instructions.

I have received a copy of the President's communication to
Congress, on the subject of our Consular establishment. I take
the liberty of a citizen, zealous for the honor of the country, in
expressing the strongest desire to see that projet pass into a law.
Two things are clear, — 1st, that a Consul who is engaged in
commerce cannot discharge his duties with the requisite inde-
pendence and firmness ; and, 2d, that Consuls not engaged in
commerce (except a few favored ports) cannot live on fees, as the

188 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

commercial agents of such a country as ours ought. This sub-
ject ought to be again and again pressed upon Congress, until
the whole system be changed.

1 have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Leg a re.

Legation of the United States, I
Brussels, 23d March, 1834. \

To the Hon. Lnns McLane,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — In my last despatch I sent you copies of two official
notes which 1 had addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
in relation to the power and the instructions I had received from
the President to negotiate a separate article for prolonging the
term allowed for the ratification of the treaty on the part of this
government, up to the 1st of July. No answer had been given
me up to the 1st of March, when a casual allusion to the subject,
in conversation with Count Felix de Merode, led to my calling
on him immediately for the purpose of having a day appointed
for a full and unreserved conference between him and his Secre-
tary General (the M. Nothomb of whom I say so much in my
despatch No. 21) and myself. Agreeably to the appointment then
made, I went to the Foreign Office the next day about noon,
and, after waiting a few moments for the appearance of the min-
ister and his diplomatic adviser, found myself engaged with
them both, but especially the latter, (who, I soon found out, was,
in truth, the head of the department quoad hoc.) in a very ani-
mated discussion about the rights of neutrals and belligerents.

Prepared as I was, from rny former conversation with M. No-
thomb, for any thing but a satisfactory result, it was still impos-
sible that I should not be astonished at the inconceivable extra-
vagancies which he now ventured to advance as settled doctrines
of public law. He went far beyond any thing that was ever
heard in a British Prize Court, and, instead of justifying the
paper blockades of England by the alleged necessity of the case,
as Sir Wm. Scott, though half ashamed of the plea, confessed
himself reduced to the necessity of doing, this young publicist
rested them on what he called the European law of nations,
and repeatedly contradistinguished from the supposed projects of
innovation which he affected to characterise as the American
system. You will hardly wonder to be informed that I almost
lost my patience at such a display of profound ignorance, coupled
with so much confidence and positiveness ; and that I told him,
until he could produce a single dictum, however loose and casual,

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 189

of any jurist or publicist of the least respectability, on the Con-
tinent, giving the shadow of countenance to such extraordinary
positions, I must be permitted to decline, in the name of my
country, the invidious honor he ascribed to her, and request him
during the rest o£ the conversation to borrow an epithet for his
own notions from the nation that, without venturing to shock
the common sense of mankind by professing them formally her-
self, in the abstract, seemed disposed to make her weaker neigh-
bors reduce them to practice for her benefit, and so might call
them, if he pleased, the "English doctrine." By the request of
the Count de Merode, I had brought with me in my carriage
Elliott's collection of American Treaties, for the purpose of shew-
ing him how very usual the stipulations, that seemed so startling
here, are in our diplomatic history. Beginning at the beginning,
I opened the treaty with France in the course of the revolution-
ary war, and was proceeding to those with Holland and Prussia,
etc., when M. Nothomb, asking the dates and learning them,
manifested the greatest impatience, and put in a sweeping objec-
tion to all that had been done at the period of the Armed Neu-
trality, of which he had obviously made the acquaintance with
a view to this very discussion, and which, in the hurry of a first
introduction, he had mistaken for a league to change the law of
nations by force, and to defeat or destroy the maritime ascendant
of England by curtailing her hitherto admitted belligerent rights.
To shew this he read me an extract from Schoell, which im-
ported any thing else, as T observed to him ; and, to convince
him that the powers which made that memorable declaration
regarded it then, and still adhere to it, as an exposition of the
law of nations as it stood and now stands, I opened Marten's
Guide Diplomatique, and begged him to read the admirable
reply addressed, in December, 1800, by Count Bernstoff to Sir
W. Drummond, the English Charge d' Affaires at Copenhagen,
who had been instructed by his Court to demand of that of Den-
mark some explanation as to the nature of its negotiations with
Sweden and Russia. The opportunity was too tempting for me
not to remark significantly to M. de Merode that the letter of
the Danish minister was, in more respects than one, applicable
to the present case, and perfect not only as a model of diplomatic
composition, but as an example of statesman-like wisdom and
courage.

In the course of this discussion, M. Nothomb, let it out that
he stood, himself, committed to the doctrine of constructive
blockade, in a speech he had made about the time of the coer-
cive measures adopted by England and France against Holland,
and he went farther and insisted, as he had done on a former
occasion, that Belgium, by profiting, as he alleges that she did,
in that instance by that doctrine, was estopped from disputing

190 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

it. I replied that I considered this government as in no wise
responsible for the character of the measures (even admitting
them to have been such as he represented them) which were
adopted by two powers whose interference was their own act,
warranted (if at all) by a law which the conference they repre-
sented had dictated to two weaker powers for the benefit of all
Europe, — that all that Belgium had done towards it was to call
upon those powers to enforce the treaty they had imposed on
her, or suffer her to right herself by the sword, — that by under-
taking, for great political objects, the former part of this alterna-
tive, they had ipso facto declared her no party to the proceed-
ings, etc. Pressed in the argument, though apparently as far as
ever from being persuaded by it, M. Nothomb at length took the
ground that M. Behr had exceeded his powers, and would, there-
fore, be disavowed, and, if the President demanded it, sacrificed
by his government. I told him that was quite a different matter,
and that (of course) if he could maintain his assertion, (which
I had good reason to doubt,) H. M's. government would be free
to do as it pleased. He replied that he should have no difficulty
in doing so, and promised, if I would permit him, to call upon
me at my house in a few days, and satisfy me, by shewing me
the original powers and instructions given to M. Behr, that he
was wholly unauthorised to treat with you about those high
political questions which he had been in so much haste to settle.
The conversation after this took a more free and familiar turn,
and I endeavored to press upon them two points, as to which
they seemed to me to entertain very erroneous ideas. The first
was that the treaty was no declaration of principles, as that, for
instance, between Prussia and the United States, but a mere
arrangement between two friendly nations, as to their own con-
duct towards each other, in case either of them should become
belligerent, whatever might be their rights and liabilities un-
der the common law of nations. For this reason, all mankind
would be revolted at the arrogance and selfishness of England
if she ventured to express her disapprobation of so innocent an
act, much less to do any thing revengeful towards Belgium in
consequence of it. This, however, did not seem to tranquillize
the apprehensions of these gentlemen, who appeared to have
good reason for anticipating that their great maritime protector
would not scruple to leave them in the lurch in any future emer-
gency, unless she saw her interest in delivering them manifested
by something less equivocal than treaties of amity, not censuring
precisely, but then not sanctioning either, some of her practices
in cases of pressing exigency. The other point was the immense
difference between the prudence which avoids the possibility of
giving offence, even by an innocent act, to a jealous superior,
by abstaining from doing such an act, where no paramount mo-

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 191

tive required it to be done, and the timidity which, after it has
been done in good faith, shrinks back at the frown of a third
power, and, by retracting or disavowing what it had a clear right
to do, confesses, before all mankind, that it has no right to do
any thing but what shall be agreeable to an officious and dom-
ineering neighbor. M. de Merode dropped something about the
difficulties of their situation, (which I am not disposed to under-
rate,) and that if all were over and peace and confidence estab-
lished, it might be different, etc.

The conference took place on the 3d inst. The next evening
1 happened to meet with M. de Merode at a party at the Count
de Latour Maubourg's, (the French ambassador's,) and was ral-
lying him about M. Nothomb's discoveries in the law of nations,
when M. de Latour Maubourg himself coming up, and hearing
what was the subject of our conversation, took part in it and
joined me heartily in ridiculing the paper blockades of England
as a system, for which he cited the recent case of her resistance
to Don Miguel's attempt to shut up the Tagus, to shew how little
respect she herself in reality entertained for it. He added, how-
ever, pleasantly, that he could not wonder at Belgium being in-
clined to favor the right of instituting the only sort of blockades
that it would, in all probability, ever be in her power to impose.
I was glad to hear him, speak thus.

Not having received, within a reasonable time, the promised
visit of M. Nothomb, and, at the same time, wishing to shew
them at once the whole strength of the position they had under-
taken to assail, I sent in the following note, with an extract from
your despatch No. 5 accompanying it :

Mr. Legare" to Count F. de Merode.

Legation of the United States of America, >
Brussels, 20th March, 1834. \

Sir, — Having waited, not without some solicitude, during a period of
nearly three weeks, for the visit with which, in the conversation I had the
honor of holding with you and M. Nothomb at the hotel of your depart-
ment, you promised I should be speedily favored by the Secretary General,
for the purpose, among other things, of shewing me wherein M. Behr had
transcended his powers in his negotiation with Mr. Livingston, and not
having hitherto been fortunate enough to hear from M. Nothomb on the
subject, I am led to suppose that you have altogether abandoned that in-
tention, and the rather because I have good reason to think that the fulfil-
ment of it would have been found, upon experiment, more difficult than
you seemed to anticipate. Under this impression, I take the liberty of
again calling your attention, in a formal manner, to the overture made to
you in my letter of the 13th January, and requesting that you will, as soon
as possible, consistently with your perfect convenience, do me the honor of
communicating to me the purposes of His Majesty's government in regard
to it.

You will, I am very sure, sir, pardon whatever of impatience may seem
to be betrayed by me in thus pressing for a distinct and definitive answer,

192 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

when I remind you that it is now more than two months since I received
the instructions, in compliance with which I immediately made that over-
ture,— that the Secretary of State of the United States appears to have
heen led, both by the correspondence of Gen. Goblet with me, and by that
of M. Bchr with him, to anticipate an unhesitating acceptance of it, — and,
since it would be mere affectation, after what I must be permitted to call
the extraordinary positions taken by M. Nothomb, without any expression
of 'dissent on your part, in the conversation alluded to, to dissemble that I
feel some apprehension lest that anticipation, reasonable as it unquestion-
ably is, should be disappointed, that it is become more than ever my im-
perative duty to lose no time in obtaining and communicating to my gov-
ernment the probable result of the negotiation, and in giving it (should
that result, unfortunately, be what has been more than hinted to me) a
full account of the motives which will have led H. M's. government to dis-
avow the solemn act of its plenipotentiary.

Meanwhile, as I think it due, not less to II. M's. government than to my
own, to shew to the former, as distinctly as possible, the light in which this
unexpected conclusion of a negotiation, so pressingly invited by itself, and
of which, in communicating that invitation, its plenipotentiary proposed
substantially the very terms and conditions now considered as so objec-
tionable, will be regarded by the latter, I annex to this note an extract
from a letter addressed to me, upon this subject, by the Secretary of State.
Nothing I could say would add any thing to the effect of this simple state-
ment of facts.

I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

This note brought the following answer from M. Nothomb :

Count F. de Merode to Mr. Legare.

Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, )
Bruxelles, le 27 Mars, 1S34. $
Morisieur le Charge cP Affaires, — En vous transmettant la note ci jointe
en date de ce jour et ou j'ai du me borner a rappeler les faits proprcs a
fixer la position du gouvernement du Iioi, j'eprouve le besoin de vous en-
tretenir, en peu de mots, de la position particuliere du plenipotcntiaire
Beige.

J'ignore encore quels sont les motifs personnels qui ont porte le ministre
resident a Washington a donner une extension a ses pouvoirs; j'attends
des explications de sa part. Vous concevrez, toutefois, que dans une ne-
gotiation de ce genre, ou tout etait nouveau, il a pu, surtout a cette dis-
tance des lieux, perdre de vue les raisons qu' avaient motive le sens
restrictif donne a ses instructions.
Agreez. etc.

Le ministre d'etat charge par interim, etc.,
Comte F. de Merode.

According to this appointment, M. Nothomb called upon me
this morning with the ministerial portfolio, and put into my
hands what, he assured me, were the originals of the powers and
instructions given to M. Behr when he was about to set out for
America. I frankly confess I read these papers with astonish-
ment, as 1 have no doubt you will, and not dissembling to him
that the determination to which lie announced that II. M's. gov
crument was come was more plausible, at least, than I had

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 193

hitherto considered it, while I did not conceive myself author-
ised to discuss it, (my instructions permitting me only to agree
to an additional article for a simple ratification on or before the
1st of July,) I told him I should refer the whole matter, without
loss of time, to the President. For this purpose, I requested
that M. de Merode would immediately favor me with an official
answer to my note of the 13th January, announcing, in an ex-
plicit manner, the determination of this government not to ratify
without certain modifications, which would enable me officially
to decline, in an equally explicit manner, such a ratification, and
to declare the negotiation, so far as I am concerned in it, at an
end ; unless, in consequence of any propositions which I would
gladly be the means of communicating to him, the President
should see fit to invest me with a larger discretion than he has
hitherto allowed me. This was agreed to, and, after a good
deal of miscellaneous conversation, in which I repeated that the
importance I now attach to this discussion had been altogether
superinduced upon it by the interference of England and the
view which this government seemed to take of the question, (so
much more extravagant than any avowed doctrines of England,)
M. Nothomb took his leave. I took care, in this interview, to
impress upon him that what I said, being the language of one
not authorised (strictly speaking) to discuss the subject, was al-
together unofficial and nowise binding upon my government,
and that, of course, you would be perfectly at liberty to take any
step or maintain any position you might see fit, — that, although
it was undeniable that there was an important difference between
the phraseology of the fourth head of his instructions, (protec-
tion of the Belgian flag, etc.,) as presented by M. Behr to Mr.
Livingston, and that of the same head as exhibited in the docu-
ment before me, especially when taken in connection with the
context and the example of the treaty with the Hanseatic Towns,
by which he was directed to govern himself, yet that the expres-
sion, "protection of the flag", was, standing by itself, a very
comprehensive one, and, in negotiations of the sort, the party
with whom an ambassador treats is bound to look only at the
power he presents, not to any secret understanding between him
and his constituents, — that I most unfeignedly regretted the cir-
cumstance had occurred, because of the interest I feel in the
honor and success of the Belgian government, and because,
from the part England had taken in a matter that did not con-
cern her, I feared it was calculated to excite strong feelings in
America, and could scarcely fail to create much scandal every
where, — but that, at any rate, I had no doubt it would be less
disagreeable to our government to find that M. Behr was mis-
taken as to the extent of his powers, than that H. M's. ministers
vol. i. — 25

194 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

had been induced, by any more questionable motive, to disown
an act done by him in admitted conformity to them.

March 27.

M. Nothomb called upon me again to-day, and read and de-
livered to me a note from Count Felix de Merode, which, toge-
ther with the documents A. B. and C, is herewith transmitted
to you. You will perceive that this note conveys an express
refusal to ratify the treaty (or to make any agreement about rati-
fying it) except with such modifications, that is to say, omis-
sions, as will bring it within what this government considers as
the fair interpretation of the four preliminary points. What
these omissions are to be is not specified, and I am about to send
in a note in reply to the Minister's, of which the object will be
to decline, on the ground of want of instructions, acceding to
the overture made by him as to a modified ratification, and, at
the same time, to request, for the information of the President,
that the objectionable articles be precisely specified.

On looking more carefully than 1 had time to do at first into
these documents, I am by no means sure that the fourth point,
even in the abridged form in which it is set forth in these in-
structions, does not cover with the strictest technical accuracy
all the stipulations in the treaty ; and the true principle, no
doubt, is, that parties treating with each other are bound to look
no farther than to the regularity and sufficiency of their respect-
ive powers, — all questions about compliance with instructions,
etc., being matters, as in other causes of agency, to be settled
between the representative and the constituent, with which third
persons have nothing to do. Wicquefort, who is a great author-
ity, says so positively,* although Vattel seems to be rather more
indulgent, — but then the difficulty here is that King Leopold
qualifies the power which he vests in M. Behr by the instruc-
tions which it was given to fulfil, and, in that case, according to
the first mentioned writer, it is no full power, — and he cites an
instance in which the clause servatd instructionis formci, insert-
ed in such an instrument by Urbain VIII., when he authorised
one of his cardinals to treat with a minister of the Duke of
Parma, was effaced at the instance of that minister, who objected
to its effect in restricting the authority.t

This is a formidable technical difficulty, as it appears to me,
and then, looking at the whole letter of instructions, and know-
ing the perfect inexperience of the statesmen thrown up, without
discipline or preparation, into the management of great affairs,
by a most unexpected and, in some respects, anomalous revolu-
tion, it seems to me not at all unlikely that they really meant no

*L. ii., c. 10. +). i., c. 16.

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 195

more than they say in their note to me. Yet, I am persuaded
they will be embarrassed to answer the argument, or rather out-
line of the case which I am about to present to them, with a
view, if possible, of making them state their objections with
greater precision. This note shall be annexed. As it is, I never
saw people in greater perplexity, — they are particularly puzzled
how they are to act with respect to M. Behr. In conversation
with M. Nothomb to-day, I told him our government was never
vindictive, and I should not volunteer to demand what the Pre-
sident might not choose to insist on. but that he could not but
know that a minister, to be disavowed with any color of plausi-
bility, must be disgraced and recalled.* He admitted the posi-
tion, but seemed to dread the consequences, — and, I have no
doubt, with good reason, for the agency of England in this affair
has got wind among the opposition, and the sacrifice of M. Behr,
for making, with or without authority, a very good, and, at all
events, perfectly innocent treaty, will be considered, in spite of
all the plausible pretexts with which it will be attempted to gloss
it over, as a scandalous offering of timidity to arrogant and
haughty power. But, on this point, I repeat here what I stated
over and over again to M. Nothomb, that as it is no affair of
mine, so I most willingly refer the decision of it to those whom
it properly concerns, and to whose better judgment it may be
safely confided.

I ought to add that the part of your letter of the 11th July,
which I copied and sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is
from the beginning down to the paragraph "The President is
unwilling to anticipate," etc., inclusive. So, to avoid unneces-
sarily augmenting the bulk of a very voluminous despatch, I
content myself with barely refering you to our treaty of 1827
with the Hanse Towns, of which a copy, sent me by the Minis-
ter of Foreign Affairs here, is the document (0.) alluded to in
my reply to his note.

Thus ends the first direct negotiation of the Belgian govern-
ment, and you see most literally verified every word that Sir
Robert Adair uttered a year ago, in a moment, though not as I
was then inclined to flatter myself, or rather the ministers here,
under the usual delusions of excitement. They have vied with
each other in disavowing their Envoy, and they have done so
with a trepidation and anxiety which they have not been able to
suppress, and he (Sir R.) certainly did not exaggerate.

I trust that I have, from first to last, acquitted myself of a
delicate duty with real vigilance and activity. I know that I
have been deeply impressed with its importance with a view to
matters far more important than our intercourse with Belgium,
and that as I think it any thing but unfortunate that it should

* Wicquefort, 1. ii., c. 15.

196 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

have been in my power to detect and reveal to yon the sinister
influence which lias thwarted the negotiation, so I am happy in
being able to commit the ulterior disposal of it to yonr better
judgment.

I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Leg are.

Legation of the United Stairs, }
Brussels, 16th Jan., 1835. <|

To the Hon. John Forsyth,

Secretary of State of the United States, —

Sir, — As it is quite natural the government should wish to
know what impression that part of the President's message that
relates to the French treaty has made in Europe, I send, by the
way of Havre, all the Belgian newspapers which make any allu-
sion to it. One of these, however, I have thought worthy of
more especial notice, and it is, therefore, enclosed under the en-
velope of this despatch. I have marked the paragraph which
determined me to call your attention to it, and have now only to
add that I have no doubt at all but that it is the work of M. No-
thomb, Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs,
who played throughout our recent discussion with this govern-
ment so conspicuous a part, that I have had frequent occasion
to mention him particularly in my correspondence with the de-
partment on the subject of M. Behr's abortive negotiation. I
send you, at the same time, a copy of the note which I thought
called for by that paragraph, and should their answer come to
hand in time, you shall be furnished with a copy of that also.
I was induced to take official notice of this quasi official para-
graph, not only because of the misrepresentation it contains, but
also on account of the general tone of the journal itself in rela-
tion to American affairs, and especially of the indecorous, not to
say impertinent language it had held in two previous numbers,
in reference to the message, which it denounced as "arrogant,"
etc. Happening to meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs
and his Secretary General at dinner at the British ambassador's,
the day the second of these pieces appeared, and the conversa-
tion naturally turning upon a State paper that has attracted uni-
versal attention and even created a sensation in Europe, I took
occasion to say to M. deMuelnaere, that I thought the language
of that journal most strange and improper and felt highly offend-
ed at it.

What makes it the more so is the great moderation with which
the President has acted in not immediately demanding the recall
of M. Behr, according to established diplomatic usage, — an event

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 197

which they deprecated extremely, as likely to lead to explana-
tions of a disagreeable and discreditable kind. If you have not
yet entered into another negotiation with M. Behr, as I am led
to suppose from the message, will you permit me to suggest a
doubt as to its expediency under existing circumstances. In
case of hostilities with France, it is true, our commerce with
Antwerp is likely to increase very much for the moment ; other-
wise, it is very far from being important, for the Consul there
writes me word that the Swedes are supplanting us as carriers
in that trade. If this is the case, is it expedient to accept their
overtures to a treaty of commerce, merely securing to us, by
formal stipulation, what the law of nations and the law of the
land in Belgium already guaranty to all neutrals, when, by so
doing, we give a sort of indirect sanction to their conduct in
the previous negotiation, and to their renewed assertion that we
are seeking to establish, by practising upon unwary or ignorant
negotiators, a code of maritime law unknown to European na-
tions ? At this juncture, too, when we are calling upon France
to make atonement to us for her violation of those very princi-
ples, which the ministry of this country will persist in pronoun-
cing innovations of ours, although the Berlin and Milan decrees
were founded upon the assumption of their indisputable truth,
and professedly designed to vindicate and restore them, would
such an implicit inferential concession be altogether opportune?
It is, of course, for you to decide.

16th January.

I received yesterday evening a note from the Minister of For-
eign Affairs, (in answer to mine,) of which a copy is annexed.
You perceijre the minister disavows entirely the offensive pas-
sage in the Independant, as well as all connection with or
responsibility for the conduct of that paper. This, however,
did not prevent his receiving a similar letter of complaints from
the Charge d' Affaires of Brazil, a few days before, and as M.
Nothomb, through whose hands all the diplomatic correspond-
ence of this government passes, is notoriously one of the prin-
cipal conductors of that journal, 1 have gained my object in
letting him see that its misrepresentation of facts, of which he
knows we assert the contrary, has not passed unnoticed.

Irt the papers of this morning I see that Mr. Livingston has
received his passports, and probably left Paris already. People
are very much excited about this event, though the proposal of
the bill to make the appropriation, which is to take place imme-
diately on the departure of Mr. Livingston, would seem to shew
that the French government only means to express its displea-
sure, without committing any act of hostility.
I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

198 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

p. s. — I take the liberty of suggesting, on occasion of our
present difficulties, that great harm is done by the precipitate
publication of our diplomatic papers, — a practice unknown in
Furope, and inconsistent with the perfect freedom of corres-
pondence. The most instructive reports of a foreign minister
are precisely those which he does not write for the public, and
especially for the nation amongst whom he resides.

Legation of the United States, )
Brussels, 26th Jan., 1835. $
To the Hon. John Forsyth, etc., —

Sir, — Nothing of importance has- transpired since my last,
except that it appears now to be generally understood that the
payment of the 25,000,000 is become a government question iu
France, and that the opposition of all colors, Carlists, Republi-
cans and Tiers parti, (headed by M. Dupin, President of the
Chamber of Deputies,) will resort to every means to prevent it.
As you will, no doubt, be glad to receive every information that
can throw any light upon the state of opinion in Europe in re-
gard to that matter, I will take the liberty of mentioning that it
seems to be thought, in France, that, although the king is, by
the Constitution, vested with the whole treaty-making power,
yet if a convention call for the appropriation of money, or, I
suppose, any other legislative action, the Chamber of Deputies
lias a right to take up the question, as if it were res Integra, and
to refuse its consent, as freely and unconditionally as it might,
to any proposition originating in the usual routine of business
within itself. I am not sure that this same doctrine was not
advanced by the minority in the discussion of Jay's treaty, but
whether it was or not, / am sure that it is unreasonable when
carried to this extent. The great question is, upon whom does
the onus probandi rest when a treaty has once been made and
ratified by the proper authorities? Undoubtedly, upon those
who dispute it. It is not enough to say they are not satisfied,
and to call for evidence to shew that, either in principle or amount,
some error has been committed by those who entered into the
stipulations. The most that can be admitted is that the repre-
sentatives of the people, called on for their assistance in fulfil-
ling them, shall be allowed to rebut the presumption (arising
from so solemn an act, done by the competent authority) by posi-
tive and satisfactory proof. Now, this is what the opposition in
France and many other Continental publicists do not understand,
or will not admit, and the consequence is that they find our in-
dignation at the very reprehensible levity with which the sub-
sidy was refused, quite unaccountable. I thought it as well to

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 199

throw out this suggestion, which deserves to be taken into con-
sideration by the government, before adopting definitive mea-
sures, and serves, in some degree, to excuse conduct that would
otherwise justly subject the authors of it to the reprobation of
all honest men.

Since the affair has been the subject of so much conversation,
I have taken occasion to point out to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and to other public characters here, the immense advan-
tages which Belgium, in the event of a rupture with France,
would have derived from the treaty which her ministry lately
rejected, and especially from the "free ships free goods" princi-
ple, the object of M. Nothomb's especial abhorrence, — although
its only effect would have been to make this country, in that
contingency, the carrier and agent of a mighty commerce. They
seem very much struck with the glaring absurdity of their re-
cent conduct, and M. de Muelnaere went so far as to tell me he
had been thinking a great deal on the subject, and had come to
the conclusion that M. Behr had done a very good thing rather
too soon. Perhaps, by delaying the negotiation for some time,
you may bring them to a more public and practical recantation
of their error, if indeed you think it worth your while to move
the matter again at all.

I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United States, \
Brussels, 24th April, 1835. $
To the Hon. John Forsyth, etc., —

Sir, — Permit me to congratulate you on the result of the pro-
tracted investigation and discussion of Mr. Rives' treaty in the
French Chamber of Deputies. I apprehend, from all that I hear
of the eagerness of the Court of the Tuilleries on this subject,
as well as from the scope and spirit of M. Thiers' speech, no
serious difficulty from the condition with which the fulfilment
of the treaty has been clogged in order to save appearances. It
is, all things considered, as small a sacrifice as could have been
made by the ministry to the vanity of the vainest of nations,
deeply wounded by the course the matter has taken.

As this great question seems now to be in a fair way of being
settled, and the prospect lately held out, by a possible rupture
with France, of my being very much and very usefully employ-
ed in my present situation, being, in consequence, removed, I
avail myself of this opportunity to request that the President
will give me permission to return home on the 1st June, 1836.
I shall then have served the entire four years for which, I under-

200 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

stood, the appointment to be made ; and suppose there can be
no objection, after so long an absence in the public service, to
my devoting my attention once more to my private interests. I
trust, too, that, in resigning into the President's hands a commis-
sion, with which he was pleased to honor me without any soli-
tation whatever on my part, I may confidently count upon his
approbation for the manner in which I have discharged its du-
ties,— conscious, as I am, of having been zealous to do all that
in me lay, in a comparatively humble, however honorable sta-
tion, to maintain the interests and dignity of my country. My
object, however, in troubling you with this request at so early a
period, is to add to it another, which I venture to make only be-
cause, I presume, there is nothing objectionable in it. From
the tenor of one of my last letters from Charleston, I am led to
think that my presence there may be necessary, at least desira-
ble, sooner than the time just mentioned. I do not know that it
will, and sincerely hope the contrary, but in case I should re-
ceive information to that effect, in the course of the summer, it
would be a great favor to me to have the permission I ask for so
shaped, as to make it optional for me to return in October. I
shall be extremely indebted to you to let me hear from you on
this subject at your earliest convenience, as, should the President
be good enough to comply with my wishes, and events make it
necessary to avail myself of the conditional permission, I should
by all means desire to avoid a winter passage across the Atlan-
tic, which, in my present state of health, would, I fear, do me
serious harm. I have the pleasure to announce that the Queen
of the Belgians has given birth to a second son and heir to the
crown, — an event ardently desired by all friends of the country
and its dynasty, and universally rejoiced in as a pledge of order
and stability to the new government.
I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

Legation of the United States, >
Brussels, 17th May, 1835. \
To the Hon. John Forsyth, etc., —

Sir, — I have now the satisfaction of being able to enclose the
paper you instructed me to procure. I send copies of it both in
the original Dutch and in a French translation. They were
furnished me by Mr. Patterson, explanatory extracts from two of
whose letters (marked A.) accompany them.

You will remark that in these letters Mr. Patterson, besides
the principal object of our inquiry, alludes to two others of great
importance, as to which he conveys information that deserves

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 201

attention. To what he says of the sugar trade, it ought to be
added in explanation that, in consequence of a very considerable
drawback having been allowed on the re-exportation of refined
sugars, the sugar refineries of Antwerp, for the supply of the
North of Europe especially, have been so successful and are so
much multiplied as to be fast distancing all competition. It is
in supplying these establishments with the raw material, which
their own navigation has not as yet so much as attempted, that
ours has found its chief employment in that port. Hence we
are deeply, and, as yet, exclusively interested in getting rid
of the very high duty imposed on the importation of that com-
modity. What Mr. Patterson says of the projected innovation
as to whale oil, speaks for itself.

Things remain here, and throughout Europe, very much in
statu quo, — an armed neutrality and suspicious peace, which has
hitherto been proof against provocations to war, that, at any pre-
vious period, would have covered Europe with blood and ruins.
This indisposition of mankind to go to war is strongly encour-
aged, no doubt, by the unprecedented development of their in-
dustry, with all the accompanying blessings, under the existing
state of things. Witness the cotton trade, for example. When
I was in Europe sixteen years ago, the merchants and manufac-
turers of Glasgow and Liverpool universally predicted a glut
and fall of prices, which did indeed take place and continue for
some time. Production is, since that period, at least doubled,
and is now going on at a rate of increase out of all proportion
greater ; so much so, that Mr. Patterson mentioned to me, last
week, that inquiries, prompted by this progress of the manufac-
ture in Europe, had been addressed to him, by persons interested
in it, as to the probable sufficiency of the supply of the raw
material, high as prices are already. Speaking with one of the
most experienced men of business in Europe, some time ago, of
this, to me, unexpected rise, I asked him what it could be owing
to. His answer was that he could ascribe it to nothing but the
effects of the universal peace, which were great beyond all cal-
culation,— so much so, that their house found themselves every
year underrating them in their anticipations. Specimens of this
most beneficent progress in true civilization are the change
brought about in the German custom-house system by the King
of Prussia, — an immense step to what I have more than once
had the honor of calling the attention of the Department, — and
the projected construction of a rail-road from Antwerp to Co-
logne, opening to the whole commerce, fostered by this wise
Prussian system, a new and unobstructed outlet by the Scheldt,
and destined, perhaps, to undo what the treaty of Westphalia
did, to build up Holland at the expense of this and other sur-
rounding nations, by giving her the keys of that river and the
vol. i. — 26

202 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Rhine. A part of this road (from Mechlin to Brussels) is actu-
ally finished and in use. I do not know whether I ought to
apologise for troubling you with these remarks. They appear
to me worthy of your notice, not only as a Minister of a most
flourishing commercial and' agricultural country, but, as one
whose education and social position forbid him to be indifferent
to a subject above all others, in my opinion, connected with the
true progress of the civilization and happiness of mankind.
I have the honor to be, etc.,

[Signed] H. S. Legare.

P. S., — 18//i May. The Moniteur, of this morning, happen-
ing to contain some important papers relating to the very subject
of this despatch, I enclose it under its envelope. You will there
see that the Chamber of Commerce of Bruges expresses, in so
many words, its opinion that the allowance of 10 per cent, is
not enough, and that it ought to be increased to 25 or 30. 1
ought to mention, also, that, in spite of the obvious tendency of
the times to a gradual relaxation of the old commercial system,
and approximation to the freedom of intercourse which nature
and reason conspire to recommend, there are symptoms of quite
a contrary kind in Belgium, of which you may look upon these,
papers as specimens. The truth is that, in a mere pecuniary
point of view, Belgium lost immensely by her late revolution.
The activity of Dutch commerce, — the great monied capital of
Holland, — and, above all, the markets afforded by her important
colonies for the sale of Belgian manufactures, — all these and
other advantages were suddenly withdrawn, and have left a
chasm not likely to be filled up, except, possibly, by the effect of
the rail-road, which is still future and contingent. Meanwhile,
their commerce and manufactures languish and call loudly for
the old nostrum, protection.

[The Publishers regret that want of space compels them to
omit the remainder of Mr. Legare's Diplomatic Correspondence.]

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Legare to I. E. Holmes, Esq.

Brussels, 2d Oct., 1832.

My dear Holmes, — I began a letter to you the other day, but
it was — owing to the state of my mind and the impression made
upon me by reading your State-rights manifestoes — in so lugu-
brious a strain, that I determined it was not fit to be sent as a
remembrancer of me to one who, wild as some of his notions
are, is, in the main, all that his best friend would wish him to
be. I have often thought of my taking leave of you in Wash-
ington, which was the first time (though by no means the last)
that I felt myself a good deal overcome by my separation from
those I love. You thought I should not bestow a recollection
upon you, once I formed my grand associations in Europe.
How little even you, with whom I have used less disguise than
with almost any person besides, know of my character ! I have
had the honor of dining with two kings, and have been as well
received as I had any right to imagine I should be, and yet, I
assure you that I never thought more, and more affectionately,
of you and all my little circle of friends, than in the most bril-
liant scenes I have found myself in, — and even at Neuilly and
Laken. Every circumstance, for instance, of our excursion to
Georgetown in the spring, —or rather, winter, — from our first
meeting on the wharf to our separation at Georgetown, — every
word, every laugh, almost every thought, — is as distinctly in my
recollection now as if it were but yesterday ; and the glories of
Versailles, the freshness and beauty of the most highly cultivated
gardens and groves that adorn the palaces of kings, excite in me
feelings far less deep and intense, than those with which I dwell
upon the sands and quagmires and pine-barren of our own low
country. Ah, why should such a happy state of things, — a so-
ciety so charming and so accomplished, — be doomed to end so
soon, and, perhaps, so terribly !

I was grievously disappointed with every thing in Paris but
the Royal family and Ma'mselle Taglioni, the celebrated opera
dancer, — oh ! yes, — I beg her a thousand pardons, — and Ma'm-
selle Mars, the great comic actress. As for the regeneration of
the people of France, it is all in my eye, — they are as much
regenerated as I am, and not half so much, for I flatter myself

204 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE,

that, as I grow older, I become wonderfully softened and peni-
tent. It is just the contrary with the Gauls. If liberty consists
in a readiness to rush into scenes of blood and outrage, — in the
ferocity of a Tartar horde, thirsting for plunder and conquest, —
in rudeness of manners, violence of passion, and the most con-
centrated, impenetrable, conceited egoisme,— in wearing musta-
chios and red pantaloons, and elbowing women into the gutters
that bound the side-walks, — then, the French are a free people;
but, according to my old-fashioned notions of liberty, they are
at this moment more unfit to be citizens of a republican country
than they were in '93. They think o; nothing and desire noth-
ing but war and sensual pleasures. If they can only cover them-
selves with crosses and stars for victories gained in foreign coun-
tries, live upon contributions extorted from their unwilling allies,
and deal with the beauty and the booty of subjugated nations at
their discretion, — one form of government is precisely the same
in their eyes as another. Nay, they prefer the one that enables
them best and most certainly to achieve these things. I don't
mean to say that there are not, among the men of fortune and
education, — especially in the mercantile classes, — many, many
individuals of sounder views and feelings than these, but of the
great body of the Parisians and the French generally, (and re-
member, equality is perfectly established among them,) I have
no hesitation in affirming that I think them utterly unfit for a
government of laivs as contradistinguished from one of men.
Indeed, I am more than ever inclined to think that liberty is an
affair of idiosyncracy, and not destined to spread very far beyond
the Anglo-Saxon race, if even they keep it very much longer.
Perhaps, in less than a twelvemonth, you may be able to give in
your experience on the subject. Quod deus aver tat omen. They
swear the government of Louis Philippe is worse than any they
have had. Their press is very bold and unsparing, — but the
attorney-general plays the devil with the editors by prosecuting
for libel, — which sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail, but are
always most injurious to the printer on account of the interrup-
tion they necessarily occasion in his business.

The English, by the way, are very anxious about their reform
bill. If you read the Quarterly, you will see what a doleful
strain it utters, and, I assure you, even the whigs I have met
with seem alarmed about the state of things. Dermis has got
his finger in, — and even Brougham begins to be frightened at
the idea which a joint or two of that extremity give him of the
dimensions and prowess of the mammoth. There's O'Connel,
for instance, still insisting upon "the rapale" of the union, and
issuing manifestoes, worthy of his royal progenitors of Kerry,
to excite his people to, it seems to me, nothing less than a war
without truce or quarter, with every part of the English regime

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 205

in Ireland. If the French had a navy, I hav'n't the least doubt
Ireland would be wrested from Great Britain. But there's the
rub, — and as they hav'n't heard of nullification in this unenlight-
ened part of the globe, they have only one way of settling a dis-
pute of the kind, — which, unless England be too busily engaged
with her radicals at home, is likely to end in favor of her mille
carince.

Apropos of the English navy, I had the pleasure of dining in
company with Sir Sidney Smith at Bishop Luscombe's — the
chaplain of the British embassy — at Paris. He is an exceedingly
interesting and striking old man. He used several times, in
speaking of the French, a very significant phrase, — "they are
good for nothing," says he, "they have no tenacity of will? He
mentioned that, being at Brussels, the day of the battle of Wa-
terloo, he asked a gentleman, who had just returned (it was
early in the day) from the field, what was the prospect. "Why,"
replied the other, "the Duke has come to a stand, and says he
will not budge thence." "Is it so," said Sir Sidney, "then all is
well, — for I know by experience, (at St. Jean d'Acre, you re-
member,) if he won't stir, the other fellow will." His informa-
tion, derived principally from his extensive intercourse with
mankind in different parts of the world, is very diversified and
curious, and there is a mixture of the cavalier and the sailor in
him that is very piquant. Among his other narratives, (for he
is getting old,) he entertained me with an account of his sojourn
in the Temple as a prisoner. He speaks French like a French-
man. What a race the English are ! They are, without excep-
tion, the highest specimen of civilization the world has ever
seen, — but don't tell them I say so.

I have not been here long enough to make any acquaintance
beyond the corps diplomatique and the high officers of state.
The city is beautiful, beyond its reputation. It has been very
much improved since I saw it. I keep a fine carriage, with a
noble pair of English horses, and take an airing every day at
four o'clock in the suburbs, — returning at five, or half- past five,
to dinner; but I am alone, and solitude (where it is not devoted
to study or contemplation) is so painful ! — and especially is it so,
where the means of enjoyment, if you had any to sympathise,
are all around you. If I could only call and take you or some
other crony up, as I go to the Boulevard and the Allee Verte,
how happy I should be. As it is, I read a great deal in the day-
time, and go to the theatre in the evening. *

Talking of study, when I was crossing the ocean I was in
horribly low spirits, and I do not know what I might not have
been driven to by my despair, had I not taken the precaution to
buy in Philadelphia a collection of all the Greek dramatists. I
read a tragedy every day, so that, in the course of a voyage of

206 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

three weeks, I got through iEschylus, Sophocles, and many of
the plays of Euripides. All this is a preface, — for remember-
ing the interest you took in our friend Mr. B**'s doubts about
•rspj(r<roi ravrse oS sv tkidu) Xoyoj, I must beg your friendly intervention
in another affair of the same kind, in which your services to the
cause of sound literature will doubtless be acknowledged by him
with as much gratitude as he ever feels towards any body that
is more successful than himself in solving a classical riddle, — at
least, I trust he has got over the grudge he owed you for your
inconceivable impudence in attempting to talk Latin with our
friend AH Pasha, or Haji Baba, or whatever was his name, at
Eliza Lee's, — while he very modestly held his tongue in cudgel-
ling his brains for the right thing. Not long before I left Caro-
lina, the queer old man (for he is half reconciled to me, in spite
of my many sins of commission in this way) came to me with
another motto, wondering 'what the devil could be the wit of it.'
It was this, — Ev tfagsgyu Sou fxs. Of course, as the words were
abstracted from the context, it was not easy to say precisely what
they meant there, — but I gave him an off-hand interpretation,
which turns out to have been the right one. The text is in the
Philoctetes of Sophocles, v. 474. The hapless solitary of Lemnos
implores Neoptolemus, (Pyrrhus,) by all that is dear to him, not
to leave him to suffer in the frightful desolateness of the situa-
tion in which he had been abandoned by the Greeks, but to add
him to his ship's company, — to take him up, as it were by the
way, and as a supernumerary.

/x'o Xjtf-/}£ \h outjJ juoovov, etc.
aXX' iv rfagsgyu) Sou [ls.

So in the Orestes of Euripides, Tyndareus says to Orestes :

xaXov TT^t^yov 6'auVo StjCo/xou tfovwv
wv ouvsx' tjXSov, etc.

This will be a good or glorious addition to what I intended, at
first, to do." Something done by the way, over and above one's
duty or engagement, — ta^i beside and egyov opus. In the appli-
cation of it, made at Cambridge, one friend begs another to take
him up en croupe, as they say in French, — to let him pursue his
triumph and partake the gala, etc.

You must keep this little piece of pedantry, or pleasantry, as
you may please to consider it, a profound secret from every body
but our reverend friend of the longs and shorts ; but I would
have you judge, from this specimen, how full my thoughts are
of every thing, how minute soever it may be, at home.

So you are going to nullify, — well, I can't say I have any great
confidence in men when they are wound up to the revolutionary
pitch, — but I strive to hope against hope. I trust in God that

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 207

my glorious and happy country, a thousand times dearer to me
now and grander in my estimation , by contrast, than it ever was,
is not about to seal forever the dismal doom of our miserable
species. As for amelioration on this side of the Atlantic, they
may expect to see it grow to something worth boasting of, who
believe in the perfectibility of men,— but to preserve our happy
institutions for ages yet to come, — to prolong the Saturnia reg-
no, which our physical condition and the character and order of
things we inherited from our fathers, naturally secured to us,
and which we have so signally enjoyed, — to do this seems to me
so very easy, that should any thing happen, which, for the sake
of the omen, I would not even mention, I shall think the world
a mockery fit only to inspire the despair of the misanthrope, or
to provoke the demoniac sneer of a Mephistopheles. If the
Union should go to pieces, it will be one hideous wreck, — of
which, excepting New-England, no two parts will hold together.
None of us will have any country, except what the rule in Cal-
vin's case may dignify with that name, — a technical country, —
a legal right and a civil status to decide on a question of title.
But there will be no flag known to the nations, and none of the
ennobling and sacred charities that bind, or rather bound us to-
gether but the other day, — no proud retrospect to the past, — no
glowing anticipations of the future, — but piratical depredations
instead, and ignoble border warfare, and the rudeness, coarseness
and ferocity of a race of mounted barbarians, — and all the ca-
lamities that have scourged this continent, without the chivalry
that has adorned her valor, and the grandeur that has half ex-
cused the ambition it has excited. The politics of the immor-
tal Jefferson ! Pish !

Write to me soon and at great length, — keep my secrets, and
believe me, dear Holmes, ever yours, H. S. L*

From the same to the same.

Bruxelles, April 8, 1833.
My dear Holmes, — I have this moment received your letter
of the 12th Feb., endorsed by Trapmann on the 16th. I began
to think you did not intend to reply to my letter, as supposing it
improper, or unsafe, or I know not what, since your scandalous
row in South-Carolina, to keep up a correspondence with one of
the "mercenaries" (isn't that the word?) of the general govern-
ment. I was occupied the greater part of yesterday and the day
before in writing two very long letters, for when I get at it, I
have no moderation, and inflict line upon line on my suffering
correspondents, with as little mercy as if I were the representa-
tive of a "sovereign State" bellowing out or vomiting forth whole

208 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

volumes of the darkest metaphysics, beginning with the hunter-
State, and coming down, through the tribes of Israel, to the
immortal sayings and doings of the holy father in democracy,—
the servant of the servants of Demus (whose nose of wax he
knew better than any body how to shape to his own conve-
nience,)— the infallible, though ever-changing, St. Thomas of
Canting-bury. And here, you may be sure, I cross myself de-
voutly and cry out, with an all-fervent benediction to that canon-
ized worthy, pax tecum (pronounced, you know, Scottice, pox
tacuni).

It is Tacitus, I think, who talks of the Ludibrium rerum hu-
manarum, — but then it is flebile ludibrium, and I really don't
know whether I ought to laugh or cry at the picture you draw
of our poor little community, /think the question entirely set-
tled,— I think that free trade is victorious, — and, as for "State
Rights", I think it will be well for them if their champions con-
sent to a true, or definitive treaty, if you please, on the principle
of the uti possidetis. But / shall be very much surprised, or
rather (for I begin to be surprised at nothing at all which our
ourang-outang race perpetrates now-a-days) I shall be exceed-
ingly indignant or downcast or both, if the fantastic tricks of
wanton, cold-blooded tyranny which the Convention has played
off before the world, to its deep and serious instruction in po-
litics, do not yet awaken us all to the importance of the in-
quiry, whether that same "sovereignty of the States", about
which we are mouthing as much as the Carlists do about
monarchy jure divino, and which experience has thus shown
to be of precisely the same stamp, — whether that same sov-
ereignty isn't still, as it was at the beginning, much too strong,
not only for purposes of good government, vulgarly so called,
but,, to be at all consistent with the preservation of a very
humble share of the liberties transmitted to us from our Eng-
lish forefathers, and meant to be maintained in their integrity
by the revolution. When I read your "Ordinance", I rubbed
my eyes to be sure if I was not in a dream. I could not believe
it possible that such insolent tyranny was in the heart of any
man, educated as and where I myself imbibed my detestation of
all arbitrary power, though its sceptre be in my own gripe. I
don't speak of it as a federal or anti-federal measure, — pass for
that, — I refer to it exclusively as a measure of government in
South-Carolina, and I declare to you solemnly, that, for the very
first time during this whole controversy, I felt the spirit of civil
war burning within me, and that I fervently prayed that my
friends of the Union party would, without any hesitation, swear
that it should never be enforced but at the point of the bayonet.
What made it worse was that (if I have not quite forgotten the
Constitution of the State) nothing is plainer than that the "Con-

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 209

vention" was a mere self-constituted assembly, — a mob, without
a place or a name in our laws, — because the Legislature which
called it was no Legislature until the constitutional time of meet-
ing in November.

But, putting the matter of right altogether out of the question,
as it seems to be in South-Carolina under its new government,
how could the leaders and their Convention, knowing, as they
must know, unless they are mad, the inherent weakness of the
State and of the whole South, if civil war do take place in good
earnest, — how could they be blind to the wild impolicy of their
conduct? They first practice, with the utmost deliberation, a
fraud upon the people, by assuring them that their premedita-
ted scheme of violence is a perfectly regular and peaceable one.
They succeed in bringing over a bare majority of our people,
even with this plausible pretence in their mouths. They know
that out of 39,000 votes, upwards of 16,000 are against them in
every view of the measure. And yet, holding so feeble a ma-
jority by such a tenure, they venture to pass an "Ordinance", of
which I never can think, and, I suppose, none of my friends
ever do think, without feeling that life under such a tyranny (if
it could be enforced) is not worth having. If it had been de-
signed as a measure of mere vengeance, — if, believing they
would be ultimately thwarted in their plan of resistance, and
wishing to prevent the triumphant scoffings of the Union party
at their anticipated discomfiture and disgrace, they had deter-
mined to exterminate, at least, to banish them all at once, which,
as Milton's Satan says, if not victory, were, at least, revenge, — a
la bonne heure. But, if we suppose them to have been any thing
but a gang of desperadoes, (as they certainly were ! — am 1 not
liberal '/) how can it be accounted for, except by that spirit of in-
toxication and wilfulness which is said to be the forerunner of
the downfall of kings and principalities and powers.

Cet esprit de vertige et d'erreur
De la chute des Rois funeste avant-coureur.

That they began, without the least pretext of an over-ruling
necessity of self-defence, — that they deliberately began by doing
such things as made it the solemn duty of every Union man, —
however secretly determined he might have been, if things should
come to the worst, in spite of all he could do to prevent it, to
adhere to the State and perish with it, — either to destroy or ab-
jure a commonwealth in which such intolerable tyranny could
exist ? I wrote to my friend p****** upon this subject, and I
have no objection to your seeing the letter in confidence, because
I know your heart, my dear Holmes, to be as kind and just as
it is firm, and that you must despise us there, if you do not
think that we feel as I have spoken in that letter, which was
written in all the transport of my first impressions.
vol. i. — 27

210 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Now, I am not such a Don Quixotte as to imagine that if the
sword had been drawn and blood been shed, and the civil war
that should have ensued had been brought to an issue of life and
deatli for your party, you would not have been excusable (jus-
tified, in this age, you could not be) in saying to your dissen-
tient fellow- citizens, "stand out of our way or we must make
you." You and others, who always said it was resistance vi et
armis and an appeal to the law of nature, might have acquiesced
with a good grace in such a necessity ; and 1 shall not say what
I suppose would have been the conduct of many of your politi-
cal opponents in that dreadful extremity. What I denounce and
condemn, — what I do not scruple to declare I think a political
portent of the most malignant aspect, and an act of outrageous,
bare-faced, premeditated and insupportable tyranny, — was the
coolly adopting such a measure as a constitutional one, and
treating one-half of the people of South-Carolina like Helots or
Cherokee Indians, under pretence of keeping the peace and pre
serving the Union, as if either peace or Union were wortli such
a price !

Pax est tranquilla libertas !

It is such things as this same "Ordinance" that make free gov-
ernment, especially a republic, so rare a phenomenon. Mankind
have too little sense to maintain, for any length of time, a well-
tempered democracy, and a great deal too much to bear an un-
limited one, — the most dreadful form of "State sovereignty",
beyond all doubt, in which the descendants of the father of the
first murderer have ever given loose to their ruffian instinct of
violence and oppression. If they have a moderate polity of the
kind, which happens (as all complicated machines will) to be
occasionally a little out of order, their only idea of a remedy is
to pull it down, and along with it every thing that makes civil
society worthy of its name. Who could ever have dreamed that
the law of brute force which now crushes Europe, — which has
absolutely annihilated the independence of the smaller States,
and made the destinies of the whole continent to depend upon
what five great powers happen to think suits their own conve-
nience,— should be deliberately adopted in America, instead of
the really sublime institutions of a federal jurisdiction, (fallible,
of course, but generally right,) and that this relapse into down-
right barbarism should be vaunted, by the most enlightened men
in the Southern States, as a grand improvement and the only
thing wanting to make our government as perfect as we have
been swearing it was all along ? Nor is the theory a jot worse
than the practice, for, although, in the hands of men like your-
self and others that I could mention, the despotism would not
be much worse than that of Trajan, for instance, or the present

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 211

Emperor of Austria, yet what would it be under the auspices of
the Columbia junta, — judging, at least, from the character of the
old prophet there, and that of the pieces I sometimes read in the
Telescope. The spirit of the dictation, there, is not even Caro-
linian. It is alien to our old habitudes, to the gentle courage,
the courteous hostility, the mild and merciful justice, the proud
submission to law and respect for right, which once distinguish-
ed our low country society from and above all other American
society. Half of this society has been maddened, the other half
outraged, and all of it, I fear, sadly spoiled and deformed by
political influence and intrigues. You complain, and you see
Mr. Leigh does, of the effects. Depend on it, you see only the
first blossoms of the tree of bitterness and death. Wait a few
years, and you will certainly taste the fruit.

When I had got to the end of the last paragraph, my servant
announced "dinner", and, while at table, as usual, two newspa-
pers were brought in, by which I have intelligence from Amer-
ica (through the English journals) as lnte as the 8th March. I
heartily congratulate you on the passing of the new tariff law,
and by such a majority too ! This is, indeed, a great victory,
though I have not doubted, for some time past, that it would
take place; yet I dare say it has been accelerated by your hub-
bub in South-Carolina, — as in reason it ought to have been. In
this, as in other reforms, our country will have led the march of
improvement, and the more certainly for having gone wrong
and retraced its steps. There have been some movements in
France lately, which shew that, in that great and leading coun-
try, (for you can't conceive what influence she has,) in which
the restrictive system seemed to be so deeply rooted, it is begin-
ning to give way, and I have no doubt at all but the doctrines
of free trade will begin, in a few years, to be universally reduced
to practice, /have, as you know, some reason to exult in this
result. If the constitutional question has been better argued
any, where than in the Southern Review, No. XL, (wasn't it ?) I
should like to know where. But your Ordinance ! "Handker-
chief! O devil!"

So you gave a diplomatic dinner to the ambassador of Vir-
ginia, and, I believe, on the very same day (Sth or 9th Feb.)
when I was entertaining at my house the English and French
ministers, etc., with my colleague, Mr. Hughes, Charge d'Af-
faires at Stockholm. If you had not remembered me when you
were quaffing H****'s old wine, I should have thought you
wanting in natural feeling. I begged W***** to send me a small
case of the best he could find, just by way of specimen, and he
wrote me word he had put it up and was only waiting for a
vessel. Since that time the Scheldt has been practically closed,
and you will be so good as to tell him I have not heard of the

212 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE,

"My-deary." It is a wine hardly drunk in Europe at all, — a
single glass, only, being sent round after the soup. The English
drink only Sherry, Claret (Bordeaux) and Champagne. At the
palace and Prince Auguste d'Arenberg's, at boih of which places
I dine continually, we have the best wines of every kind, but
especially Champagne, — whichis so good that some of us drink
hardly any thing else. There is a still Champagne, which I
think the best of all wines ; and, dining here with a rich banker
or merchant, (who gives more sumptuous dinners than the king
of France,) I tasted a red Champagne which I thought capital,
and a Chambertin (Burgundy) which might have revived the
dead. How often I have thought what a festival we should have,
could I just invite twenty of my old friends (sworn not to say a
word about State Rights) to such banquets as I have sat down
to here. By-the-bye, all the French wines usually imported into
Charleston, except by gentlemen for themselves, are very bad.
Lynch's Chateau Margaux is good, — that is a wine seldom serv-
ed here : La Fitte and La Rose carry the day.

9th April. I had to break off my letter to go to an English
tea-party, which was almost as formal as such things are in
Charleston, where we are decidedly more English than in any
other city of the United States ; and while I am writing, here
comes a note from Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald, bidding me to a
small meeting of friends ("no party") at her house this evening.
Those friends are her sister-in-law, the Marchioness of Hastings,
(Lord Rawdon's widow, now on a visit here,) and her four
daughters. Lady this, that and t'other Hastings. They have
taken this name, instead of Rawdon, for what reason Mr. B**
can tell you better than I, — if he has got over his wrath at your
daring to speak to the Barnard's Mussulman protege in such
infernal Latin.

But, talking of eating and drinking, you are all good at that
sort of thing in Charleston, and you especially, and yet you can
form no idea how large a space in life and conversation the re-
finements of the table, — or, to speak in a style more suitable to
the grandeur of the subject, — the sublime science of the kitchen
fills in Europe. Some time ago. Prince Auguste d'Arenberg
(whose cook is an artist of a genius every way worthy the age,)
lent me a book, very recently published. It is, I lament to say,
the last words of the immortal Careme, (M. Lent we should call
him, being interpreted, whichis a Incus a non lucendo,) but was
meant by the great man, for whose premature death Paris is (or
ought to be) still in tears, as only the beginning of a work on
which he meant to build his fame. It is in two volumes, and
only treats of soups, parees, etc. This unrivalled artist had been
in Fngland, where he received £500 a year from the Prince Re-
gent, but feeling that he owed his services to his country, and

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 213

besides, like every true genius, loving his art for its own sake
♦and not for its worldly profits, he left England, after a year's
sojourn in its uncongenial smoke, and returned to the great capi-
tal of the eating and drinking world, where he had the honor to
be employed by Madame la baronne Rothschild. Lady Morgan
there had an opportunity of judging of the excellence which she
has celebrated, and Careme's epistle to her, in the work 1 have
mentioned, is a famous piece of grandiloquence in its way, rare-
ly, if ever, surpassed in our Congressional harangues. He ap-
pends to his work what he calls "Maxims, Thoughts and Aphor-
isms", as follows :

"The culinary art is the escort of European diplomacy."

"Your great diplomate must have a cook renowned for making
good cheer. It is, then, indispensable that this man [to wit, the
diplomatic gastronome] be largely remunerated by his govern-
ment, that he may be influential and respected." [A truth yet
in the well in America.]

"The diplomate is the most exquisite judge of a good dinner."

"The ambassador who wishes to serve his country well, must
keep a nourishing table (table succulente) : his diplomatic sta-
tion requires of him the sacrifice of his fortune, if his country
is unable to appreciate the importance of his noble mission."
[Victim of honorable ambition !]

These maxims may make you laugh, but a diplomate, in the
predicament pointed to in the last, knows they are too serious a
matter to make a joke of.

I read this morning a report made to the French Chamber of
Deputies, by a M. de St. Cricq, which rather chills my hopes
about the speedy establishment of the free trade doctrines in
France ; but the very effort to resist them implies their progress,
and I must console myself and you by singing the nullifying
ga-ira.

I think it was to you I expressed the opinion that the French
were, in all respects, the same people now as when I was in Paris
fourteen years ago. My opinion has since undergone a great
change. When I was in Paris, last summer, the politics of Eu-
rope being in a most uncertain state, and the terrible populace of
that unruly city having not yet recovered from the agitation of
the 5th and 6th June last, I thought nothing more probable than
that an insurrection might break out any day in the week, and
lead or not (according to the throw of the dice) to a subversion
of the actual order of things, the proclamation of a new repub-
lic a la Francaise, and a universal conflagration in Europe. I
was particularly struck (as other foreigners were) with the rude-
ness and ferocity of the people one meets with every where in
such a capital, and with the violent expressions of discontent
that found vent in a thousand ways. I thought it extremely

214 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

probable (and said so at the time) that the king's life would be
attempted, (I am not sure it was, though,) and from the fiery,
uncalculating courage of the whole French people, — man, wo-
man and child, — and the impetuosity with which they throw
themselves into any row, once there is a breaking out among
them nobody can say where it will end. Then the "hero of two
worlds", Jonathan's only guest and pensioner, was still harping
upon the democratic ^Sd/e, (excuse the iricism, — scraping" or
strumming is the word,) and was going so far as even to wish to
introduce "State Rights" into France. Lord have mercy upon
the grande nation ! Very soon after I came here, however,
things began to assume a better aspect, — the mouvement (true
nullies) party lost ground with thinking men, — a ministry of
great ability was formed out of what are called the Doctrinaires,
(a party answering precisely to the present whigs of England) ;
and no sooner had the Chambers been convened, than it was
very evident they had a tremendous majority at their back.
They plucked up courage. Antwerp was taken on the one side,
and the Duchess of Berry on the other. Then the Reform Par-
liament is elected, and the Grey ministry carry every thing be-
fore them ; and, to crown all, poor Madame, — the heroine of a
national romance, — the paragon of maternal devotedness and
courage, proves enceinte, and confesses her sins before all Eu-
rope. Moreover, the republique modele (the U. S. of A.) and
La Fayette's ever ready example of successful reform, fall as
flat in the eyes of mankind as the Duchess of Berry ; and, to
use the strong expression of one of the leading Paris papers,
"saves France a whole avenir of revolutions"! Just about the
time that all eyes and mouths were opened upon the most unex-
pected, but deeply instructive scene that was exhibiting in Co-
lumbia and Washington, some debates on one of the favorite
schemes of the French liberals (the municipal and departmental
administrations) occurred, in which the horror of federal weak-
ness and distractions was expressed with all suitable force. In
short, the statues of the leading nullifiers ought to be set up in
the vestibule of every palace in Europe, for whole centuries of
the history of unsuccessful popular rule are not half so pregnant
of eloquent defence of the old monarchical plan, as what occur-
red among you, from the second Monday in October to the 1st
Dec. But I beg your pardon. The cursed topic forced itself
upon me unsought and unwelcome. In short, things promise
better at this moment in France than I ever expected to see
them, and I do not know that that gifted country has any thing
to envy (all things considered) any where else.

1 have said nothing to you, though I have a great deal to say,
about Catharine II. and her Russian confederacy. I rather think
her successors have found a shorter and surer road to despotism.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 215

Neither have I time to touch upon the dark topic you allude to.
Undoubtedly it is full of alarm and anxiety. Dangers surround
the subject on all sides ; and to make the prospect worse, before
you get this letter the House of Commons will probably have
passed a bill for universal emancipation in the British West In-
dies, which, added to St. Domingo, will present you, at the
mouth of the Mississippi, a black population of some 2,000,000,
free from all restraint and ready for any mischief. The table of
the House of Commons is groaning (as we say) under petitions
for this consummation, and you have no idea at all of the horror
which slavery inspires in Europe. That W**** admits papers
of the stamp you mention, by no means surprises me. He is a
bitter man and hates the South. I remember well a conversation
Mr. Lowndes and myself had with him at Mr. Cheves' table,
thirteen years ago. And so I have no doubt there are many,
many others who think as he does. But, after all, what is to be
done ? And even suppose the worst that could happen without
dissolving the Union, would it, could it be so bad as the desper-
ate hostility they would wage against us, backed by the opinions
of all mankind, aided by the events of the times, etc., if they
were no longer under the restraints (be they ever so weak) of
the existing connection ? There is no subject that has a thou-
sandth part of the interest this has for me, — I think of it con-
tinually, though, as G**** said once in the Legislature, it ends
in my not knowing what to think, except that dangers are around
and above and below and within our poor little State, — which
may God preserve us from ! I ask of heaven only that the little
circle I am intimate with in Charleston should be kept together
while I live, — in health, harmony and competence ; and that, on
my return, I may myself be enabled to enjoy the same happi-
ness, in my intercourse with it, with which I have been hitherto
blessed. We are (I am quite sure) the last of the race of South-
Carolina ; I see nothing before us but decay and downfall, — but,
on that very account, I cherish its precious relics the more. — "If
chance the sun with farewell sweet, extend its evening rays,"
etc. My ambition is dead, and I think only of repose and social
enjoyment and usefulness hereafter. Yet my heart sinks within
me often when I think of what may too soon be, and I say, in
those touching words, "Why should not my countenance be sad,
when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste,
and her gates are burnt with fire."

Take care of yourself, and endeavor to restore to that city
what once made it celebrated, and is now all that makes it de-
sirable, and believe me, dear Holmes, with undiminished affec-
tion and esteem, yours ever, H. S. L.

210 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

From Mr. Legare to the Hon. A. Huger.

Brussels, 15th Dec, 1834.

My dear finger, — 1 received your letter, dated somewhere in
the neighborhood of the Virginia Springs, some weeks ago, but
have put off answering it in hopes of getting another from yon
on your (then) expected arrival at Pendleton, where one from
l ne was, yon said, waiting your coming.

It seems, from the state of the polls at the last election, that
I here is a sort of reaction beginning against the nullifiers. J
regard the run made by Perry in Pendleton and Greenville as
very important, — that is to say, in the former, where he must
have received many votes to bring him so near his competitor.
J feel animated by this change, and am half disposed to cry out
with Wellington, after the last fatal failure at Waterloo, "Now,
boys, up and at them." As long as we were a wronged people,
as we were before the last tariff act, and so many of us com-
promised by loud and vehement invectives against the usurpa-
tions of the federal government, it was absolutely impossible to
oppose a party dwelling upon such topics and wielding such re-
sources as theirs. I felt all the unspeakable difficulty of that
position in the debate of 1S2S, and though I succeeded then, am
very sure 1 should have failed in 1830. That was my reason
for renouncing my seat. I wished to husband my resources for
better days, for it is a great mistake in a public man to suffer
himself to be used up by unavailing and feeble efforts made mal-
apropos. Besides this, the indignation excited in a brave people
by a system of oppression, not only confessed to by us all, but
first and most passionately denounced by some of us, (myself
especially,) had, by the contrivance of their demagogues, raised
one of those popular storms where resistance is perfectly out of
the question, and nothing remains to be done but to give way
and send for it, or lie to until the wind lulls. No man ever yet
opposed such a movement with success, in any country under
the sun ; and those who talk about what Mirabeau would have
done had he lived, to save the monarchy, have read the story of
that day in vain. He certainly would have had his head chop-
ped off before '94, and his body thrown where his ashes after-
wards were. So would Bonaparte have fared, at that period, or
any other, before men got sick of the hair-brained metaphysi-
cians and empirical demagogues that brought France, at last, to
the brink of ruin. To spit against such a wind, is, as Franklin
or some other sage says, just to spit in one's own face. Besides,
how could one who deeply felt the injustice of the tariff, answer
it to his conscience, if it came to a fight, to take part with the
oppressor, merely because his victim felt his wrongs too keenly ?

The arts, therefore, practised bv their demagogues, for ends

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 217

how perfectly explained by their recent coalition with thewhigs,
might have been pardoned and forgotten, in consideration of the
good they had been the means of doing, had not their wanton
return to the charge, without one colorable motive for such an
audacious attack upon all our hereditary liberties, after every
grief had been redressed, and in the midst of all the honest gra-
tulations which a whole people, rescued from such a fearful crisis,
were offering each other, in the best spirit of amity and mutual
confidence and forbearance, — revealed the strangest perversion,
either of head or heart, that has ever yet been witnessed in our
still comparatively blessed country,— and such a one as I doubt
whether even Jefferson himself would have approved, tho' the
majority of Virginians have not disapproved it, at least.

But revenons a nos moutons. I am led to think, from all I
hear, that c******'s theory is ended in fanaticism. Nullification is,
with him, it seems, what the French call an idee fixe, — a mono-
mania,— in short, he is quoad hoc, stark mad, just asH***** is,
and perhaps one or two more of their leaders. It is really la-
mentable to think that c******'s pre-eminent abilities as a poli-
tician have been so wofully misapplied. There is nobody to be
compared with him in the management of men and affairs, — in
mere discussion he is not equal to Webster, whose genius besides
has a beauty and elegance that the other is quite destitute of.
I have no hesitation in saying, however, that lie is by far the
fittest man in the country for the presidential chair, and that,
even now, I have no doubt, power would cure him of his meta-
physical delusions, as it did once before.

You seem very earnest in dissuading me from my purpose of
returning ; and really the motives you urge for my remaining
where I am are very plausible. If I consulted only my own
ease, I should certainly take your advice ; but I can't consent to
do that. No man is free to dispose of himself according to his
enlightened judgment. Our tastes, our character, our ruling
passions, — these are our destiny. I am extremely well off here,
but it is Rasselas in the happy valley ; and the sort of occupa-
tion I have always hankered after is precisely what I want. I
must own, too, that, without having the least spark of ambition,
i. e., the love of power or the love of place, I feel that the post
I occupy is rather below me ; at all events, that, as a private in-
dividual, I shall possess more true importance in the exercise of
my poor abilities, and enjoy more self-approbation. I shall, there-
fore, on no account remain at Brussels longer than next June
twelvemonth, — when I shall have been four years from home.
You may expect me, therefore, in Carolina, in the autumn of
1836. I know what I have to expect, but the truth is that, after
living so long a time as I have here, I shall have no wish what-
ever to mix with the world in America. Not that I shall be at
vol. i.— 28

218 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

war with it, lor 1 trust, on the contrary, that I shall enjoy great
peace of mind for the rest of my days ; but I shall wish to form
no social connections beyond the few that are now dear to me, —
I shall live only for usefulness and virtue. No one can be more
sure of his determinations than one whose experience is, in all
respects, what mine lias been both in pleasure and pain.

Fortunately for you, as I came to the end of the last sentence,
my servant announced dinner, and broke oil the thread of a dis-
course which promised to be as long and stupid as a congres-
sional speech. Apropos or long speeches, I suppose you have
felt more even than the generality of people on the occasion of
poor Grimke's death, — considering how great a veneration you
always expressed for his many virtues. I used to envy him that
faith which could move mountains, with hope and charity to
suit it. He saw every thing in America couleur de rose. He
wrote to me just after the fracas about nullification and the
pulling oi the President's nose, and told me he was more than
ever convinced that our affairs were in the best possible condi-
tion and our prospects brighter than ever. Voltaire's Pangloss
was a fool to him in optimism. But if his notions were, many
of them, very odd, and even wild and pernicious, (for so I think
some of them were,) nobody can doubt his surpassing moral
excellencies. Stephen Elliott, John Gadsden, and now Griinke :
just consider what an irreparable loss for so small a community,
in the last five years, and that of men the oldest of whom was
only fifty-eight years, and the others in what is considered, in
Europe, as the very prime of life. The worst of it is that, as
such persons have never been produced any where else in Amer-
ica than in the low country of South-Carolina, so that soil is
now worn out, and, instead of these oaks of the forest, its noble
original growth, is sending up, like its old fields left to run to
waste, thickets of stunted loblolly pine, half choked with broom
grass and door fennel. Take it all together, there are few spec-
tacles so affecting as the decay of our poor parish country, which
I often think of. even at this distance, with the fondness of dis-
appointed love : for I have never, since I could form an opinion
on such matters, doubted of the immense superiority of Carolina
society over all others on that continent, and now feel it more
than ever. The result of this state of feeling, however, is rather
fortunate as things stand ; if exile is to be one's doom, it is bet-
ter to be able to say, like the old philosopher, to those who con-
demned him to it, that they are condemned to stay behind. I
have heard of a whole host of deaths, — Horry, Lewis Simons,
(an excellent man,) old Mr. Simons, etc., etc.,— not forgetting
those rare rivals in making the fun stir on Pon Pon, S*******
S*"* and H**** M********,— Carolinians, both, in their good as
well as their bad qualities.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 219

The great, news of the day, here, is the restoration of Wel-
lington and Peel. Sir Robert is arrived at London at last, has
accepted office and is trying to form a ministry, but we don't as
yet know the result. It seems Mr., now Lord Stanley, who left
the whigs on the question of Irish tithes, has been applied to, as
indeed was inevitable, to take one of the folios, and the report
was, at our last advices, that he had declined. If that is so, the
game is up with the tories, for their only chance was to come in
as conservatives and rally all moderate men, friends of the pre-
sent constitution in church and state, against Lord Durham and
the radicals, — and, I confess, I thought they would probably
succeed, for I can't understand a whig of Stanley's description,
or, indeed, any whig at all, not a radical, standing out upon a
mere difference of name and history, when there is a complete
identity of principle and purpose, — as there can be no doubt
there is between the moderate tories and them. Brougham, the
late lord chancellor, who was a low fellow and an arrant moun-
tebank, did the mischief, and has gone down with a crash that
has not left, one stone of the whole fabric of his reputation and
fortune standing upon another. As Madame de Stael once said
of La Fayette, — he is like a tallow candle, qui ne brille que
pour le peuple, et qui puere en seteignant. Lord Lansdowne,
who was president of the council, passed through Brussels some
weeks ago, just before the explosion. I met him several times
at dinners, and had long conversations with him about the state
of things in England, where I had seen him in June. He had
not the remotest idea of being out so soon, — for the Duke was
sent for before he had time to get back to London from Paris,
whither he went from this. Their fall must have astonished
them very much, though, I confess, it did not surprise me after
what I saw in London and heard in the House of Commons.
Believe me, faithfully yours, H. S. L.

P. S. I am sure, if I had a chance, I could make a rousing
speech at York or Lancaster.

The same to the same.

Brussels, 12th May, 1835.

My dear Huger, — I have this moment received your letters
of the 12th and 20th March, and hasten to acknowledge their
receipt before closing a despatch which is to go off presently.

It will give you some idea of the frequency and fulness of
my communications with the United States, though living in a
city which is literally the thoroughfare of Europe, to state that
this letter of yours is the very first information I have had of
your being the postmaster, — a piece of intelligence in every re-

220 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

spect so agreeable and interesting to me, might have been com-
municated in five words. The last letter I got from Petigru was
dated so long ago as the 15th or 16th Dec, although I have
written to him three or four since that time, and two of them
very long ones. It is this almost total want ot correspondence
with my home, that makes me feel a crowning void in my bo-
som here, which nothing in a sufficiently advantageous position
in Europe can fill up. 1 am essentially, and by blood and bone,
a domestic man. I do not believe any human being ever was
created, more liable to home-sickness or nostalgia than I am ;
and although loving and enjoying society very intensely, it is
only the most select society, and especially that of people that I
love and that love me. I have some such here, whom I shall
leave with infinite regret, but, of course, nothing can replace the
set among whom I was formed, — whose maniere de voir and
manure d'etre are mine, — and in which I am sure of what I so
infinitely prefer to the highest personal consideration, or even
admiration, — sympathy. Here, I have certainly no reason in
the world to complain of the sort of estimation in which I am
held, but then I am a foreigner, and they are foreigners, — I come,
as M. de Dietrichstein, the Austrian envoy, always says, "from
the other world"; and what interests me most profoundly, —
events in which the destinies of my country and of all I love
and care for are involved, — are, to them, like so many phenom-
ena of the most distant stars in the firmament. The American
newspapers never fail to bring me painful intelligence, of some
sort or other, (for things are really getting worse and worse with
us,) and yet I have to bury it all within me, and when I want
to express my opinions or feelings on such subjects, I have to
order post-horses and go to our consul, Mr. Patterson, at An-
twerp, as I did last week.

If that mismanaged and vexatious French affair don't lead
to a war, I shall see you, I hope, some time between next
December and December twelvemonth at farthest, and, at all
events, I suppose, by this last mentioned period. I enclose yon
a newspaper, which has been lying by me for some time. It
touches, as you will perceive, that awful slave question, which
public opinion in Europe is beginning to busy itself about in a
manner calculated to awaken all the solicitude of a Southern
man. In England, especially, people seem to be growing fanati-
cal, and, as poor Grimke predicted in that speech at the Irish
meeting in Charleston, in which he floored us all so horribly,
disposed to repay us, with usurious interest, the benevolent in-
tentions we have from time to time been showing for the op-
pressed of other nations. I do not wish you to make this paper
at all public. It can do no good, and will probably do much
harm. But you, and such as you, ought to be informed of the

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 221

signs of the times in so interesting a matter, — not to be alarmed,
but to be on your guard. If the Union were dissolved, depend
upon it you would have to encounter assaults from across the At-
lantic, to which the machinations of the Yankee zealots, (but are
there and have there ever been any Yankee zealots ?) that McD.
is raving about, are mere child's play. — But I have not time to
talk politics. A word to the wise.

Believe me, etc., H. S. L.

The same to the same.

Brussels, 21st Nov., 1S35.
My dear Huger, — On my arrival here yesterday evening from
Paris, where I have been spending some weeks, (the king of the
Belgians being there,) I received your letter of the 29th Sept.,
which, in spite of all your efforts to disguise your heaviness of
heart, showed quite enough of it to cause it in mine. It is true
I was wofully predisposed to take the complaint; for, not to
speak of the contents of our newspapers, which have produced
an effect in Europe not to be exaggerated, — I mean in making
our experiment in federal-republican government be universally
regarded as a failure. I had met with some persons from Caro-
lina at Paris, whose accounts of matters there were darker by
far even than my worst imaginings, — and God knows that is
saying every thing. Young Dr. Nott (who married Mr. Deas
of Camden's daughter) and his wife represent the whole country
about the Wateree and Congaree, including that town and Co-
lumbia, as literally breaking up and moving off en masse to the
West. Not only is it truly afflicting, for one so much under the
influence of local attachment as I am, to think of the old fami-
lies of the State leaving their homes in it forever, but there is a
still more serious and deeper cause of regret in such a state of
facts. It shews, what I have always felt, how terribly uncertain
our whole existence in the South is. I remember, in better days,
just after my former return from Europe, I used to regard with
horror those deserted settlements, in which, after a few years,
the young pine trees sprang up in the fields left to waste, and
among the dilapidated buildings, as if the forest, as jealous as
the sea, were impatient to obliterate every trace of the vain at-
tempt of man to invade its vast domains. But then it was only
Goose Creek. Williamsburg and St. Stephens', and perhaps, here
and there, some other spots, while the progress of the back and
middle country seemed amply to compensate for these partial
instances of decay. Now, the disease is, it appears, universal,
and South-Carolina, excepting the old parish country, is to be
abandoned like a steppe in Mongolia or Tartary ! And this, too,

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

remark if you please, is the condition of the whole South, — the
new States will soon be exhausted in their turn, — and Alabama
and Mississippi be deserted by their migratory possessors for
Texas. Now, if it be true that fixed land property is of the
essence of civil society, properly so called, what shall we think
of our prospects as a nation, — a people, — South of the Potomac !
Alas ! my dear friend, the Judge is right, as I very much
fear, and, indeed, have more than feared, ever since I saw the
success of nullification in demoralizing some of our best people.
In America, you are not aware of what is going on about you,
or are too familiar with it to appreciate its fearful character.
Seen from Europe, and examined with reference to the expe-
rience of mankind in this old seat of their follies and sufferings,
I have already hinted to you that it is thought as bad as bad can
be. Nor is this opinion confined to any one party, — it is literally
universal. I enclose you half a newspaper, in which you will
see extracts from several others, embracing all the varieties of
political sects. I beg you to observe particularly, as a Southern
man, and to call our friends' attention to it, to what these re-
marks relate. Depend upon it, if you go out of the Union on
that subject, you are gone without remedy or hope of salvation.
Look at O'Connell, now the great agitator of England, and repre-
senting the party that is already in the ascendant here. He never
lets slip an occasion to denounce us, with Nicholas '-the mur-
derer of the women and children of Warsaw", as objects of ab-
horrence and vengeance. So, as soon as Barton took his pass-
ports, the Journal des Debats, the ^was^-government paper at
Paris, opened against you, and said it was high time for Europe
to speak out on that subject, and encourage and strengthen the
abolitionists in the work they had undertaken. A French fleet
goes out to the Antilles, without doubt, in contemplation of a
war ; and should such an event happen, you will see to what
point they will direct their attack and with what arms they will
carry on the contest. The age in which we live is, more than
all things else, the age of great empires ; and wo to the people
that deliberately throws away that advantage, under any circum-
stances whatever, but, most of all, when the first effect of its
doinof so will be to isolate it among the rest, with institutions
which they all denounce, — with half its population at war with
the other half, — with a government yet to form, and spring-
ing up (as it must) in the midst of ultra democratic disorders
and the storm of a civil convulsion and excess. In short,
whatever some of us may think of the expediency of having
originally established a Southern confederacy instead of the
present, the day is forever gone by, — all the mischief, whatever
it be, is done already, — and things can only be made worse, and
desperately worse, by an attempt (a vain attempt besides it would

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 223

be, for the South will not make a united people) to rectify the
mistake now.

My pen has literally run away with me, for it was not my in-
tention to have touched upon this subject in this letter to you ;
but you have set certain chords vibrating in my heart, that make
me utter such things in spite of myself. The thing you call
tyranny, is so ; the most unbearable of all, — that which has
made men to run for refuge to any other form of society, how-
ever galling and odious. What makes the case yet more deplor-
able is that, by an eternal law of nature, the only way by which
such evils, when they once become serious, can be mended, is
by making them too bad to be borne. That is the rub, — vesti-
gia nulla retrorsum, — every thing must be shaken down and
washed away, — society must be supplanted by complete anar-
chy, and men have supped full of horrors and misery, before they
dare to arrest such things : and then, great God ! by what a
remedy are they compelled to arrest them ! And is it wonderful
that we, the haughtiest of the free, — the most enthusiastic lovers
of the blessed order of things under which we were born and
educated, — that we should feel our hearts breaking as we survey
the appalling prospect around us?

Only think of the false position in which that noble colony,
of which we still love and admire the last ruins, was placed, in
the pestilential swamps of Carolina ? What a people would it
otherwise have grown to : and how should we have shone among
nations, had our now almost exhausted strength have borne any
proportion to the politeness of manners and generosity of spirit
which have ever distinguished our race ?

With regard to what is doing in the South, I think it rather
to be deplored than wondered at, — indeed, it isn't to be wonder-
ed at at all. JSalus populi suprema lex esto, is the foundation
of all codes. It is, indeed, an instinct, and the strongest ot in-
stincts. You may just as well reason with a man drinking his
fellow-passengers' blood, in a long-boat twenty days at sea after
a shipwreck, about doing no murder. So as to the post-office.
Stop the pamphlets, certainly, and P***** (for I recognized his
hand immediately in a letter to Gouverneur at New- York) is
quite right in saying Kendall did not push the matter as far as
it could go, in his (otherwise well written) rescript. But then,
p*****# js most ceria'iniy wrong in supposing that Tappan, etc.,
may be demanded. The Northern people dare not give up those
men. Nay, it would not be suffered, — and, if it were, it would do
infinitely more harm than good to us, by putting us in the wrong
(the worst of all misfortunes), and embittering against us the feel-
ings of all good men, of all nations under the sun. You have
done enough for the present,— at least enough : let the South

J J ) PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

be still, at least, let it be satisfied with the very kind demon-
strations of the North : let it not push matters so far that men
of all parties there will feel themselves bound in honor to make
war on ns. We ought to think only of calling on Congress for
some of the surplus money for our defence, — for we must come
to actual defence, and give up Lynch law, — a good thing only
in the absence of all other good things, and in the midst of all
evil ones. I hav'n't time to say more on this subject now, but
shall probably write soon to P****** about it.

With regard to your enquiries about my poor self, do you
think, dear Huger, that one whose illusions have been all, one
after another, — "star by star," — dispelled, can have the heart to
think of himself? "Satisfy my ambition !" — Why I never had
any ambition, properly so called : it was, perhaps, my bane to
have none : the aspiring after excellence, which people mistook
for what it is so different from, was for its own sake, and, I will
add, with the hope of being useful to a country of which I was
proud and felt honored to serve. My immense labor for the
.Southern Review, (which they saddled me with, as if it had
been an hereditary estate,) do you think I went through so many
nights (summer nights, too) of watching and toil, because I
hoped to be spoken of with some terms of compliment in our
own newspapers, or even by foreigners ? If so, why don't I
write now, when pressed to do so 7 No — no. I thought I could
help to shew that people did not know what our race was : —
I felt that, in speaking its language, I should be thought elo-
quent,— and I have not been mistaken. But I wrote as an Amer-
ican, and, especially, as a Carolinian, — and for some reasons you
wot of, I fear, "Othello's occupation's gone." At all events, as
you will probably have learned ere now, tor better for worse, I
return next summer, — certainly with a heavy heart, and almost
despairing of all I ever wished to see realized, but with a deter-
mination to do what I can to make myself useful, — if it be pos-
sible. You may, for instance, count upon your wines, if I can
procure them of a delicate taste, though, for my own part, you
will be surprised to learn that, for some fifteen months past and
more, I hardly ever do more than taste wine, and am a very
pattern of sobriety in meat and drink, — to avoid gout and some
other appurtenances of my forefathers' constitutions.

Your Jew made me smile sadly, — for it reminded me of poor
B** H****'s hearty laugh fifteen years ago, at the horror I ex-
pressed at a certain "Marchand en fer," — which he called the last
dying embers of aristocracy.

Pray remember me to Madame, the Judge and all, and believe
me ever yours, H. S. L.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 225

Mr. Legare to his sister.

Brussels, May 5, 1S33.

My dear Mary, — * * * Something more than a week ago
1 went to Antwerp, to breathe once more the air of the sea and
see a ship, —two things that I never feel easy in being separated
from for any length of time. While there I bought you a pretty
collection of the newest and most fashionable music I could find.
Among the pieces sent, you will find no less than one hundred
overtures by all the most celebrated composers, together with
favorite waltzes and gallopades, played and danced every where
in Europe, — pot-pourris for the piano-forte, made up of varia-
tions on favorite motifs of some popular operas, such as Robert
le Diable, — a magnificent affair by Meyerbeer, a German, brought
out at the grand opera at Paris last year, — the Muette di Portici
of Auber, — Zampa, or La Fiancee de Marbre, by the same, etc.,
etc. I left the parcel with Mr. Patterson, our consul there, who
promises to take particular care it shall be carried safely to you.
The music of Zampa is excessively admired here, as well as
that of the Muette, which pleases me more. The whole second
act of the latter runs upon the air, "Amis la matinee est belle",
and is very spirited and agreeable. Robert le Diable is a master-
piece of musical composition, which puts Meyerbeer upon an
equality with Rossini, and it is got up at Paris with all the pomp
and splendor of their unrivalled opera. The subject is a fine
one, and gives a sort of epic, religious grandeur and solemnity
to the whole exhibition, which recalls the sacred music and gor-
geous though gloomy display of the Romish service, in one of
their glorious old Gothic cathedrals. The scene, especially, in
which Count Robert's father, Bertram, (the devil in human form,)
contends for the soul of his son with Alice, the depositary of
Robert's departed mother's fatal secret and last injunctions, is
admirably executed. The part of Alice was performed by Mad.
Falcon, who both sung and acted with all the vehement zeal and
energy required by a struggle about a human being's eternal
welfare, with an infernal adversary present in flesh and blood.
I never felt so much interested in an opera before, — I mean so
rationally interested, for you know I have always been exces-
sively in love with that charming spectacle.

At Antwerp, where I passed last Sunday, visiting the churches,
I had an opportunity, which I wish you could have enjoyed
with me, of seeing once more the most renowned master-pieces
of the Flemish school. I went to the cathedral at nine o'clock
in the morning, and was present at high mass. You may re-
member hearing me speak of this admirable church, after my
return from Europe thirteen years ago. It is an immense edifice,
which was building during the whole of the fifteenth century,
vol. i.— 29

226 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

the period of Antwerp's greatest commercial prosperity, and when,
indeed, it was the great centre of European business and capital.
Its spire, which is upwards of 460 feet high, is one of the most
beautiful remains of that sort of architecture extant ; and the
interior is distinguished by the grandeur of its effect, owing to
its vastness, the immense height of the roof, the colossal magni-
tude of its pillars, and the perfect simplicity of the style. Judge
for yourself what an impression a building 500 feet long, 230
wide, and 360 high, presenting the most imposing Gothic forms,
consecrated to religion, resounding with the voice of Christian
thanksgiving and supplication, and adorned with the master-
pieces of trenius, — must make. But you know I hate descrip-
tions, and so I will proceed merely to tell yon that I gazed once
more and with increased pleasure upon the three famous works
of Rubens, that belong to the cathedral, — the "Elevation of the
Cross" on the left, and the "Descent"' from it, on the right of the
nave, in the cross aisle, and the "Ascension of the Virgin" over
the grand altar in the choir. One of the wings of ihe first of
these pictures is the "Visitation", which is a charming picture,
and I looked for half an hour, at least, with doating pleasure,
upon the sweet and modest countenance of the conscious virgin-
mother. At a later hour of the day Mr. Patterson joined me,
and getting into my catiche, we drove to the church of St. James.
This wonderful monument, or collection of monuments, had
either escaped my observation the first time I visited Antwerp,
or (which is hardly credible) my recollection since. I have never
seen any thing half so rich as this treasure, whether it be con-
sidered with regard to the display of all the finery of the Romish
church in the day of its splendor, or the assemblage of a still
more striking variety and multitude of works of art. To be
sure, I have never been in Italy, and the French revolution has
swept all the Continental churches I have seen with its besom
of destruction, — while the zeal of the reformers had stripped
those of England and Scotland of all the frippery of the spiritual
Babylon long ago. The carving in wood and the sculpture in
stone and marble that fill every chapel, nay, almost every spot
of this church, and the painting of the windows, are really won-
derful. To complete its glory, there is a delicious painting of
Rubens, executed by himself for the very purpose it has been
put to, which is to adorn his sepulchre, (for he was buried here,
and a simple black marble slab, in a chapel at the side of the
choir, marks the spot). In this posthumous painting, he repre-
sents the infant Jesus on the knees of his mother, — the Madonna
(a beautiful creature, as the child is a perfect cherub) being, it
seems, the likeness of his adored mistress, while the three female
forms that are looking at the sweet child are images, it is said, of
his three successive wives. From this church, in which I wished

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 227

for Charles Fraser a hundred times, we went to the Museum,
which contains many fine pictures, — among which I was parti-
cularly struck with a copy, in miniature, by Rubens, of his cele-
brated "Descent from the Cross.'' It is a charming picture, and
I felt (what I am told many others before me have experienced)
a strong impulse to steal it. The colouring is as vivid and glow-
ing ns your Southern sky. Another painting of prodigious power,
here, is a famous chef doauvre of the same great master, — Christ
between the thieves : but it is not seen to advantage, and I was
glad to hear the remark I made, that it was hung too low, had
been anticipated by a distinguished artist. There is, also, in this
collection, a "Christ on the cross" by Vandyke, whose "Cruci-
fixion", over the altar-piece of the cathedral at Malines, I had
seen the day before on my way to Antwerp. You know Van-
dyke is renowned for his portraits, in which department of the
art, indeed, he has no rival. Nothing can be imagined more
perfect: they live and breathe before you. But I have never
heard as much of his excellence in historical painting, as I think
it deserves. He certainly wants the invention, boldness, strength
and colouring of Rubens, and may be considered as, upon the
whole, an inferior genius. But then there is so much grace and
soberness, — such a "rapture of repose", — and I know not what
indescribable classical sweetness about his forms, that I yield a
very hesitating, reluctant assent to the opinion of better judges,
who give the palm to Rubens. From the Museum we went in-
to the study of a very young artist (Wappers) of the same city,
who seems likely to maintain the reputation of its school. I
saw some brilliant sketches and some admirable portraits there:
among the latter, one of King Leopold on horseback.

We closed our day's tour with the church of the Dominicans,
where there is a picture (by Rubens), "the Scourging of Christ",
of the most frightful and hideous truth. Nothing can be more
horribly natural than the blood-shot skin, the black and blue
wheals, the clotted gore, etc. This church is also remarkable
for one of the most singular monuments of Romish worship that
are any where to be found, and very characteristic of this most
Catholic of all Catholic countries. This is a representation in
stone of Mount Calvary, — a rude, wild, rocky scene, thronged
with the statues of apostles and prophets, while, at the summit
of the crag before you, the Saviour hangs upon the cross, — the
blood, spouting out of his side pierced with the spear, and fall-
ing in a parabolic curve into I forget what : 1 think it is caught
by one of the apostles in a vessel of some sort. Beneath the
rock of the crucifixion, there is a sort of grotto or cavern, to
which the spectator ascends by seven steps, worn by the knees
of the penitents who crowd hither during passion week. There
is a mysterious silence about the recess, in which, it may be, a

v>->s l'KIVATE CORRE8PONDKNCK',

few humble sinners are upon their knees, devoutly gazing upon
something half concealed within a sort of lattice. You look in,
and see a corpse stretched out and shrouded in costly grave-
clothes of white silk, tricked off with glitter and tinsel. It is
the tomb of Christ, reposing after the "Descent." Hard by, on
your left hand, within another enclosure, a still more singular
and striking scene presents itself. This is no less than purga-
tory itself, with its flames and torments, in the midst of which
a crowd of sufferers stretch forth their hands, and lift up their
weeping eyes, as if imploring the intercession of the spectator
on their behalf. It is enough to make the stoutest Protestant
pay for a mass for the dead ; and, take it altogether, I never saw
any thing so well calculated to affright the imagination of a true
believer, as this same church of St. Paul with its appurtenances.

I returned to Brussels last Monday evening. The spring was
not at all advanced, for the weather continued horribly cold and
capricious. Within these three days it is entirely changed, — it
was even hot yesterday, — and the verdure of a new foliage has
suddenly covered the trees as by enchantment. I look out while
I write upon my beautiful little garden, which is already blos-
soming all over, and sends up into my princely saloon the most
delicious perfumes. Beyond it, the double row of trees in the
Boulevards are waving their tender green leaves in a most sooth-
ing south-wind, and, in the back-ground, the whole face of the
earth, diversified with hill and dale, seems smiling upon me to
tempt me forth to my daily promenade. I shall obey the call,
for it is three o'clock, and a severe rheumatic pain has kept me
at home a good deal for the last three days. I ventured out yes-
terday, and experienced a charm in the first warmth of summer,
like that exhiliration which the spirits of the just are described
as enjoying, as they bathe themselves in the light of Elysium.
At Prince Auguste d'Arenberg's, where I dined, all the company
were complaining of the sudden and excessive heat, but I told
them it had the same effect on me as the liveliest sparkling
champagne. A glorious full moon closed and crowned the day,
and never was evening more soft and lovely. Here's a descrip-
tion for you, — but, you know, I am an enthusiast about fine
weather. Nothing but female beauty, — not music if self, — has
such an effect'on me ; and, in my delightful house, I have every
advantage for enjoying all the charms of the belle saison.

May 8. I walked to-day in the Pare, and found it enchant-
ing. These deep groves in the midst of European capitals, pre-
senting the solitude and freshness of the country, the singing of
multitudes of birds, etc., give them a great advantage over our
cities. The weather is absolutely delicious, and I revel in it.

I mentioned to you that I had made the acquaintance of the
Marchioness of Hastings and her daughters, who are sweet, lady-

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

like creatures. With Lady Flora I am quite in love. She ex-
actly comes up to my idea of what a/wife ought to be,— a tall,
biue-eyed, high-born English lady, — perfectly English with all
her knowledge of the world, and having the charming ease of
high rank without its haughtiness.

I received, yesterday, a letter from mother. Adieu.

H. S. L.

Mr. Legare to Henry Middleton, Esq.

Brussels, 25th March, 1S35.

My dear Harry, — I arrived here in thirty-three hours after I
left Paris,— this day a week ago, at 10 o'clock, P. M., — safe and
sound. And now all my thoughts are about getting away again
as speedily as possible. In a few days I shall set about packing
up and sending off my traps, as the English call them, to Amer-
ica, whither I shall follow them in person somewhere between
July and October, according to circumstances.

Lady Hastings has sent me tvjo pressing invitations to go and
see her at Loudoun Castle in Scotland, some time before I em-
bark,— the which, as at present advised, I shall not fail to do, for,
entre nous, I am charmed with at least two of her daughters, — one
of whom, Lady Flora, (not Corah,) is the creature in the shape of
woman I most admire of all I ever saw, albeit neither pretty nor
graceful, but such a head, such a heart, such a soul, and such
English virtues unsophisticated, and such a spirit of a high-born
ladye, — for. you must know, they are of the best blood in Eng-
land, and daughters of the Plantagenet without dispute. But,
although aristocratic in descent, they have more sense than any
other women I ever saw, and less of the folly and meanness of
all the vanity of this world.

Meanwhile, let us talk of the present and paullopost future.
I think of leaving Brussels, in my own carriage, (that is, one
hired for the nonce,) about the 8th-12th of April, and making or
taking a course in Germany of about four or five weeks. I shall
travel over a great deal ot ground, but very rapidly, — I shall
go often all night. My objects are Dresden, (a week) ; Leipsic,
(some days) ; Munich, (ditto) ; Berlin, (ditto) ; and perhaps Vi-
enna, (a week) ; Nuremberg, (a day or so) ; Augsburg and Frank-
fort, perhaps Heidelberg ; then down the Rhine and back to
Brussels, to take my formal leave, on or about the 1st of June.
Have you no wish to accompany me ? There will be a place for
you in my carriage, and all you would have to pay would be
your own living and one horse. If you have a mind to join me
let me know immediately, (for I have no time to lose,) and say
nothing about it, for your American friends at Paris are great

;>30 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

blabs, — (by-the-bye, I found the story of the dentist that called
on me, quite rtpandue there, and dare say it will meet me at
Philippi, — that is, at some election in America). If you can't
join me, either on account of your health, which, I trust, will
no longer be an impediment to your change either of place or
condition, or for any other reason, then we must think of the
summer. One can, it seems, go from Vienna to Constantinople
by steam, and I am thinking of making a tremendous tour, from
June to Sept., — nothing less than to the Hellespont, the TEgean,
and the Jordan, — thence to Italy, back to France and England.
Rouse up and accompany me.

Pray give my best compliments to our sweet little friend.
Don't neglect the Arconati's, — and I wish you to overcome the

obstacle between you and . You are giving way too

much to the indolence that possesses us all every where, but
especially when we are at Paris. Some of my greatest regrets
are for what I sacrificed to the far nietite disposition at Paris,
when I was younger, and ought to have seen and learnt, instead
of lounging and trifling away my time.

Ever yours, H. S. L.

The same to the same.

Brussels, 12th June, 1S36.
My dear Harry, — I have just received your letter of the 9th,
which is the second I am indebted to you for, — rather a singular
circumstance in my correspondence, for I am generally very ex-
act in answering letters. This time 1 was waiting to be able to
speak with some positiveness as to the day of my departure
hence, which is now at last fixed. I take leave of the king to-
day at one o'clock, (Sunday,) — stay here to-morrow to pay p. p.
c. calls, and dine with some of my colleagues and friends at a
diner d1 adieu at the Brazilian minister's, and set off the next
morning early for Antwerp, where I expect to embark at twelve
o'clock on Wednesday for London, bag and baggage. I am ad-
vised, and probably shall conclude to go by a London instead of
a Liverpool packet, but I am not quite decided as to the moment
of this final embarkation, or rather, I should say, great embarka-
tion, for I had forgotten the steam-boat from New- York or Nor-
folk to Charleston. You shall hear from me probably at London,
some time or other before I set out for America. I have an idea
of taking a trip to Edinbro' by steam, and thence, travelling by
land, through Glasgow and Liverpool, etc., back to London, —
all in a fortnight, for I have no time to lose, and I am anxious
about the state of things on the south-western frontier. A new
era is evidently begun in our politics, and, to judge from their

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 231

speeches, our public men do not seem to be sufficiently aware of
it. We have at last a neighbor ', — that is, a natural enemy, — in
the empire of Mexico ; and we must be prepared at all times to
resist the secret machinations and open attacks of that power, —
but especially the former. She happens to have theheel of the
Achilles (since you like to be upon that foot with me) turned
towards her, and may make him writhe, at least, if nothing more,
with a bare bodkin. Vous comprenez.

As for waltzing, I am decidedly of the Bishop's way of think-
ing in the matter, though not for the reasons you mischievously
attribute to him. All importations of foreign usages are bad,
for albeit a thing be not impure in itself, yet it defileth him that
thinketh it impure. In short, our notions, and those of the Eng-
lish too, of pudeur, modesty, propriety, are all different from
these foreign ones that are now supplanting them, — and thank
God they are. If you like my sermon, profit by it, — if not, re-
member I preach in self-defence, or by retaliation upon you ; and
as it happens, it is Sunday and church time. Amen !

You do not speak of your own purposes in regard to travel-
ling this summer. I saw all old bachelors denounced as unfit
to hold any office of honor or trust under the government of the
United States, in a speech of one Mr. Wise (not Mr. Wise-one)
in Congress, the other day. It is very provoking to have been
twice in the future in rus, and find oneself, for all that, getting
fast into the plus quam perfect past. Apropos, I had a houseful I
here the other day, — three nice girls, simple, naive, pretty, and
not un-clever.

Our country-woman, Lady Stafford, (late Miss Caton of Bal-
timore,) is here. I like her excessively. Lord S. called, and
made me dine with them immediately enfamille. She has a
daughter-in-law, Bella Jerningham. "O Jeptha, judge of Israel,
what a treasure," etc. I shall never get her eyes out of my heart.
Yours, forever, H. S. L.

Mr. Legare to Thos. C. Reynolds, Esq.

Washington) Dec. 4, 1838.

Dear Sir, — I send you the passports, and some letters of in-
troduction, lor Brussels and Bonn. Try, by all means, to become
acquainted with Count Arrivabene, who resides at the former
place, (or did so until very recently,) but is often at the latter,
where some friends of ours, of high rank, are or were in the
habit of passing many months every year. The Count speaks
English pretty well.

At Bonn, pray ask Weber the bookseller when he will let me

r^o PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

have the 4th vol. of Aristotle, (Bekker's edition,) for which I paid
him in advance the last time I was there. There is an edition
of Schiller's works, which was coming out at Stuttgard or Tu-
bman, (Cotta's,) when I left Europe. There were nine volumes
already published, and three still due. I want these three to
complete my set. The booksellers, Mayer and Summerhausen,
Rue de la Madeleine, at Brussels, sold them to me and promised
to send the others. I wish, if it come in your way, you would
enquire there (it is the principal business street in Brussels) whe-
ther they are to be had, and let me know by letter.

I shall always be glad to hear from and of you, and now bid
you adieu, with my best good wishes and the assurances of my
esteem. Truly yours, H. S. L.

[Enclosed in the above were letters of introduction to Virgil
Maxcy, American Charge at Brussels ; Hon. Henry Wheaton,
American Minister at Berlin ; M. le Chevalier Auguste Guil
1 au me de Schlegel, (Aug. William Schlegel), — at Bonn ; and M.
le Comle Arrivabene, at Brussels. Of these I delivered those to
Mr. Wheaton and to M. de Schlegel, and have no copies : the
latter (as the former) was written in a style which indicated fa-
miliar acquaintance with the person addressed. That to Mr.
Maxcy I have mislaid : but it was short and merely a letter of
introduction. The following is a copy of the one to Count
Arrivabene, an intimate friend of Mr. Legare. He was exiled
from Lombardy, his native country, for some share in the con-
spiracy of Confalonieri, and resided, as did also his friend, the
Marquis Arconati, at Brussels. He has written some works,
which have attracted some attention, (there is one mentioned in
the catalogue of Mr. Legare's library,) and has now, I believe,
returned to his native land. I never had it in my power to de-
liver this letter. T. C. R.]

Washington, Xbre 4, '38.

Je vous ecris un mot, mon cher Comte, pour vous accuser re-
ception de votre aimable lettre, et en merne temps pour vous
recommander deux jeunes gens de mon pays (Charleston, Caro-
line du Sud,) qui vont a Bonn, pour y faire leurs etudes univer-
sitaires. lis se nomment Thomas Reynolds et George Guerard.
Veuillez, je vous prie, vous interesser a ces pauvres enfans qui
vont si loin de leur parens et de leur patrie, dans un but aussi
louable. He las !' qui fait mieux que vous la desolation du pauvre
exile, et combien il est doux et touchant de trouver des amis la
ou on n'ose esperer de rencontrer que des etrangers.

Si nos amis, les Arconatis, conservent toujours leur habitude
d'aller passer quelques mois a Bonn, je vous serai bien recon-

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 233

naissant si vous vouliez les interesser aussi a ces jeunes Ameri-
cains.

M. Reynolds vous donnera de mes nouvelles. J'ai eu le mal-
heur ou bien le bonheur (qui sait ?) de perdre mon election a
Charleston a cause de ma propre insouciance, de sorte qu' apres
le 4 Mars prochein je ne serai plus membre du Congres.
Tout et toujours a vous.

H. S. Legare.

Mr. Legare to Mr T. C. Reynolds, at Berlin.

Charleston, June 7, '39.

Dear Sir, — I am very glad to find, by the letter with which
you favor me from Berlin, that you are established there to your
satisfaction. You will, no doubt, by this time, have become ac-
quainted with most of the distinguished men of the University,
especially with M. de Savigny. There is a work of that great
man's, which I sent out to America, and expected to find among
my books when I came home, but have not been able to lay my
hands on. Its title is Der Beruf unserer Zeit zur Gesetzgebung,
or something like that, in which the author developes the doc-
trines of what is called the "Historical School" of Germany. I
have sent for it again, but am so anxious to get it that I have a
mind to ask you to send it to me. But there is a work that I
must positively have, as soon as I can. It is one of the great
critic, M. Bekker, on Demosthenes. The title is "Demosthenes
als Staatsman und Redner." You will really do me a very great
favor by sending it to me. I should be glad, at the same time,
to get the common octavo school edition of Bekker's Thucydides.
The larger work I would very much desire, but I have already
two editions (expensive ones) of the same historian. You will
learn the value of that scholar's labors in philology before you
leave Berlin.

We are getting on here much as usual. The city becomes
more and more pretty, every day, as the rebuilding goes on.* As
to politics, I know nothing about them. They have been pleased
to express great regrets at what they have done, but it is too late.
My determination to go to the bar, and let public affairs alone, is
fixed.

Pray make my compliments to your young fellow-traveller,
Mr. Guerard. He, like myself, is a descendant of the Huguenots,
and will find many of the same race at Berlin. M. de Savigny,
I believe, is one of them.

* This was written one year after the great fire of '38 in Charleston.

vol. i. — 30

234 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

I send this under cover to Mr. Wheaton, in whom you wilt
have found, no doubt, a Iqnd and useful friend.

Believe me, dear sir, etc., H. S. L.

P. S. I thank you very much for the political information
you give in your letter. Pray write immediately, and fill your
pages with as much of the same matter as you can gather.

Mr. Legare to Mr. T. C. Reynolds, at Heidelberg.

♦ Charleston, 23o April, 1840.

My dear Sir, — I am quite ashamed of my remissness in not
acknowledging, long ere this, how much I am indebted to you
for your two favors, which I received in the course of the win-
ter,— as well as for the books. These latter came to hand not
very long ago : the Thucydides was just what I wanted, and it
happened to arrive when I stood most in need of it, for I was
writing a paper for the New-York Review, in which I had occa
sion to be very critical in my notice of the great historian. The
"Demosthenes" of Bekker is not precisely the work I wanted,
though so much like it in name as easily to be mistaken for it,
and so much on the same subject as almost entirely to take its
place. Still, I should be glad to have the work — an earlier one
of the same author — I spoke of. It is simply "Demosthenes als
Redne? und Slaatsmari'1 — als Schriftsteller being: omitted. This
last work you sent, me contains, however, I dare say, very much
the same things,— of course, improved by subsequent research.

I dare say you find Munich an agreeable residence. Poor
young Drayton Grimke and McMillan King seemed to be very
much pleased with the society and other advantages of that city.
I spent but a few days there myself, but was charmed with its
situation as well as with the agricultural improvements of the
town.

As to your studies, if you look forward to the study of law,
you ought to make yourself master of the Civilians while you
are in Germany. It will be an immense advantage to you when
you come to study the common law, for, after all, the differences
between the codes of nations are not very great, and they reflect
infinite light mutually upon one another. If medicine is to be
your future profession, of course you will pursue another course.
The physical sciences ought, in that case, to engross your atten-
tion,— especially botany and chemistry. Of course, you will find
time to cultivate, as secondary objects, however, other branches
of knowledge, but, at any rate, I would have you study political
and literary history, for which your knowledge of the German
will furnish you with immense facilities. Don't neglect Latin.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 235

It is easy to acquire a thorough knowledge of it, by writing it
occasionally. Translate first into English, and then back into
Latin, and you will thus find yourself master of all the idioms
and refinements of a tongue, which is a key to a world of know-
ledge, from which you will be otherwise wholly shut out.

If you see the New- York Review of July, you will read in it
the leading article uon the Constitutional History of Greece" and
"the Democracy of Athens", which is by me. I should like to
know whether the learned men of Germany think such things
worthy of their notice. I published in the 10th No. of the same
work an article on Roman Legislation, of which the main ob-
ject was to bring to the notice of our American public some of
the learned works of the actual schools of Germany. I made
two or three slight mistakes, — but they are inevitable in periodi-
cal literature, which is always hasty.

I have no idea of entering the political arena again ; though
my experience has abundantly convinced me how little one's
purposes and wishes have to do with shaping one's destinies.
My private circumstances, however, imperatively demand my
attention to some sort of business, and I have none to go to but
the law. I have argued, this winter, some causes of importance.

Pray write to me, — you have so much the advantage in the
intelligence you have to communicate. You know what a som-
bre monotony our life is : nothing (except troubles) ever occurs
here. Remember me, if you please, to your compagnon de voy-
age, and believe me, etc., H. S. L.

The same to the same.

. Charleston, Feb. 6, 1841.

Dear Sir, — I have been for some time in your debt for a very
interesting letter from Heidelberg, which I should have answered
before, had I not been quite oppressed with occupation of one
sort or other. Your information on the actual state of things in
Germany seems to be very correct, and is altogether acceptable
to me. I could ask for no greater favour in the way of corres-
pondence, than just a repetition of your last.

Your note in reference to a still more protracted stay in Eu-
rope, was handed me by **** some time ago. I expressed to him,
very much at large, my sentiments upon the subject generally,
and as he seemed to concur with me, he pressed me to write to
you substantially the same things. I told him I would do so,
and now fulfil my promise. * * * *

But, in truth, however attractive such a stay might appear to
you, I do not think a more unfortunate event could happen to
you than just to have your wish gratified. At your age I was in

236 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Europe, and had precisely the same desire. I well remember
that, of all my youthful wishes, it was the strongest. I now
know — by much and, I must add, painful experience — that no-
thing would have been more fatal to me in the whole course of
my subsequent life. Even without such an obstacle to one's
preferment in this eminently practical and business-doing coun-
try, as the having passed many years abroad, and in the atmos-
phere of courts, when just grown up, I have found my studies
in Europe impede me at every step of my progress. They have
hung round my neck like a dead weight,— and do so to this very
day. Our people have a fixed aversion to every thing that looks
like foreign education. They never give credit to any one for
being one of them, who does not take his post in life early, and
do and live as they do. Nothing is more perilous, in America,
than to be too long learning, and to get the name of bookish.
Stay in Europe only long enough to lay the ground-work of
professional eminence, by pursuing the branches of knowledge
most instrumental in advancing it. Let me, therefore, advise
you to come home and study a profession. Whatever you may
think of these opinions now, I am quite sure you will fully sub-
scribe to them ten or fifteen years hence.

The book you speak of (Demosthenes als S. u. R.) has never
come to hand. There seems to be a fatality attending it for me.

I have only to add that I am very much pleased with the evi-
dences which your letters afford of high and, what is better,
sound intelligence, and that I hope to see you reap the fruits of
it in future life.

Meanwhile, I am, etc., H. S. L.

Mr. Legare to his sister.

Brussels, 2d May, 1834.
My dear Mary, — * * * * We have had a sad affair here,
which has totally boulverse* our society. T sent a circumstantial
account of it to Petigru, whom I requested to forward the letter
to you. It was the sacking of fourteen or fifteen houses, many
of them of the greatest personages here, but not well affected
towards the government, by a banditti of apprentices and jour-
neymen, on a bright Sunday morning, in the midst of the people
of Brussels, and before the eyes of the authorities, civil and mili-
tary, who merely looked on as spectators,— not for any want of
inclination to interfere, but because the rickety revolutionary
government really dare not get into a scrape with the mob which
created it. The effect, as I said, upon our society, has been very
bad, — for not only have some of the first houses been broken
up, but some English of distinction, who intended to reside here,

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 237

have been prevented from doing so by the fear of these popular
eruptions. To make the matter still worse for me, and indeed
all of us, we sustained an irreparable loss, a few days afterwards,
in the death of the charming young Countess de Latour Mau-
bourg, wife of the French ambassador, who died, at the age of
nineteen, in giving birth to her first child. I can give you no
idea how much I have felt this misfortune. I happened to see
her the day before her confinement, blooming and cheerful, but
rather alarmed by the above-mentioned exploits of the banditti ;
the day before, but counting on better days, and as happy at
home as possible for a woman to be, as she constantly said, — for
what could be more brilliant and blessed than the situation of a
young lady, married to a perfectly accomplished gentleman of
the old school, who, to all the elegance of that school in France,
united the domestic habits of an Englishman, and loved his
wife, — while her own private fortune, and his station, as minister
plenipotentiary, ensured her all that a woman's ambition can aim
at in society. Just see how unfortunate I am in the loss of
friends, — which I feel the more sensibly from my isolated situa-
tion here. It is so strange ! to have been in Brussels less than
two years, and to have already survived so many on whom I
counted for making my time pass agreeably. The Hastings' are
still here, but I fear they will not continue long. They are my
chief resource, and I feel an interest in them which, though not
without a touch of sadness, is very lively. I shall never be able
to think of them without regret, — unavailing regret.

I began, yesterday, (for it is quite an epoch in my life,) to read
Goethe's Faust in the original, and am happy to find it less dif-
ficult than I was led to expect. It is now eleven months since
I first began to learn German, — from this must be deducted two
months for my visit to Paris, etc. Owing to the cessation of the
dinners and soirees, in which I was perpetually engaged during
the whole winter, I now have hardly any thing to do but to
read, — which, I assure you, I do to some purpose. I have been
prevented from taking the tour in Germany, which I expected
to make this summer, and shall, therefore, with occasional excur-
sions in the neighborhood, remain at Brussels. Should nothing
happen, I shall devote all that time to the acquiring the sort of
knowledge which most attracts me now, — politics and the his-
tory of man, including that of the church. I
shall make some profit of that time, with a view to the great end
of life, — the learning to be wise, — not for purposes of vanity and
ostentation, but of happiness in myself and usefulness to others.
I wish I could impart to you some of the philosophy which is
beginning, at last, to reconcile me to the world, wearisome and
evil as it is. You may be assured that the best of all moralists
is pleasure. One learns temperance from being always tempted

238 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

to excess, — and contentment with little, by experiencing the
vanity of wealth and honors. Apropos of vanity, etc., I was
playing whist last night with Prince Louis de Rohan, who had
a law-suit some time ago with Louis Philippe, about the fortune
of the late Prince de Conde, uncle of M. Rohan. The Prince
de 0. was the last of that illustrious house, and left a fortune of
60 or 70,000,000 frames, by will, to one of the sons of the king
and a mistress of his own, Madame de Feucheres. The Prince
Louis attacked this will and failed, for which, and perhaps other
reasons, he has to live out of France. He had on the table a
snuff-box, with three miniature portraits upon it, — one of his
grandfather (I think) M. de Soubise, with his two aunts, one of
whom was the late Princess de Conde. The house of Rohan
is one of the greatest in the world ; and while I was cracking
jokes with him about Pere Philippe, of whom he speaks rather
disrespectfully, I could not help thinking of the downfal of the
mighty ones of the earth. He is a perfect specimen of the old
libertine grand-seigneur of the vielle cour. You know, as Hu-
guenots we have a right to feel an especial interest in the house
of Rohan and Soubise, who were among the prominent leaders
of the Protestants in the time of the League.

I should have made this letter longer, but while writing it an
Irish friend came in, and talked away so much of my time, that
I have barely enough to add my love to you all, and the assur-
ance that I am most faithfully yours, H. S. L.

The same to the same.

Dover, 21st June, 1834.
My dear Mary, — I don't believe I mentioned, in any of my
former letters, my intention of coming to England. Indeed, I
had entirely abandoned the project until two or three weeks
ago, when, living rather below par, as the brokers have it, in
point of health, and horribly ennuyee at Brussels, (which some
late affairs have made intolerably stupid,) I fell into temptation.
Dining one day with Lady Westmoreland, her niece, Lady Pau-
lett, suggested I had better cross the channel. The former in-
sisted upon it so strenuously, promising me letters, etc., that in
short, me voila. I arrived about an hour ago, — it being very,
very warm for these climates, where there has as yet been no
summer.

The next day, I travelled from Antwerp to Ghent in my own
carriage, through the very finest country I ever saw, or any body
else, I believe, called the Pays de Wai's. Every acre of it is in
the most productive state, — it is a perfect garden ; and yet, I am
told that a century ago it was a wild waste, and that it was its

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 239

immense fertility altogether and cultivation which have turned it
into the flourishing garden I saw. I left my carriage, which I
sent back to Brussels, and taking a footman with me, got into a
diligence, and arrived at Lille, in France, at 5 o'clock in the
evening, after a very pleasant day's journey, which was a most
agreeable disappointment, — for when I first got into that "infer-
nal machine", which the French call a diligence, one would sup-
pose because it goes rapidly, (generally it goes very slowly,) I was
absolutely nervous, and had a mind to get out again at once and
go down to Ostend, and embark in the steam packet-boat there.
However, I persevered, — braced up my resolution, and, as I said
just now, became so completely reconciled to my new situation,
that, in spite of my excessive self-indulgence and love of ease, I
have seldom passed eight hours more agreeably in any kind of
carriage. Leaving Lille at 5 in the morning, and passing through
Dunkirk, etc., to Calais, at 8 in the evening. This morning set
out in a little steam-packet, and reached this after four hours'
passage. I shall proceed to London to-night. I bring letters
from Lady Westmoreland to her daughter-in-law, the famous
Lady patroness of Almacks, and head of all fashion, whose ac-
quaintance I am really curious to make, — Lady Jersey, — and to
Lady Wm. Russell and Lord Bristol ; and, from Sir R. Adair,
to Lords Gray, Lansdowne, Holland and Brougham, — besides
others. My stay in England will necessarily be very short, —
not above ten days or so, — and I shall, perhaps, on that account,
not profit as much by these letters as I otherwise should ; but I
still stand a good chance of seeing the haute-noblesse of Eng-
land, in London life, to some advantage, — and it is now almost
the only thing about which I have any curiosity, for I am un-
happily blase upon most of the subjects which once interested
me *******

C's. conversation with me, the first day I saw him, gave me a
strong fit of home-sickness, and kept me awake all night. * *
But the truth is, I never suffered more from ennuyee, my inveter-
ate enemy, than in the midst of all this supposed splendor and
pleasure. I am just in that state of mind in which Goethe's
Faust made his compact with the devil.

London, 2Sth June.
Arriving here at about 7 o'clock last Sunday, I travelled up
from the neighborhood of the post-office, where I was set down,
to the Clarendon Hotel, in new Bond-street, (the most fashion-
able house in London). Sunday is religiously kept in England :
it was to me a dull and quiet one. On Monday, I sent out my
letters. On Tuesday, I got a note from Lady Hastings, who is
now here with her charming family, telling me she had just
heard of my arrival, and enclosing me a card for a ball at the

240 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Countess of Wemys', where I should meet much good company,
and, especially, the haute-noblesse of Scotland. I went at half-
past 11 o'clock, and found the rooms still empty, and it was not
until near half-past 12 that dancing began in good earnest. I
was exceedingly struck with the size of the women, which ap-
peared to me rather gigantic, and with their bad waltzing. But,
as the great majority present were Caledonians, they soon struck
up reels, and danced them with a spirit and fervor that charmed
me. I never saw more national enthusiasm at any meeting of
these "Northern folk", famous as they are for it. Lady Hastings
called my attention to the dancing of Lord Douglas, which is
particularly renowned in its way ; and to a couple near us, Lady
L. and a singularly exhilerated and springy little gentleman, who
snapped his fingers as he capered about, as if they were castanets.
This personage, she told me, was seventy-three years of age, (he
looked fifty). He had been celebrated for minuets de la cour in
the reign of good King George III. I went home very much
pleased with this truly national and hearty exhibition in the
grande monde, and, on arriving there, found a note from Lady
Jersey, enclosing a card for Almacks next day, and requesting
me to call on her the day after that. Would you believe it ! I
did not go to Almacks, — great as the privilege of admission there
is thought, and singularly precious, as granted in so special a
manner by the mighty Lady Patroness herself. But I was fa-
tigued, sleepy and unwell, and, besides, really have too little
curiosity about such things now, to put myself at all out of the
way to enjoy them. The next day I was almost ashamed to
confess my delinquency to her imperial ladyship, whom I saw,
according to her appointment, at 3 o'clock. Her house struck
me as very fine, accustomed as I am to palaces ; but I was more
engrossed with her than with her entourage, a part of which, I
ought not to forget to mention, was the Earl of Roslyn. She
asked me whom and what 1 was desirous of seeing, and was
liberal in her offers of service, etc. I rose to go away, — she rose
also, and said "Here's a fine picture", leading the way into an
adjoining room. As she passed, she stopped to say something
to me, and fixed her somewhat hawkish eyes on mine with a
gaze fixed and intense : she looked, or rather glanced, then, into
a mirror at her side, and then went on. 1 had thus a fair oppor-
tunity of surveying the whole person of this great dictator of
the fashionable world of London ; and think now I understand,
what once appeared to me mysterious enough, the secret and the
character of her domination over men's and women's minds.
But, as this is "deep contemplation", as Jaques says, I will keep
my philosophy for another occasion.

I dine, to-day, with Lord Lansdowne, — to-morrow, with Lord
Palmerston, — and, on Monday, with Sir Alex. Johnstone, when

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 241

I hope to meet the Hastings'. Meanwhile, a great musical festi-
val, repeated at intervals of two or three days, at Westminster
Abbey, — the jubilee of the fiftieth anniversary of the one which
you may remember old — — 's. giving an account of at our table,

once, when he discomfited poor with his sentiment. 1

shall try to get a ticket for the last, when the "Messiah" is to be
performed. Addio, — ever faithful, H. S. L.

The same to the same.

Brussels, May 17, 1835.

I received, my dear Mary, three days ago, your letter of 10th
April, in which you give me a commission to buy you some
paints, etc. I shall have great pleasure in doing so one of these
days, but I really cannot say when precisely. If I return in
October, I will send them with the boxes that will take out my
own things. I am very glad to find you have become such an
enthusiast in painting, though for heaven's sake take care of
your eyes. From indulging too much in a similar passion for
books, my own give me sometimes rather alarming hints. But,
in spite of such drawbacks, great and small, the love of art and
science, — that is to say, the love of truth and beauty, — when it
becomes an engrossing, habitual, passionate feeling, is worth
more than all the gifts of fortune. There is one of its good
effects which I have never seen pointed out, though it is impos-
sible to overrate its importance. It elevates one's sense of his
own dignity, and, at the same time, makes you feel that it is a
dignity which the world can neither give nor take away. Thus
it mitigates, if it does not entirely cure, that worst of all the
diseases of our fallen nature, (I know that forbidden tree is called
the tree of knowledge,) — that, indeed, by which man fell as an-
gels did before us, — a craving, restless, self-tormenting ambition.
This seems paradoxical, and yet it is strictly true, — for you may
set it down for a universal truth, that the greatest lover of art,
like true lovers of your own dear sex, ask no dowry with their
mistresses but their own complete perfections ; and just by so
much as their passion is alloyed by any worldly motive, by just
so much their power of expressing it is diminished, and affecta-
tion and artifice take the place, in what they do, of all-eloquent
nature.

I am happy to learn you have received the music. I do not
remember all the pieces I sent, — II Flauto Magico, Don Giovan-
ni, Otello, the Muette, — but what are the others ? Don Giovanni
is the admitted master-piece of your favorite Mozart. The Mu-
ette is the chef (Tceuvre of Auber, the French composer ; and, as
vol. i. — 31

242 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

French music is a most admirable thing, an opera I never tire of
in the performance. It has, in Brussels, an historical interest,
which I must let you share in. In the second act two very ani-
mated and popular airs occur, — "Amis la matinee est belle," etc.,
and "Amour sacre de la patrie," etc. It was after the second of
these songs that the young men of this city rushed out of the
theatre, in 1S30, to begin their revolutionary insurrection. This
event has since been associated with the song, and made it a
sort of national air, like those which Athenian patriots sang in
honor of llarmodius and Aristogeiton, their deliverers from the
tyranny of the Pisistratides. My love for music always has
been intense, so that I count upon passing many pleasant hours
with you, as you revive my old recollections by playing the
master-pieces I have sent you, — to which I shall add many more.

Mr. Livingston, as you have by this time heard, left Paris in
high dudgeon, his wife and daughter with him, leaving his son-
in-law, Mr. 13., Charge d' Affaires. His stay is to be only until
the Chamber of Peers confirm (as they very probably will in a
few days) the vote of the Chamber of Deputies, appropriating
the money to pay us, but requiring that something they have
taken offence at be first explained. I consider this as all flum-
mery, just to save appearances and soothe the deeply mortified
pride, or perhaps vanity, of "the grande nation" But Mr. L.
chose to view the matter in a different light. They have been,
for some time past, I hear, very much dissatisfied with their po-
sition at Paris, and the premature publication of Mr. L's. dis-
patches, according to our absurd American plan, made that
position at length quite unenviable. * The

consequences, I fear, will be a complete rupture between the
countries. * an influence, which, I am very

sure, will be exerted to the utmost to bring about this issue.
Besides that, I should judge, the tone of the newspapers, espe-
cially on the side of the majority, hold a language inconsistent
with peaceful purposes and feelings. It makes my own move-
ments necessarily more doubtful, for it was immediately on re-
ceiving the news of the vote of the money in the Chamber of
Deputies, that I asked leave to return home, assigning that vote
as a reason for supposing there would be nothing particularly
important for me to do in Europe henceforth, and requesting to
be allowed to go home to mind my own business.

We are a nation of systematic self-flatterers, and no man, who
does not roar you lustily in the chorus of adulation, can pass
for a good patriot. Apropos of roaring, — if Mr. L., in his pub-
lished despatches, had "augmented his voice", as says,

the whole thing would have gone off smoothly, and Louis Phil-
ippe would have said, "Let him roar again." But, begging your

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

243

pardon for passing so rapidly from Mozart to Bottom and his
bellowing, (those blackguards of Shakspeare are so taking, one
never loses sight of them). * *

We call it economy to send men abroad in places which they
cannot fill as they ought, without ruining their families, and
which they abandon as soon as they decently can, leaving all
their business unfinished, to be done by some successor, as inex-
perienced, as ready, and as much in a hurry to get home as his
predecessor. However, Jonathan's men, I find, are beginning to
pay him off in his own coin.

While I write this a flash of lightning, accompanied with quite
a respectable clap of thunder, reminds me it is spring, which I
might have forgotten from my chilliness. The truth is there is
no spring in Europe out of Italy and Greece. I hear it has been
horribly cold, bad weather for some weeks past, except a few
days.

17th May. Fine weather. Sore throat gone. I leave Brus-
sels to-morrow or the day after for Cologne and Bonn ; perhaps
I shall go up the Rhine as far as Heidelberg.

Ever affectionately, H. S. L.

The same to the same.

Aix-la-Chapelle, Aug. 24, 1S35.

My dear Mary, — Upon my arrival here yesterday, and re-
turning from a week's excursion on the Rhine, your letter" of
the 7th July was handed me, and afforded me very sincere plea-
sure. Your extract from the Baltimore paper, or something to
the same effect, I had seen before in the National Intelligencer,
very much to my surprise, and, I had almost said, mortification,
knowing, as I do, the source it comes from, (a detestable caitiff

at ) : so far am I from having my vanity tickled by it.

Yet, I confess I was glad to see the paragraph in the , and

for this singular reason : one of the most savage attacks ever
made on me, and the whole Southern Review, appeared in that
very paper, and, I dare say, written by the same person, in con-
sequence of some remarks of mine on *
How strange a creature is man, and how utterly good for no-
thing his praise or his blame.

The idea of reviving the Southern Review seems to me per-
fectly visionary. I would not do again what I did for it before
for any compensation. It has dimmed my eyes and whitened
my hair (at least, helped to do so) before my time, and I am no
longer capable of that sort of excitement, — besides various other
reasons.

Aug. 30. I add these lines just for the sake of mentioning

244 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

that it was this day, sixteen years ago, that I first visited this
old city, where I am returned from two hours spent in the ca-
thedral, listening — as I stood upon the tomb of Charlemagne, a
plain slab, inscribed simply "Carolo Magno" — to some very fine
music.

I have recovered all my good looks again, but, unfortunate
man that I am, woke this morning with another cold and in-
flammation of the chest. — a thing I am prodigiously liable to.
I wish for the complete re-establishment of my health, because
I humbly trust I am destined to be useful to man the rest of my
life. God bless you all. H. S.L.

The same to the same.

Brussels, Dec. 10, 1835.

My dear Mary, — I wrote you a letter from Paris, since which
time I have received one from you, informing me of the round-
about course one of mine of last June took.

I received a letter from Judge De S., on the subject of the
Southern Review, and have written him an answer, which he
will receive by the same packet with this. I have declined the
proposal, for, as you say, my tastes and habits are different.

The king and queen have been passing six weeks at Paris. I
have just returned from Court, where we had a grand diplomatic
dinner. I had a long conversation with her dear little majesty
after dinner, about the prospect of a war between France and
the United States, which we both, of course, deprecated very
much. Things look very squally at present, and some people
think the French want to have a fight with us. This may be
the fact as to some of their politicians, but I am sure the king is
decidedly opposed to a rupture, and, perhaps, will do all he can
to prevent one. In the meantime, we are looking for the Presi-
dent's message with no little solicitude. I rather think there will
be no war, and yet I prefer any sacrifice to that of the national
honor or even pride.

I am now lodging in a hotel, where I have a spacious and
comfortable apartment of four rooms, with a servant's bed-room,
and here I shall probably pass the winter. The carnival is very
short this year, and absolutely nothing goes on after Shrove
Tuesday. H.S.L.

Mr. Legare to his Sisters.

Bruxelles, March 24, 1833.
My dear Sisters, — I have adopted the plan of writing to you
both at the same time, that there may be no heart-breaking jea-

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 245

lousy between you about so important a matter as my attentions.

I told mama I should give you a more particular account of
what passed here during the French queen's visit to Brussels,
which took place about two weeks ago, and continued until last
Monday afternoon, when she left this city and arrived in Paris
in less than twenty-four hours, having travelled all night. I
have repeatedly mentioned how much I admire that great lady,
with whom I had the honor of dining at the pretty chateau of
Neuilly, near Paris, when I was there last summer. What I saw
of her, during her stay here, confirmed all those favorable impres-
sions. Her grace, dignity and affability, (condescension, it may
be, but there is no appearance of that,) are really irresistible, and
equalled only by her exemplary virtues as a wife and a mother, —
virtues which happen to shine forth the more brilliantly just at
this moment, in contrast with the public infamy of the Duchess
of Berry.

The queen arrived here, accompanied by her second daughter,
the Princess Marie, and two ladies of honour, under the protec-
tion (as we should say, of a private person) of her son and heir
apparent, the Duke of Orleans, — a well-looking young man of
some two-and-twenty years or thereabouts. The day after their
arrival was passed in the family circle, but, on Sunday, (the next
day,) there was a grand diplomatic dinner of fifty coyers at
Court, at which I had the honor of assisting, with the British
ambassador, (Sir Robert Adair,) the French, (the Count de La-
tour Maubourg,) and their Secretaries of Legation, all the Min-
isters of State, the Presidents of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives, some Generals, the Ladies of Honor of the two
Queens, Aides-de-Camp, etc., etc.; and last, but by no means
least, the Duke and Duchess d'Arenberg, who are decidedly at
the head of society here, and, indeed, are of an almost royal
house. As soon as all the guests were assembled in the salle de
reception, and after the Duchess of Arenberg, who had been pre-
sented in private audience in another saloon, returned, the royal
party made its appearance, — the Queen of France leaning upon
the arm of her son-in-law, King Leopold ; the Q,ueen of the
Belgians on that of her brother, the Duke of Orleans ; and the
Princess Marie accompanied by her Lady of Honor. The rest
of the party only saluted at entering, and stopped near the door,
but the Queen of the French went round the whole circle, be-
ginning, of course, with our noble selves, the representatives of
foreign nations, who, you know, are always at the head of every
ceremony, at least. The British ambassador was first presented.
She recognized in him an old acquaintance, (heaven knows how
far back,) and reminded him of the occasions on which they
met. Her own ambassador, who returned from Paris with her,
she soon dispatched. Then came my turn. She had seen me

246 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

not many months ago, — hoped I liked my situation, — asked after
Gen. Wool, (an officer sent out on some special errand by our
government last summer, who had been well received by the
Court of France, and had afterwards visited Brussels with me
when I first came here,) and so forth. In short, she addressed
something appropriate to every individual in the circle, except
the officers of the king's household, and all with that winning,
native grace so peculiar to a high-born and perfectly well-bred
French- woman, — (by-the-bye, she is an Italian, aunt of the
Queen of Spain, who has lately been doing such fine things, and
of the Duchess of Berry, who has been doing such naughty
ones). The Grand-Marshal then announced to their Majesties
that dinner was served. They led the way into the banqueting
hall (in the grand apartments, as they are called) as they had
come into the salle de reception, except that, this time, the Eng-
lish ambassador, as head of the diplomatic body, (by seniority,)
gave his arm to the Princess Mary. As I had the third choice,
I took the prettiest of our queen's' ladies, and, I think, the very
prettiest woman in all Belgium, although she has three children
married, — one a daughter, who looks almost as old as herself. I
was petrified with surprise when I found out the age of my fa-
vorite, whom I did not suspect of so many years almost by half.
But that discovery I had made long before this meeting, and I
chose her with my eyes open and very deliberately, for Sir G.
Hamilton and M. de Tallenay, secretaries of legation, were ar-
ranging it between them whom they should choose out of the
circle, — an ugly or stupid woman by one, at one of these inter-
minable French dinners, is such a bore, — when I told them they
need not think of her, for I had designs in that quarter myself.
The lady in question is the Baronne d'Hoogvorst. She was
dressed that day in very becoming style, and looked like a bloom-
ing wife of thirty, — in Europe, you know, that is not old.

At table, the fashion in Europe is not like yours, for the mas-
ter of the house to sit at one end, and the mistress at the other.
The place of honor is at the side and at the middle of the board.
When I dined at Neuilly the queen sat on one side, and the king
opposite to her on the other, but Leopold and Louise are inse-
parable, at least at dinner, — and, judging from their most amiable
characters and affectionate dispositions, I should suppose every
where else. The Grand Marshal of the palace, here, always
takes his place opposite to their Majesties. And so it was on
the occasion in question. On the right of the King sat the
Queen of the French, on her right the Queen of the Belgians,
next to her the Duke of Orleans, next the Duchess d'Arenberg,
next Count de Latour Maubourg, etc., etc. On the left of the
King was the Princess Marie, next the English ambassador, etc.
The Grand Marshal had on his right the Lady of Honor handed

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 247

in by the Duke d'Arenberg, on whose right sat the Duke him-
self; on the left was Madame d'Hoogvorst, and next to her your
humble servant, — so that I sat immediately opposite the Q,ueen
of the Belgians, whose sweet, modest face I am never tired of
looking upon. The dinner was served with the highest magni-
ficence of the Court, — the crowd of servants in waiting being
decked out in their most showy liveries, (scarlet and gold for
some, while others wore a more modest uniform, with swords at
their sides,) — and the table itself covered with gold and silver,
and, at the dessert, with Sevres china. — This last, which is the
most beautiful painted china, manufactured near Paris, at a cost
of 300 francs (sixty dollars) a plate, was a bridal present to the
queen from her father. A grand band of music played the most
fashionable and admired pieces of the great German and Italian
masters, at intervals during the dinner, — which, in all other
respects, went off just as Court dinners always do, with the
gravest decorum, — a conversation confined to two, — with no va-
riety except an occasional change from right to left, when one
or the other of your neighbors, as it happens, is run out of small
talk, and carried on, of course, in a sort of whisper. Certainly,
however, it must be confessed that a vast table, covered with so
much magnificence, and surrounded by ladies and gentlemen, —
the former sparkling with diamonds, the latter all in Court em-
broidery,— presents a very brilliant coup oVoeil. I was never
before so much struck with the effect of precious stones in a
lady's toilette, as with the richly-coloured beams of light that
glittered about the neck and head of the Duchess d'Arenberg, —
a very fine woman, about thirty-five, who was arrayed in more
than the glory of Solomon. The worst of a dinner at Court is
that, after having got through the tedious formalities of the re-
ception and the execution, (they endure a couple of hours or so,)
the whole company is marched back into the salle de reception,
where coffee is served with liqueurs, and there are sometimes
kept standing (for none but the ladies, who take their places at
the queen's round table after dinner, in the middle of the room,
are allowed to sit) sometimes for another hour, or hour and a
half. For me, whose habit is and always has been, if possible,
to stretch myself off at full length upon a sofa, or, at least, re-
cline quite at my ease after dinner, this part of my diplomatic
duties — aggravated, as it is, by being buttoned up close in a
uniform coat made last summer, when I was by no means in
such good case as I am now — is quite a serious task.

But I never suffered so much from it, as at a concert given at
Court two days after the dinner I speak of. All guests, invited
to a palace, but especially the members of the diplomatic corps,
are expected to be very punctual, — for, as Louis XVIII. is said
to have remarked, "Punctuality is the politeness of kings." We

248 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

were invited, then, to the said concert, at three-quarters past 7
o'clock, and what with the presentations, the slow progress of
the processions through a suite of half-a-dozen rooms, and the
musical performance itself, I was standing/owr mortal hours.
To be sure, 1 did not suffer alone, there being five or six hun-
dred people present. The ladies had seats on two rows of benches
at the two sides of a vast hall, leaving a space between for the
circulation of the gentlemen invited, the waiters with refresh-
ments, in short, every thing but air, — for altho' it was freezing
and snowing out of doors, our artificial atmosphere was so disa-
greeably heated that our little queen, in her delicate situation,
could not bear it, and had to leave us in the midst of our excru-
ciating delight at the various performance. The rest of the
party exhibited a very tender solicitude at this untoward event,
and went out with her, but soon after they all returned, except
the king, and even he after a delay of some time longer. I own
I was not overpowered by the music, though, to be sure, I had
heard most of the performers before. They were all very good,
but very well won't do at a concert, — a thing too stupid in itself
for any thing but remarkable and exciting talent to make agree-
able. There was a performer on the piano-forte of the name of
Field, who was very much puffed before he began, but oh lord !
how tired of his flourishes we were before he ended. I am no
very great judge in such matters, but he did not seem to me to
play at all better, Mary, than the little S****** at Washington.
Yet the king sent him his compliments with 1200 francs. Apro-
pos, I hear her mother is rather cracked, and one of the ladies of
the queen, Madame de Stassart, who met with her many years
ago at Paris, asked after her. And thus ends my long history
of the Queen of the French at Brussels. She is expected to
return here to be present at the accouchement of her daughter,
some time in June or July. Madame Adelaide, our queen's aunt,
and her pretty sister Clementine, are to visit us in a few days,
when, I suppose, I shall see something more of them all.

About a week before the grand dinner I have been speaking
of, I dined at Court, and being entitled to precedence over the
rest of the company present, I had the honor of sitting next to
her majesty (Queen Louise) at dinner. She speaks English very
well indeed, as do all her brothers and sisters, and, as the king
is perfect master of the language, they generally converse toge-
ther in that tongue. I had often exchanged a few sentences with
her before, but never kept up so long a conversation. I found
her very sensible, interesting herself very much in politics, and
well informed of what has been going on in America. She told
me she had read some excellent remarks on nullification in the
French journals, and asked me if I had seen any of those pieces.
1 told her I had, and was struck with their good sense, and,

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 249

especially with the good feeling with which they seemed to de-
plore the possibility of a disunion of the States, — an event fraught
with the ruin of the whole continent. I had seen it stated in
one of the newspapers that the Princess Bagration, — who passed
through Brussels about six months ago on her way to Paris,
where she now is, and, indeed, is said to be privily married to
a remarkably handsome and amiable young English officer of
my acquaintance, — had been ordered by the Czar Nicholas to
return to Russia immediately, upon pain of confiscation of all
her estate. I asked the queen if it could possibly be true. She
told me it was, — and that the motive assigned for it was that the
princess had dined at Court when she was here, — the King of
the Belgians not having, as yet, been recognized by the Russian
autocrat. I replied that I thought it a piece of despotism, at
once so barbarous and so unmanly, that I could not but doubt
its existence. Yes, said she, I suppose it must appear very re-
volting to you.

Upon the whole, as you may infer from this and some of my
more recent letters, Brussels has been very agreeable during the
winter. I gave, myself, a grand dinner to the diplomatic corps
and some of the ministers, but, although the English ladies were
all teazing me to let them dance in my fine house, as they said,
I would not go the ball. I did not feel well enough settled for
that, and then I hate to be put out next day. If I stay here next
winter I may, possibly, be more obliging, and, indeed, gratitude
would seem to require it, for nothing can be kinder than the
reception the English here, especially, have given me. Except
that they call me Legarry, instead of Legree, I could almost
fancy myself at home, — and, I assure you, although very much
accustomed to be petted in Charleston, as you know, I have no
reason to be at all dissatisfied with the place I hold here. Know-
ing the English as well as I do, — their pride, their whims, their
precision, etc., — I feel more complimented by their intercourse
with me, than by all the fine things their ambassador here has
been pleased to say of me. One of the gentlemen is always
telling me I ought to have gone or go as ambassador to London,
I should not break my heart if a certain great man, 3000 miles
off, were to take the same idea into his head. And, apropos of
this, the consul at Ostend, who is just returned from Washing-
ton, tells me I am in very good odor there, and may expect
promotion. This gentleman seemed delighted with me and my
establishment, except that there was no lady in it, though he
protested vehemently against my marrying any of "the quality
here", as he called it, when my own country boasts the most
beautiful and virtuous women in the world, (and so it does, un-
questionably). He told me, too, jocularly, that if I did not treat
him with great indulgence, as my subaltern, he would tell upon
vol. i. — 32

250 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

me, at Washington, how I was living like a lord, etc., though, he*
added, he believed the stingiest democrat of them would be proud
to know it.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the Charge. As I am
here, I should be pleased to be transferred to London or Paris,
and to spend a few years more, under such advantageous cir-
cumstances, in Europe, but only afeiv years, and solely with a
view to increased wisdom and usefulness. All, else, I know to
be nonsense. I think, too, my education and studies have given
me a decided advantage over the great majority of Americans,
and that I can do the country some service, and, may I add,
honor ? So, you see, patriotism makes me seek my own eleva-
tion, which, however paradoxical it may be, is the naked truth.

I embrace you both, my sisters, sincerely and tenderly.

H. S. L.

Mr. Legare to his Mother.

Brussels, 11th May, 1835.

My dear Mother ', — I returned yesterday from a short excur-
sion to Antwerp, of which I enclose you some memoranda,
thinking they might amuse you. Mary (to whom I wrote about
a fortnight ago) will, I dare say, take an interest in what I say
of the fine pictures I saw there, — though, I suppose, I gave her
a full account of them when I returned from the same city just
two years ago. If so, she may compare my two descriptions,
and amuse herself with the changes which time has, probably,
made in some of my opinions on such subjects, as on others yet
more important.

The change of air has done me wonderful good,— that is, it
has continued and, I hope, completed the effect of a course of
medicine I had gone through, to get rid of some bad humors in
my blood and bile, and prepare me to benefit by such an excur-
sion. I have been horribly dyspeptic for a long time past, with
symptoms, as I hinted to you before, of a certain malady of
sedentary persons, which has always alarmed me very much,
but not as much as I now think it ought. For a week after I
left Brussels these symptoms had totally disappeared, and my
stomach been restored to a tone of strength and health, such as
I have not experienced this many a long day. But, a day or
two before I left Antwerp, in consequence, I believe, of my hav-
ing been tempted by over-confidence in it, to eat vegetables and
acid things, — which I, in general, never touch at all, — I had a
short relapse. Abstinence the next day, and activity since, have
kept me very well for the two last days.

I returned to Brussels yesterday, and did intend to go on im-

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 251

mediately to Liege and Cologne, where I should have amused
myself for some fortnight or three weeks more, until I should
have been quite re-established. The truth is, I am exhausted
by intense, perpetual meditation in solitude, which sounds oddly
enough in the mouth of one of the corps diplomatique, in rather
a gay Court and city, but is nevertheless true. It is true I have
been, during the whole winter, dining out, going to the theatre,
where I had part of a box, and to balls and soirees, every eve-
ning; but then, these engagements left me the whole day, from
half-past 6 in the morning to half-past 5, and often till 7, perfectly
alone, — reading, writing and thinking perpetually, — even at my
meals, when at home, wrapt up in thought and actually occupied
with books. I have been taking a great deal of exercise during
the whole winter, and it has done me immense good, but still I
was never well ; scarcely a day passed that I was not, some time
or other in the course of it, more or less indisposed, — and, if I
deviated at any time from the strictest simplicity of diet, (which
I very seldom did,) I never failed to pay a heavy penalty for it
during the night or the next day. But I shall never have done,
if I go into details of this sort, which I trust are now become
mere matter of history.

You will have learned, from my last letter to Mary, that I
have asked leave, for better for worse, to return to America next
June, with the conditional permission of doing so in October,
if your letters require it. When I did so, I thought our differ-
ence with France about to be immediately adjusted, (as it might
easily have been,) but, within these few days, that matter has
assumed a different complexion, and I should not be surprised
if something serious came of it at last, by the strange manage-
ment of the parties concerned. In that event, I do not know
what the President will do.

God bless you all. H. S. L.

Mr. Legare to his Sister.

Spa, Midi 14 Aout, 1834.
The date of this letter, my dear Mary, reminds me that it was
this very month, fifteen years ago, that I first visited Spa, — a
younker, then, of 22-3, with a head full of imaginings, a few of
which have been since realized, but the greater part, of course,
gone to that limbo where, dit-on, all things lost on earth, that
are empty enough to fly upwards, are to be found. I am just
this moment arrived, and as it is too hot to go out, (for this sum-
mer has been warm enough to be called summer,) I feel inclined
to turn the first moments of my leisure here to account, — that is,
to an account of why and how I came here.

252 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Brussels, like other great cities, is deserted in the summer, —
that is to say, by some scores of people that call themselves every
body, — but this summer, especially, its desolation has been fright-
ful. This is owing to the deaths of some of those people whose
houses were points of general rendezvous to all one would wish
to meet ; such, especially, as the Prince Auguste d'Arenberg and
Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald. They remained in town all last
summer, and you know how much of my time was agreeably
passed in the society which these distinguished persons gathered
about them. Besides dining with the Prince once, twice, and
even three times a week, the corps diplomatique were generally
invited to dinner by the King on Thursdays, and not unfre-
quently on Tuesdays or Sundays besides. The consequence
was that, for many months, I literally lived in the most agree-
able manner with the most agreeable people, and consider my
social position at Brussels as having been as fortunate as it pos-
sibly could be, if fortunate it can be called, considering the sort
of people it has accustomed me to, and the sort of people it has
singularly estranged me from, — though not forever. Vons com-
'prenez.

I left Brussels on the 10th. Slept at a miserable village called
Wavre, but slept well, although I went to bed ?mwell, and not
without serious apprehensions, from my sensations in leaving
town and during the short journey of fifteen miles in the after-
noon, that I was going to be attacked furiously by the cholera,
native or imported. The next day, at 12, 1 arrived at Namur, —
for, I must here mention to you, that the great object of my ex-
cursion was to take the famous drive on the bank of the Meuse,
from that city to Liege, a distance of about forty-five miles,
which is as much vaunted as any equal extent of country in
Europe. I was in my own carriage, and, of course, did it all
very leisurely. Between Namur and Liege is a little town,
crammed in between the mountains, through which the Meuse
forces its way, and cut in two by this river, known, it seems, to
antiquity, and recorded by the Emperor Antoninus, now called
Huy or Hoey. Of this little rookery I made a stage. It is nearly
half way between the two cities just mentioned, and divides the
scenery into classes as well as parts : the upper is wilder and
more rugged, — the valley of the river being quite narrow, gen-
erally walled in by beetling and craggy cliffs of great height,
and only now and then running out into the country in a recess
spacious enough to admit a village, or giving the river two beds
instead of one, and filling up the interval between them with
islets of smooth meadow-ground. The road is MacAdamised,
and runs the whole way just upon the edge of the stream,
which, during the summer, is shallow enough to be fordable
every where, so that the boats that navigate it are pulled up by

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 253

horses that wade in the stream itself, instead of walking upon
the banks. This celebrated scenery sometimes recalled to me
the French Broad, which you have seen, — but it differs from it,
first in that the valley is uniformly wider, and so presents more
variety and soft contrasts, — and then that the banks are less bold
and striking as mountain cliffs. I enjoyed the evening at Huy
extremely. I arrived there just before sunset of a charming
evening, and saw, when I walked out, the last blushing tints of
day fade away in the west, while the crescent of the young
moon gradually brightened as they faded away, and, at length,
hung over the point of the mountains that shut up my prospect
on almost all sides, and looked, in its quiet softness and beauty,
like the eye of heaven itself, reminding man of its presence even
in the deepest and stillest solitudes. You will, I am sure, excuse
this flight, and all this attempt at description, when I tell you
that more than ever, now, I love and long for the repose of na-
ture, for which I was certainly formed, although it has been
hitherto my lot to enjoy it so little ; and, while I am writing to
you at my window, a very pretty girl, perched up at her's on the
opposite side of the court, occasionally casts down upon me a
glance of curiosity, which I could almost wish were one of ten-
derness. From Huy to Liege, the scene becomes more and more
cultivated and soft, and, of course, less like what you are accus-
tomed to.

At Liege, my taste for the picturesque brought me into the
greatest scrape of the kind I ever fell into. The town is built
on the Meuse, and runs up the side of a mountain. After hav-
ing visited the lower part of it, I determined, in the evening, to
take an excursion (on foot, mind you) into the upper, in order to
have a fine prospect. Accordingly, ignorant of the geography
of the coast and without chart or pilot, I set out at random, and
pursued the first street that led upwards. And I continued to
pursue it and pursue it, with indefatigable perseverance, although
half dead with heat and fatigue, until I saw a sort of alley
which came down a tremendous flight of steps. This seemed
to me to be just the thing for my design on the picturesque, and
so I shot into this lane by way of variety, mounted the steps,
and kept mounting, without being able to see any thing at all
but the ground under my feet and the sky over my head, for the
cursed lane was absolutely shut in on both sides by a wall, along
its whole length. At last, arrived at the very summit of the
mountain, I found that, by mounting up upon the inner wall,
where it became practicable, I could place myself so as to be
able to get an imperfect view of the valley, the city and the
heights in the distance. I returned dissatisfied and exhausted,
and consoling myself only with the reflection that the fatigue

254 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

was good for my health, and by drinking, to quench my burn-
ing thirst, half a bottle of Moselle wine, (mixed with cool water,
bien entendu,) almost as soon as it was possible to swallow it.

The cathedral of Liege is a beautiful building, — not by any
means so vast and imposing as that of Antwerp, but highly or-
namented, and having a striking air of neatness and elegance, —
epithets that seem not quite in character with such a structure,
and yet are applicable to it. There are some very fine pictures
in it. I was delighted, especially, with the Baptism, by Carlier.
The savage solitude of the place, — the naked form of the Bap-
tist,— the meek, downcast eyes and reverential posture of the
Saviour, — the expressive countenances of the deeply interested
spectators of the divine ceremony, — the descent of the dove upon
the head of "the beloved Son," — every thing is perfectly well
done. Another famous and able picture is the "St. Jerome and
the Uoctors of the Church"; and a third is St. Borromeo offer-
ing up the prayer by which the plague of Milan was arrested.
This latter is an admirable little picture. They were both car-
ried to Paris by the French, together with so many other master-
pieces, and have been restored since the peace. I am become, as
you perceive, quite an amateur of painting, and wish I were as
great a connoisseur.

The road from Liege hither is also MacAdamised, — a circum-
stance worth mentioning on the Continent, where the highways
are all paved, like the streets of their towns, with large stones,
jostling and stunning the traveller to his heart's content. This
unusual improvement is due to a Mr. Cockerell, an Englishman
established at Liege, who has done immense good to this whole
country by his enterprise. The road I speak of, during the
whole distance of nearly twenty-five miles, runs thro' a valley,
crossing and re-crossing a small stream twenty times. As you
have travelled over the Alleghanies, you can form a very just
idea of a valley, or, as they call it in North-Carolina, a gap
road : but what you cannot have any conception of is the plea-
sure I enjoyed during the whole of my progress through this
mountain solitude. You know I went to the upper country, four
years ago, in my own carriage, in the same way, with no other
company but my coachman. I was thinking all the way this
morning of Boatswain (the black servant I then had) and the
Blue Ridge, and wondering how long it would be before the
streams of the latter would turn so many mills, and its green
spots be adorned with such pretty country-seats and pleasure-
grounds. It is delightful to me to indulge in my love of nature
in her retired grandeur : I feel, in these still mountain regions,
as if I were in her presence-chamber. Manufactures, to be sure,
are a profanation : and here the Alleghanies, in their virgin

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE- 255

wildness, have the advantage of European mountains,— though
I remember how shocked I was when I saw that the famous fall
of Montmorency, near Quebec, had been turned into a mill-seat.

15th August. There is very little company at Spa, and that
little not much. I went to bed quietly at 10 last night, and at 6
this morning rose, and, after losing an hour and a half at my
toilette, got into my carriage and visited the Geronstere spring,
which is on the summit of one of the neighboring heights, and
very hard to be got at, except as people generally visit it, — on a
donkey. The sun beat on me unmercifully as I labored up the
steep, the top of my landaulette having been thrown open, — but
the delicious temperature which I found in the shady walks of
the Geroustere, and the fine prospect from it, fully indemnified
me for what I suffered. From the Geronstere, I crossed the
mountain, which is quite barren and covered with a wild dwarf
shrubbery, (bruyere,) to two other fountains, of which the wa-
ters are somewhat different, though all containing carbonic acid
and iron, and, therefore, good for indigestion in its ten thousand
infernal shapes. At the Groesbeck spring, I saw a person, appa-
rently about thirty-five years of age, whose complexion indicated
a bad liver, and whose malady is a perpetual vigil; he has, for
some time past, hardly slept half an hour a night ! Great God !
think of that. What an insupportable idea, a life which is all
one day ; and yet we tremble at death, without which we should
suffer the same thing, aggravated ten thousand fold. "Visiting
watering-places is a good course of moral study,— far more im-
pressive than Young's Night Thoughts or Hervey's Meditations.
The first time you feel disposed to be discontented and querru-
lous about things of no real consequence, go to the springs and
speak with the invalids there.

Louvain, 17th Aug., 1\ o'clock, P. M. Looking over what
I wrote at Spa, I have great scruples about sending you an ac-
count of my pleasures, which it will give you so much pain to
decipher. But I never copied what I wrote for the Southern
Review, — how should I copy a letter ? Besides, you will have
a specimen of the pen, ink and paper they use at the Hotel de
l'Orange at Spa, — and, generally, of the sort of discomforts, un-
der the name of pleasures, one is willing to exchange his own
home for, even when, like mine at Brussels, it combines every
thing necessary, or not necessary, to a life of the most perfect
epicurean ease and voluptuousness.

I arrived in this famous old town about two hours ago, and
expect to be at Brussels (eighteen miles off) to-morrow evening.
As soon as I had ordered dinner, I sallied out to see the Hotel
de Ville and the principal church. The former is a renowned
specimen of Gothic architecture, four hundred years old, and
deserves all its reputation. It is, without doubt, the most re-

256 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

markable monument of the sort I ever saw. But I shan't attempt
to describe it, as I mean that you shall see, sooner or later, an
engraving of it. At the church, I found them in the midst of
the evening service, and passed half an hour there, as I always
do in such a place at such an hour, with the deepest interest. I
am, as I always have been, in my heart or my imagination, I
don't exactly know which, more than half a Catholic ; and it is
positively no exaggeration to say that nothing in the world has
such attractions for me as that service, in the evening especially,
performed with good music and the pomp of some solemn occa-
sion. This evening there was a procession within the vast build-
ing itself, with wax-lights, a cohort of priests and acolytes, thun-
dering forth their Latin psalmody in concert with the peal of the
organ above, while all these sounds were nearly drowned in the
tolling of the mighty bells of the cathedral.

To return to Spa. While there, although remarkably well, I
was tempted to try the waters of the several fountains. I became
convinced of their virtues by their vicious effects on me. For a
couple of days afterwards, I felt precisely as one does after taking
a dose of laudanum. The first day my appetite was voracious,
though quite healthy, — the second and third it was still great,
but morbid, attended with an occasional feeling of disgust. I
am now quite restored, and am in most excellent condition. I
am satisfied that, with all necessary prudence in taking them,
their efficacy must be very great ; and I shall certainly pass
some weeks there next summer. There can be no doubt, how
ever, that the effects of the water are wonderfully increased by
the manner of living at Spa, — breathing the air of the mountains
at six o'clock in the morning, walking, riding and driving many
miles a day, banishing all care, going to bed early, etc., etc. How
strange it is to meet people there whom one has seen in the midst
of Courts and capitals, with all their trumpery and constraint,
negligently dressed, mounted on donkeys, talking with the first
comer, without distinction of persons, and acknowledging them-
selves happier and healthier, both in body and mind, than in
those envied (but not enviable) circles where it is the silly ambi-
tion of mankind to shine ! Watering-places are a sort of con-
fessionals or shrines, set apart by nature, to which pilgrims of
all nations resort to renounce, for a moment, the lying vanities
of the world, and get absolution for sins and errors they are sure
to return to as soon as opportunity presents. Of these pilgrims
by far the greater portion (at least, of any one nation) are Eng-
lish. It is inconceivable what multitudes of them are swarming
over the whole face of this country, paying twice and thrice as
much as they ought for every thing they stand in need of. * *

H. S. L.

ORATION.

An Oration, delivered on the Fourth of July, 1823, before the '76 Association ;
and published at their request. Charleston. A. E. Miller. 1823.

Cicero begins a celebrated oration by congratulating himself
upon the felicity of his subject — in the discussion of which he
thought that an orator, were he never so feeble or unpractised,
could not fail to be more embarrassed with the choice, than the
invention of his topics, and to carry along with him the entire
sympathy of his audience. For the occasion required him to
dwell upon the virtues and achievements of the great Pompey —
a man, who had been, from his earliest youth, identified with the
glory of his country — who had transcended and eclipsed the
recorded honours of her Scipios and Metellus' — and, under whose
auspices, "victory flew with her eagles" from Lusitania to Cau-
casus and the Euphrates. But what would not the genius of the
Roman orator, who found so much scope for the amplifications
of his unrivalled eloquence, in the events of a single life, and
the glory of a few campaigns, have made of a subject — so in-
teresting in itself — so peculiarly affecting, and so dear to his
auditors — so fertile, so various, so inspiring — as that to which
he who now addresses you will have been indebted, for what-
ever of interest, or of attention it may be his good fortune to
awaken ? What were the exploits of a single individual, to the
efforts of a whole people — heated with all the enthusiasm of a
mighty contest, and rushing into the battles of Liberty, under
the impulses of a patriotism, the most heroic and self-devoting?
What were the victories of Pompey — to the united achievements
of our Washingtons and Montgomerys and Greens — our Frank-
lins and Jeffersons and Adams' and Laurens' — of the Senate of
Sages, whose wisdom conducted — of the band of warriors, whose
valour accomplished — of the "noble army of martyrs", whose
blood sealed and consecrated the Revolution of '76? What
were the events of a few campaigns — however brilliant and
successful — in the wars of Italy, or Spain, or Pontus — to by
far the greatest era — excepting, perhaps, the Reformation—that
has occurred in the political history of modern times — to an era
that has fixed forever the destinies of a whole quarter of the
globe, with the numbers without number that are soon to in-
habit it — and has already had, as it will probably continue to
vol. i.— 33

258 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

have, a visible influence upon the condition of society in all the
rest? Nay — shall I be accused of extravagance, if going still
further 1 ask, what is there even in the most illustrious series of
victories and conquests, that can justly be considered as afford-
ing, to a mind that dares to make a philosophic estimate of human
affairs, a nobler and more interesting subject of contemplation
and discourse, than the causes which led to the foundation of
this mighty empire — than the wonderful and almost incredible
history of what it has since done and is already grown to — than
the scene of unmingled prosperity and happiness that is opening
and spreading all around us - than the prospect as dazzling as it
is vast, that lies before us — the uncircumscribed career of ag-
grandizement and improvement which we are beginning to run
under such happy auspices and with the advantage of having
started at a point where it were well for the species had it been
the lot of many nations even to have ended theirs.

It is true, we shall not boast to day that the pomp of triumph
has three hundred times ascended the steps of our capitol — or
that the national temple upon its brow blazes in the spoils of a
thousand cities. True, we do not send forth our praetors to
plunder and devastate the most fertile and beautiful portions of
the earth, in order that a haughty aristocracy may be enriched
with booty, or a worthless populace be supplied with bread —
nor in every region under the sun, from the foot of the Gram-
pian hills, to the land of frankincense and myrrh, is the spirit of
man broken and debased by us beneath the iron yoke of a mili-
tary domination. No, my friends ! This is, indeed, what the
world calls glory — but let us be glad that we are not come here
to boast of such things. Our triumphs are the triumphs of
reason — of happiness — of human nature. Our rejoicings are
greeted with the most cordial sympathy of the cosmopolite and
the philanthrophist : and the good and the wise all round the
globe give us back the echo of our acclamations. It is the
singular fortune — or I should rather say — it is the proud dis-
tinction of Americans — it is what we are now met to return
thanks for and to exult in — that in the race of moral improve-
ment, which society has been every where running for some
centuries past, we have outstripped every competitor and have
carried our institutions, in the sober certainty of waking bliss, to
a higher pitch of perfection than ever warmed the dreams of
enthusiasm or the speculations of the theorist. It is that a whole
continent has been set apart, as if it were holy ground, for the
cultivation of pure truth — for the pursuit of happiness upon
rational principles, and, in the way that is most agreeable to
nature — for the development of all the sensibilities, and ca-
pacities, and powers of the human mind, without any artificial
restraint or bias, in the broad daylight of modern science and

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 259

political liberty. It is that, over the whole extent of this gigan-
tic empire — stretching as it does from the St. Croix to the Sabine,
and from the waters of the Atlantic almost to those of the Pa-
cific— wherever man is found, he is seen to walk abroad in all
the dignity of his nature — with none to intimidate, or to insult,
or to oppress him — with no superior upon this earth that does
not deserve to be so — and that, in the proud consciousness of his
privileges, his soul is filled with the most noble apprehensions,
and his aspirations lifted up to the most exalted objects, and his
efforts animated and encouraged in the pursuit of whatever has
a tendency to bless and adorn his existence. This is the boast
we make — this is the theme of the day we are celebrating — and
do any of you envy the feelings of the man — who denies that
the one is as rational and just, as the other is noble and trans-
porting I

It has been usual on this occasion — as nothing, certainly, can
be more appropriate and natural — to expatiate upon the events
of the revolutionary contest, and to honour, in a suitable strain of
panegyric, such of the founders of the Republic as were supposed
to have rendered it the most important services, at a crisis so full
of peril and glory. But as these topics, however interesting in
themselves, and eminently well fitted for the purposes of popular
declamation, are become so trite that it would be difficult, by any
art of composition, to bestow upon them the graces of novelty, I
have chosen rather to exhibit some of the general features — the
great leading characteristics — by which, I conceive that memo-
rable event to be distinguished from all others of a similar kind,
that are recorded in the annals of empire.

The first of these peculiarities which I shall notice, is, that
the Revolution was altogether the toork of principle.

Whoever is anywise conversant with political history knows
that such has always been the blind infatuation, the supine
carelessness, or the abject servility of mankind, that not only
have they submitted with patience to the grossest abuses and
misrule, but that they have seldom been roused up to resistance,
except by a long course of positive suffering — or by events that
powerfully affect the se?ises and fill the bosom, even of the most
indifferent spectator, with indignation and horror. The expul-
sion of the Tarquins — the overthrow of the Decemvirs — the
repeated secessions of the people to the sacred mount — with
many other incidents of a like kind, are familiar examples of
this truth. A romantic tradition ascribes to a similar cause the
origin of Helvetic liberty. The despotism of Philip II. would
never have been resisted and shaken, nor Holland emerged, in
the glory and greatness of freedom, out of that obscurity to
which nature seemed so studiously to have condemned her, had
it not been for the infernal atrocities of Alva, and the martyr-

260 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

dom of Eg mont and Horn — and even the Revolution of :8S,
which seems, in this respect, to approach nearest to our own —
not to mention that it grew out of the heats of religious and
even a bigoted and fanatic zeal, rather than the love of civil
liberty — was not etfected until a whole century had passed
away in strife, and persecution, and cruelty, and woe — until
kindred hosts had been arrayed against each other in many a
iield of blood — until Algernon Sidney had died like a felon
by the hands of the executioner ; until, in short, the daring
though feeble attempt of the second James had left his subjects
no alternative, but to rid themselves at once of the predestinated
and incurable perverseness of a race, that had neither learned
nor forgotten any thing, even under the discipline of adversity
and exile. But, in accounting for our declaration of indepen-
dence, it is quite hyperbolical to speak — as it has been too com-
mon to do — of the tyranny of the mother country, and the evils
under which the Colonies laboured, as too grievous to be en-
dured. They were, indeed, intolerable — but only to such men
as our lathers. There was, it must be confessed, good cause for
resistance — but it may be affirmed with confidence that no other
people upon earth would have rebelled for such a cause. There
was nothing in their situation to excite the passions of vulgar
men. There was none of the atrocities by which other nations
have been goaded into the fury of civil war — no royal outrages —
no patrician insolence— no religious persecution — no bloody pro-
scription of the wise and the brave. Even the right of taxation
against which they were contending was a prospective and con-
tingent evil, rather than an actual grievance, and nothing can
be more just than the quaint metaphor of Burke, that "they
augured misgovernment at a distance, and snuffed tyranny in
every tainted gale." The first intelligence of the stamp act,
threw the whole country at the same instant into a flame : it
was even then in a state of open rebellion. The encroachments
of the ministry were resisted at the very threshold, and the mo-
ment the Colonies became conscious of the yoke, they shook it
off. One spirit, one mind, pervaded and animated the whole
mass. They argued — refined — distinguished — explained, with
all the learned ingenuity ol the schools. But if they reasoned
about their rights with the subtlety of doctors — they were pre-
pared to maintain them with the constancy of martyrs, and, for
the first time in the history of civil society, a metaphysical dis-
pute resulted in the creation of a great empire.

This fact, sufficiently remarkable for its singularity, assumes
a still more important aspect, when viewed, as it ought to be in
connection with the progress of society, with the causes that ac-
count for it, and with some inferences and anticipations which
it seems naturally to suggest. Undoubtedly, the situation of the

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 261

Colonies, at such an immense distance from the centre of the
British Empire, must have weakened every sort of attraction by
which they were held to it— and the peculiar character, too, of
the first settlers will conduce very much to the solution of this
curious problem. They were of all men the most sensitive and
the best informed upon the subject of their rights and liberties.
They were the devoted Huguenots, who, after having extorted
by their valor in the field, with Bourbon and Coligni, with
Rohan and Soubise, a short interval of repose from persecution,
had at length abjured forever their beautiful native land — the
soft and delicious banks of the Loire, where industry made
them rich, virtuous, happy — not, as other adventurers con-
strained by poverty and embarrassments at home to seek their
fortunes on a distant shore — not to search for gold and silver
mines, nor to overrun vast regions and cement, with the blood
of exterminated nations, the dominion of some potentate ambi-
tious of reigning over a waste at the distance of five thousand
miles from his capital — but to plunge into the depths of an un-
trodden wilderness, covered with swamps, breathing pestilence,
yielding the bare necessaries of life only to the swTeat of labor —
because in its dreary solitudes they could commune with their
God ! — because, amidst its savage desolation, they could pour out
the feelings of gratitude and adoration with which their hearts
were filled and which they could not utter in the country of
Fenelon and Pascal, without being hunted down like wild
beasts ! They were the austere and gloomy Puritans of Eng-
land— the stern and fanatic followers of Pym and Hollis and
Hampden — who had been republicans even in Europe, and had
quitted Europe because it was unworthy of a Republic — those
men to whom, according to the very probable opinion of the
historian Hume, England herself is altogether indebted for what
has made her, in these Intter ages, the wonder of the world — the
democratic part of her constitution. It was these heroes and
tried champions of religious liberty — who looked upon the riches
and honors of this world as dust and ashes in comparison of the
principles upon which they built their steadfast faith — who not
only loved liberty as something desirable in itself and essential
to the dignity of human nature, but regarded it as a solemn duty,
to free themselves from every species of restraint that was in-
compatible with the fullest rights of conscience— who, possessing
all that devotedness and elevation of character, so natural to minds
nursed in the habitual contemplation of such subjects and penetra-
ted with their majesty and importance, had learned in the sublime
language of Racine, "to fear God, and to know no other fear" —
it was such men as these, together with the unfortunate, the per-
secuted, the adventurous, the bold, the aspiring of all climes and
conditions, congregated and confounded in one vast asylum, and

262 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

exercised, by the hardships incident to the colonization of a new
country, with a sort of Spartan discipline — that laid the founda-
tion of those flourishing commonwealths, whose first united
efforts are the subject of this commemoration. Is it wonderful
that a nation, composed of such elements and accustomed, too, to
go on from one reform of abuses to another (for it is very im-
portant to observe that the whole history of the colonies is a
history of successive revolutions in their municipal government
and administration, and it is only by a figure of speech that we
confine that term exclusively to the declaration of independence)
should have shown themselves, at once, so sensitive and so de-
termined, in a contest in which their rights were so seriously
concerned ?

But, although the situation of the country and the peculiar
character of the people, go very far to explain the phenomenon
I have noticed, it might be shewn — if either the limits to which
1 am confined, or the nature of this address, would permit me to
enter into one of the most curious speculations in the history of
the human mind — that it is not unconnected with causes of a
more general nature — that a most surprising revolution has taken
place in the whole structure of society — and that nothing, there-
fore, can be more superficial than to reason from what are called
the analogies of former republics to the condition and prospects
of our own. It is, of course, difficult to convey an adequate idea
of so complicated a subject in a single hint — but I cannot refrain
from observing, that the difference seems chiefly to consist in the
habits of abstraction and reflection which have prevailed so much
more for a century or two past, than they ever did at any former
period, and in the consequent attachment to principles and laws,
as if they were something tangible and personified — just as, in
religion, the worship of images, of sensible representations of the
Deity, which is of the very essence of the mythologies of early
ages and the faith of simple minds, is utterly rejected by the
more severe and spiritual, but not less rapturous devotion of a
more philosophic era.

But another most fortunate and striking peculiarity of the Re-
volution we are celebrating is that it occurred in a New World.

The importance that ought to be attached to this circumstance
will be obvious to every one who will reflect, for a moment, upon
the miracles which are exhibiting in the settlement of this coun-
try and the increase of its population. Behold how the pomoe-
rium of the republic advances in the wilderness of the West !
See how empires are starting up into being, in periods of time,
shorter even than the interval between infancy and manhood in
the span allotted to the individuals that compose them ! Con-
template the peaceful triumphs of industry — the rapid progress
of cultivation — the diffusion of knowledge — the growth of popu-

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 263

lous cities, with all the arts that embellish life, and soften while
they exalt the character of man — and think of the countless
multitudes that are springing up to inherit these blessings ! The
three millions by whom our independence was achieved, less than
half a century ago, are already grown to ten., which in the course
of another half century will have swelled up to fifty ; and so on,
with a continually accelerated progress, until, at no distant day,
the language of Milion shall be spoken from shore to shore,
over the vastest portion of the earth's surface that was ever in-
habited by a race worthy of speaking a language consecrated to
Liberty.

Now — to feel how deep an interest this circumstance is fitted
to throw into the story of the Revolution — let us imagine a spec-
tator of the battle of Bunker's Hill— or let us rather suppose an
(ic/or, in that greatest and proudest of days, to have turned his
thoughts upon the future, which we see present and realized.
Would he not, think ye, have trembled at the awful responsibi-
lity of his situation? Would he not have been overwhelmed
with the unbounded anticipation ? It depends upon his courage
and conduct, and upon the strength of his right arm, whether,
not his descendants only not some small tract of country about
his own fireside — not Massachusetts alone— No ! nor all that
shall inherit it in the ages that arc to come — shall be governed
by satraps and viceroys, or as reason and nature dictate that they
should be — but whether, a republic, embracing upwards of
twenty distinct and great empires, shall exist or not — whether a
host, worthy to combat and to conquer with Jackson, shall issue
from the yet unviolatcd forests of Kentucky and Tennessee, to
spurn from New-Orleans the very foe, whose vengeance he now
dares, for the first time, to encounter in the field, when that foe
shall be crowned with yet prouder laurels, and shall come in
more terrible might — whether the banks of the great lakes shall
echo to the accents of liberty, and the Missouri and the Missis-
sippi roll through the inheritance of freemen !

But there is yet another point of view, in which the circum-
stance of the Revolution occurring in a new country cannot
fail to strike you as peculiarly important. It gave our fathers,
who were great reformers, an opportunity of purifying the foun-
tains of society — of forming the character and controlling, in
some degree, and directing the destinies of the infant common-
wealth, by such principles as philosophy and experience had
shewn to be best, although they had no where else been fully
admitted in practice. They had no inveterate prejudices to en-
counter here — there was no inheritance of abuses come down
from remote ages — they were no grievances established by cus-
tom— no corruptions sanctified by their antiquity. They were
not afraid to correct a defect in one part, lest it should derange

264 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

every thing that was connected with it — to administer a mild
and salutary remedy, lest the constitution should sink under
it — to remove a superflous buttress, or unseemly scaffolding,
lest the whole edifice should be loosened and convulsed to its
foundation. In a word, they adopted amendments in their poli-
tical institutions, just as they would have received improvements
in agriculture and the mechanical arts — and while they made no
change for the sake of change, and were remarkable for their
entire exemption from that perverse enthusiasm, which has de-
feated more than one effort to do good, by aiming to do too
much, they hesitated not to act upon many maxims of govern-
ment which had been regarded, until then, as altogether vision-
ary— to reduce to practice, as they have done with triumphant
success, many projects of amelioration, that had been classed, by
common consent, among the chimaeras and imaginations of spe-
culative minds. Thus, it had been taught, in almost every
school of political philosophy, that democracy could exist only
within a very narrow compass — and, but a few years before the
Declaration of independence, an illustrious writer* expresses a
doubt, whether a universal toleration of religions would ever be-
come the standing policy of a great empire. Now, what would
the simplest rustic in the United States say, if he were told that
grave and wise men had pronounced the state of society, in
which we have been living for fifty years, to be altogether imagi-
nary and impossible.

Voltaire remarks of the discoveries of Columbus that all
that was great and imposing in the eyes of men seemed to dis-
appear before this species of new creation. The remark is stri-
king, and might, I have sometimes thought, be applied to the
equally bold and successful adventures of our fathers in the sci-
ence of political society. The first voyage across the unex-
plored, and, as it was then thought, illimitable and shoreless deep,
was scarcely further removed from the ignoble coasting of the
iEgean Sea, than the formation of the constitution under which
we live was from all that senates and lawgivers had before done
in that kind — and it is, perhaps, not too fanciful to say, that the
discovery of America has in this, as in some other respects, en-
larged the boundaries of the moral world, as much as it did
those of the natural world.

It is owing, then, to these circumstances that we find our-
selves in a situation so novel and peculiar — so entirely unlike
any of the antiquated and corrupt systems of the old world — so
peaceful, so prosperous, so full of high hope, and unparalleled
progression, and triumphant success. It looks almost like a spe-
cial providence that this continent was not revealed to mankind
until Europe was highly enlightened. It was then peopled, not

* Adam Smith.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 265

by her outcasts (as the first settlers have been sometimes called)
but by men who were in more respects than one, the elect of
the earth — circumstances favoured them in their new abode —
every germ of excellence and improvement was fully developed
and expanded — all the vices and redundances and defects, pro-
duced, by accidental circumstances, in the institutions of older
countries, were corrected and removed — the human race began
a new career in a new universe, realizing the celebrated and
prophetic lines of Virgil's Pollio —

Novus ab integro soeclorum nascitur ordo, &c;

or, to borrow a most noble passage from one of the prose com-
positions of the first of poets and the first of men — the language
in which Milton himself has uttered a vision, inspired by his
own holy zeal for social improvement, and the liberties of man-
kind— "methinks I see in my mind — a noble and puissant nation,
rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking" her in-
vincible locks — methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her
mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-
day beam, purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the
fountain itself of heavenly radiance — while the whole noise of
timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twi-
light, flutter about amazed at what she means.

Such was that memorable epoch in the history of man, the
Declaration of American Independence — such were the triumphs
of the heroes and sages of '76 — such were the principles upon
which they acted — such was the inheritance they bequeathed to
us — such the example they set to the world. And, upon such
an occasion — while we are celebrating so great a jubilee of
national independence and happiness — should we — can we be
indifferent about the progress of those principles, and the influ-
ence of that venerable example? Can we look, without the
deepest concern, upon the extraordinary scene that is acting in
Europe? Can we witness, without the strongest feelings of
scorn and detestation, that conspiracy of a few insolent men
against the liberties and improvement of the whole species, the
Holy Alliance? And can we reflect, without shame and sor-
row, that those who conquered at Lodi and Marengo, are cower-
ing and submissive under such a yoke — and that the swords,
which have so often flashed in the blaze of battle, where empires
were at stake, and kings were pale with fear, now sleep in their
inglorious scabbards — and that the bosoms which, but yesterday,
beat high in the exultation of glory and conquest, are brooding
with impotent anguish and "wordless ire" over wrongs that
cannot awaken their courage — and oh ! can we think, without,
from the bottom of our hearts, imprecating discomfiture and
vol. i. — 34

260 I 1IARACTERISTICS OF THE

utter ruin upon those audacious usurpers, that au army of
Frenchmen has been marched over the Pyrennees — a slavish
instrument of dishonor and ruin — to blast there the very best
fruits which their own high example has yet produced — and
that a spirit, worthy of the ancient freedom ot Arragon and
the hereditary pride of Castile — that the spirit of that noble
people that dared to resist and to revenge, when these mighty
men were happy to fawn, and proud if they were not trampled
upon — that a spirit, of which the heroic elevation is equalled
only by its innocence and honesty — should, in the age in which
we live, be made the object of a crusade, a thousand times more
hateful and pernicious, than ever disgraced the ignorance and
fanaticism of the darkest times! And when is it that these
conspirators against mankind are pouring their myrmidons into
Spain ? At the very moment when they are pursuing, with
respect to Greece, a policy so totally — and, were it not an evi-
dence of reckless consistency in an evil scheme, I should add,
so astonishingly different — when they have been utterly deaf to
the voice of patriotism and valour — of kindred sympathies, and
a common religion, imploring their assistance from the heights
that look over Thermopylae — when they have renounced their
connection with the land of Homer andLvcuRGUs and Sopho-
cles and Plato — with the school to which modern genius is
indebted, for the elements of every art and every science — with
the great mother country of all freedom and civilization —
because, I suppose, she too is guilty of the inexpiable crime of
rebellion ! — that is to say, because she has, at length, risen
up as with the resuscitated might of Marathon and Salamis,
against the brutal barbarism by which she has been, for so many
ages, degraded and polluted and trodden under foot ! But ho-
nour to the valour of the free! Honour and glory to those who
dare to be men ! Greece has again done wonders, and Europe
will again be convulsed, until every throne in it, that is not
supported by the love of the people, shall be shaken down and
buried in the dust. They are greatly deceived — at least I fondly
think so — who imagine that the revolutionary spirit, as it is
called, has been quelled either by battle or strict league — either
at Waterloo, or Vienna. Despotism is, indeed, mighty at pre-
sent— mighty in its own resources — still more mighty, in what
gives strength to all usurpers, the fears and divisions and weak-
ness of the people. But it is at war with the eternal nature of
things, and its triumph cannot be enduring. Let it revel in the
drunkenness of its recent successes ! Let it soothe itself with
the calm that reigns for a moment ! It will soon find that there
is something ominous and fearful in it— that it is the pause of
the elements, when they are gathering strength and fury for

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 267

some sweeping desolation — the gloomy, portentous, appalling
stillness, that is wont to precede the terrors of the earthquake !

"Pond, impious men ! think ye yon sanguine cloud
Raised by your breath, hath quenched the orb of day?
To-morrow he repairs his golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray."

I have, already, trespassed so much upon your patience, that
F find myself constrained to omit, entirely, a topic upon which
1 should otherwise have insisted with peculiar satisfaction — and
which ought to be exhibited in the most striking lights to the
youth of this country, and to be impressed upon their minds,
and recommended to the enthusiasm of their hearts, by every va-
riety of argument and illustration — I mean. the fact that the
name of Republic is inscribed upon the most imperishable
monuments of the species, and the probability that it will con-
tinue to be associated, as it has been in all past ages, with what-
ever is heroic in character, and sublime in genius, and elegant
and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. It would not
have been difficult to prove that the base hirelings who, in this
age of legitimacy and downfall, have so industriously inculcated
a contrary doctrine, have been compelled to falsify history and
abuse reason. I might have "called up antiquity from the old
schools of Greece" to shew that these apostles of despotism
would have passed at Athens for barbarians and slaves. I
might have asked triumphantly, what land had even been vi-
sited with the influences of liberty, that did not flourish like the
Spring? What people had ever worshipped at her altars, with-
out kindling with a loftier spirit and putting forth more noble
energies ? Where she had ever acted, that her deeds had not
been heroic ? Where she had ever spoken, that her eloquence
had not been triumphant and sublime? It might have been
demonstrated that a state of society in which nothing is obtain-
ed by patronage — nothing is yielded to the accidents of birth
and fortune — where those who are already distinguished, must
exert themselves lest they be speedily eclipsed by their inferiors,
and these inferiors are, by every motive, stimulated to exert
themselves that they may become distinguished — and where,
the lists being open to the whole world, without any partiality
or exclusion, the champion who bears off the prize, must have
tasked his powers to the very uttermost, and proved himself the
first of a thousand competitors — is necessarily more favourable
to a bold, vigorous and manly way of thinking and acting, than
any other. I should have asked with Longinus — who but a
Republican could have spoken the philippics of Demosthenes?
and what has the patronage of despotism ever done to be com-
pared with the spontaneous productions of the Attic, the Roman
and the Tuscan muse ?

268 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

With respect to ourselves, who have been so systematically
vilified by British critics — if any answer were expected to be
given to their shallow and vulgar sophistry, and there was not a
sufficient practical refutation of it, in the undoubted success of
some of the artists and writers that are springing up in our own
times — we should be perfectly safe, in resting, upon the opera-
tion of general causes and the whole analogy of history, our an-
ticipation of the proudest success, in all the pursuits of a high
and honorable ambition. That living, as we do, in the midst of
a forest, we have been principally engaged in felling and im-
proving it — and that those arts, which suppose wealth and leisure
and a crowded population, are not yet so flourishing amongst us
as they will be in the course of a century or two, is so much a
matter of course, that instead of exciting wonder and disgust,
one is only surprised how it should even have attracted notice —
but the question, whether we are destitute of genius and sensi-
bility and loftiness of character, and all the aspirings that prompt
to illustrious achievements, and all the elements of national
greatness and glory, is quite a distinct thing — and we may ap-
peal, with confidence, to what we have done and to what we are,
to the Revolution we are this day celebrating, to the career we
have since run, to our recent exploits upon the flood and in the
field, to the skill of our diplomacy, to the comprehensive views
and undoubted abilities of our statesmen, to the virtues and
prosperity of our people, to the exhibition on every occasion of
all the talent called for by its exigencies and admitted by its na-
ture— nay, to the very hatred — the vehement and irrepressible
hatred, with which these revilers themselves have so abundantly
honored us — to shew that nothing can be more preposterous
than the contempt, with which they have sometimes affected to
speak .of. us.

And, were there no other argument, as there are many, to
prove that the character of the nation is altogether worthy of its
high destinies, would it not be enough to say that we live under
a form of government and in a state of society, to which the
world has never yet exhibited a parallel? Is it then nothing to
be free ? How many nations, in the whole annals of human
kind, have proved themselves worthy of being so ? Is it nothing
that we are Republicans? Were all men as enlightened, as
brave, as proud as they ought to be, would they suffer them-
selves to be insulted with any other title? Is it nothing, that so
many independent sovereignties should be held together in such
a confederacy as ours ? What does history teach us of the dif-
ficulty of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the
glory that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who enjoy
its advantages in so much perfection, and on so grand a scale I
For, can any thing be more striking and sublime, than the idea

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 269

of an imperial republic — spreading over an extent of terri-
tory, more immense than the empire of the Caesars, in the accu-
mulated conquests of a thousand years — without praefects or
proconsuls or publicans — founded in the maxims of common
sense — employing within itself no arms, but those of reason —
and known to its subjects only by the blessings it bestows or
perpetuates — yet, capable of directing, against a foreign foe, all
the energies of a military despotism — a Republic, in which men
are completely insignificant, and principles and laws exercise,
throughout its vast dominion, a peaceful and irresistible sway —
blending in one divine harmony such various habits and conflict-
ing opinions — and mingling in our institutions the light of phi-
losophy with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic
achievement and extended domination, and deep seated and for-
midable power !

To conclude : Our institutions have sprung up naturally in
the progress of society. They will flourish and decay with
those improvements of which they were the fruit — they will
grow with the growth of knowledge — they will strengthen with
the strength of reason — their influence will be extended by every
advance of true civilization — every thing that has a tendency to
make man wiser and better, will confirm and improve and adorn
them. If humanity was not endowed, in vain, with such noble
faculties, many ages of glory and freedom are before us — many
nations shall learn, from our example, how to be free and great.
The fortunes of the species, are thus, in some degree, identified
with those of the republic — and if our experiment fail, there
is no hope for man on this side of the grave.

And now, my friends ! Let us be proud that we are free — let
us exult in a distinction as singular as it is honorable. Our
country exhibits the last specimen of that form of government,
which has done so much for the dignity and happiness of man.
It stands alone — it is surrounded with ruins. In the language
of Byron — ■

The name of Commonwealth, is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe.

But, painful as is that reflection, we may be allowed to repeat,
with honest triumph, the lines which follow — to proclaim to the
world, that

"Still one great clime.
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion
Of freedom, which their fathers fought for and
Bequeathed — a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land-
Still one great clime, in full and free defence
Yet rears her crest — unconquered and sublime —
Above the far Atlantic."

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY.

Speech delivered before the Union and State Rights Party, July 4th. 1831.
Charleston. S. C.

Mr. Legar£ said he was obliged to the meeting for the op-
portunity offered him, according to an established usage, of say-
ing what he thought and felt upon the momentous occasion, (for
so it seemed to him) that had brought them together, and would
gladly avail himself of it to speak very much at length, were it
not physically impossible to make himself be heard in so vast an
assemblage. He thought it due to himself and to those who were
of the same way of thinking, that their sentiments should be
fairly and fully expressed — for he had no doubt that they were
such as would meet the hearty concurrence of a great majority
of the people of South-Carolina. He felt the less regret, how-
ever, at the self-denial he was obliged to practice, because the
able speech of the Orator of the day had maintained the doc-
trines which he (Mr. L.) professed, and for which, as the repre-
sentative of the people of Charleston, he had strenuously, and,
he flattered himself not unsuccessfully, contended in the Legis-
lature of the State during several successive sessions. These
doctrines they had heard expounded and enforced, that morning,
by a man and in a manner worthy of the proudest days of this
proud city, nor did he think that any one could have listened to
that discourse, without being the wiser and better for it.

It has been frequently thrown out of late, in the language of
complaint and censure, (said Mr. L.) and on a recent occasion,
very emphatically, by a gentleman for whom on every account,
I entertain the profoundest respect, that there is a certain party
among us, who seem much more intent upon "correcting the
errors of some of our Statesmen" (as they are said modestly to
express it) than upon putting their shoulders to the wheel along
with the rest of their fellow-citizens, in an honest and manly ef-
fort to relieve the State from the burdens under which it is
thought to be sinking — in plain English that their pretended
hostility to the tariff acts is all a sham. Sir, this would be a
severe rebuke, if it were deserved. I for one should be very
sorry to think that the part I am taking in the proceedings of this
day were open to that construction. God knows it was with
extreme reluctance that I made up my mind to take this step.

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY. 271

But what was I to do ? What alternative has been left us by
those who have the constructive majority of the State, that is to
say, the majority of the Legislature at their back ? They have
chosen to narrow down the whole controversy concerning the
American system to a single point. They have set up an issue
and demand a categorical expression of opinion upon the expe-
diency of immediately interposing the sovereign power of the
State, to prevent the execution of the tariff law. That is to
say, according to Mr. M'Duffie's reading, (the only sensible
reading) of that rather ambiguous phrase, to raise the standard
of the State, and to summon her subjects, by the allegiance
which they owe to her, to gather around it in order to resist a
law of Congress. Sir, if I do not misunderstand all that we
have recently heard from men in high places, (and if I do mis-
understand them, it is not because I have not most anxiously
and patiently examined whatever they have said and done) this,
and this alone, is the question now before us. In such a ques-
tion all minor considerations are swallowed up and lost. Upon
such a question, no man can, or ought to be — no man in the face
of a community, excited and divided as this, dare be neutral.
It is propounded to us, after the fashion of the old Roman Sen-
ate— you who think thus, go thither — you who are of any other
opinion stay here. The country calls upon every individual,
however humble he may be, to take his post in this mighty con-
flict. Sir, I obey that paramount command, and be it for weal
or be it for woe, be it for glory, or be it for shame, for life and for
death, here I am.

But, Sir, I repeat it, I should most deeply regret that what we
are now doing should be thought to give any countenance to any
part of the "American System." It is known, I believe, to every
body present, from various publications which have been long
before the community, that I think that system unconstitutional,
unjust and inexpedient. This opinion I did not take up hastily,
for with regard to the tariff, I, in common with every body else
in the State, once thought it within the competency of Congress.
But more mature inquiry has resulted in a change of my opinion
upon that subject, and although I dare not express myself so con-
fidently in respect to it as it is the habit of the times to do, I
must be permitted to say, that I am more and more strengthened
in that conviction by every day's experience and reflection. Sir,
if I had any doubt about the matter, the proceedings of this day
would be sufficient to dispel it. It is melancholy to think of the
change which has been made in the feelings and opinions of
some of the best and ablest men among us, by this pernicious
system — to reflect that alienation and distrust, nay, in some in-
stances, perhaps, that wrath and hostility now possess those bo-
soms which were but a few years ago warmed with the loftiest

272 SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY.

and the holiest enthusiasm for the government of their own and
their father's choice. The authors of this policy are indirectly
responsible for this deplorable state of things, and for all the con-
sequences that may grow out of it. They have been guilty of
an inexpiable offence against their country. They found us a
united, they have made us a distracted people. They found the
Union of these States an object of fervent love and religious ve-
neration; they have made even its utility a subject of contro-
versy among very enlightened men. They have brought us not
peace but a sword. It is owing to this policy that the govern-
ment has to bear the blame of whatever evils befall the people,
from natural or accidental causes — that whether our misfortunes
spring from the barrenness of the earth, or the inclemency of the
seasons, or the revolutions of commerce, or a defective system of
domestic and rural economy — or, in short, from any other source,
they are all indiscriminately imputed to the 'tariff. The decay
and desolation which are invading many parts of the lower
country — the fall in the price of our great staple commodity —
the comparative unproductiveness of slave labor — are confidently
declared to be the effects of this odious and tyrannical monopoly.
Sir, firmly convinced as I am that there is no sort of connection,
(or an exceedingly slight one) between these unquestionable facts
and the operation of the tariff law, yet I do not wonder at the
indignation which the imposition of such a burthen of taxation
has excited in our people in the present un prosperous state of
their affairs. I have sympathized and do sympathize with them
too deeply to rebuke them for their feelings, however improper I
deem it to be to act upon such feelings, as recklessly as some of
their leaders would have them do.

Sir, it is not only as a Southern man, that I protest against the
tariff law. The doctrine of Free Trade, is a great fundamen-
tal doctrine of civilization. The world must come to it at last,
if the visions of improvement in which we love to indulge are
ever to be realized. It has been justly remarked that most of the
wars which have for the last two centuries desolated Europe, and
stained the land and sea with blood, originated in the lust of colo-
nial empire, or commercial monopoly. — Great nations cannot be
held together under a united Government by any thing short
of despotic power, if any one part of a country is to be arrayed
against another in a perpetual scramble for privilege and protec-
tion, under any system of protection. They must fall to pieces,
and if the same blind selfishness and rapacity animate the frag-
ments which had occasioned the disunion of the whole, there
will be no end to the strife of conflicting interests. When you
add to the calamities of public wars and civil dissensions, the
crimes created by tyrannical revenue laws, and the bloody penal-
ties necessary to enforce them, the injustice done to many

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY. 273

branches of industry, to promote the success of others, the pau-
perism, the misery, the discontent, the despair, and the thousand
social disorders which such a violation of the laws of nature
never fails to engender, you will admit, I think, that the cause
of Free Trade is the great cause of human improvement. Sir,
I can never sufficiently deplore the infatuation which has brought
such a scourge upon this favored land — which has entailed, so to
speak, the curse of an original sin upon a new world, and upon
the continually multiplying millions that are to inhabit it. Most
heartily shall I co-operate in any measure, not revolutionary, to
do away with the system which has already become a fountain
of bitter waters to us — which threatens to become to another
generation a source of blood and tears — and I heartily rejoice at
the dawn of hope which has opened upon us in the proposed
Convention at Philadelphia. Not that I am sanguine as to the
immediate result of such a meeting ; but, if it be filled, as it
ought to be, with leading and enlightened men from all parts of
the country, which think as we do upon this great subject, it
will awaken the attention of the people, it will lead to general
discussion, it will give scope, if I may so express it, for the ope-
ration of those momentous truths on which we rely, and I can-
not, and will not despair of the Republic, as it came down to us
from the most venerable band of sages and heroes that ever laid
the foundation of a great empire, until I become satisfied by
much better evidence than any I have yet seen, that it is in vain
to appeal to the good sense and kindly feelings of the American
people. Meanwhile, to the measure which is now under consi-
deration, and which, by whatever name it may be called, is, in
my opinion, essentially revolutionary, I am, as I ever have been,
decidedly opposed. I regarded it, when it was first mentioned
in 1828, as an ill-omened and disastrous project — calculated to
divide us among ourselves, to alienate from us the minds of our
natural allies in such a struggle, the agricultural states in our
neighborhood, and to involve us in difficulties from which we
should not be able to retreat without dishonor, and in which we
could not persevere without inevitable and irretrievable ruin — I
might have been wrong, but I acted upon deep and solemn con-
viction, and I thank God, from the bottom of my heart, for being
permitted to indulge in the consoling persuasion, that my hum-
ble labors on that memorable occasion did contribute in some
degree to avert these calamities.

Sir, this is no occasion for going into a detailed analysis of
the doctrine of Nullification, a doctrine which, as taught in "the
Exposition," I undertake to say involves just as many paradoxes
and contradictions as there are topics relied on to maintain it —
but I cannot refrain from presenting a single view of it, which
is of itself entirely conclusive. You will observe, Mr. President,
vol. i. — 35

274 SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY.

that the difference, between us and the advocates of this doctrine,
is not as to the question how far a State is bound to acquiesce in
an unconstitutional act of Congress ; or (which is the same
thing) how far it has a right "to interpose to arrest the progress"
of such legislation. We admit this right in the most unquali-
fied manner; for, if the law be unconstitutional, it is no law at
all. So far there is no difference and can be no difference be-
tween us. The question is not as to the right, nor even as to
the remedy, but as to what shall ensue upon the exercise of the
right) or the application of the remedy. The advocates of Nul-
lification insist upon it, that the interference of the States in such
a case would be a peaceful act — we say it would be, even upon
their own showing, an act of war — a revolutionary measure — a
remedy derived from a source above all law, and an authority
which bows to no arbiter but the sword — and this is susceptible
of as rigorous demonstration as any point within the whole com-
pass of public law.

For the sake of argument, I concede all that the most extra-
vagant writers in our newspapers have ever assumed, and a
great deal more than the most able of them can prove — I will
grant that the government of. the United States is no government
at all — that it is not only a compact between independent States,
but that it is a compact of no peculiar solemnity or efficacy —
conveying no powers not usually granted by international trea-
ties, establishing no intimate relations between the different parts
of the country, not subjecting the citizen, in the least, to the
jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, not binding upon his consci-
ence, not imposing upon him the obligations of allegiance, not
making him liable in any case to the penalties of treason. I will
put the case as strongly as possible for the advocates of the doc-
trine. I will suppose that this constitution, of which we have
been boasting so much for near half a century, is found out to
be a league between foreign powers, and that every question that
can arise under it is, in the strictest sense of the word, a merely
political question. What then, Sir? Did you ever hear of one
party to a league having a right — not to judge for himself of its
meaning, mark the distinction — but — to bind the other party by
his judgment ? I admit that there is no common arbiter — that
each of the parties is to judge for himself — does that mean that
he shall judge for the others too? A compact between States is
as binding as a compact between individuals — it creates what is
called by text writers "a perfect obligation" — there is no doubt
but that a sovereignty is obliged before God and man scrupu-
lously to fulfil the conditions of its agreements. But sovereign-
ties with regard to each other are in a state of nature — they have
no common superior to enforce compliance with their covenants,
and if any difference arise as to their rights and liabilities under

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY. 275

them, what says the law of nature and nations ? Why what can
it say, but that each shall do as it pleases — or that force shall
decide the controversy? Is there any imaginable alternative be-
tween the law and the sword, between the judgment of some re-
gularly constituted umpire, chosen before hand by the common
consent of the contracting parties, and the ultima ratio regum?
Sir, we have been told that state sovereignty is and ought to be
governed by nothing but its own "feelings of honorable justice,"
— it comes up, in the declamation of the day, to the description
of that irascible, imperious and reckless hero, whose wrath and
the woes it brought upon his country are an admirable theme
for an epic or a tragic song, but would not, I suppose, be recom-
mended as the very highest of all possible examples in morality.

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,

Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis.

Yet strange to say, the very men, who paint to us the sovereign-
ty of the States in such colors, and would cavil about the ninth
part of a hair where their own rights and interests are concerned,
forget entirely that there are any other parties to the compact
but South-Carolina, or that those parties have any right to exer-
cise, or any interests to maintain ! "We have a right to judge
for ourselves," say they, "how far we are bound by the Constitu-
tion, or how far we shall comply with it." Grant it. But what
of the other twenty-three parties ? Are they bound by our de-
cision? Shall they not think for themselves, because we say
that an act, which they have all declared (or the great majority
of them) to be within the meaning of the treaty and binding
upon us, is not so? If our opinion is just we are not bound.
Admit it. But if their's is just we are bound. Now the whole
fallacy of the argument on the other side consists in coolly taking
for granted the very matter in dispute — in blotting out this if —
in denying to others the very right of judging which we claim
for ourselves — and in expecting them, exacting it of them, to act
upon our convictions instead of their own.

Sir, it may be that they will do so. Instances upon instances
have been laboriously compiled of late, by a writer in one of the
leading journals of the country, to show how often the Govern-
ment has been forced, right or wrong, to yield to the resistance
of the States. I shall say nothing of these examples — except that
so?ne of them have never been mentioned until recently but with
scorn and indignation. But I maintain that not one of them —
no, not one — goes to show that the other parties to the compact
might not, if they had been so minded, have rightfully insisted
upon enforcing their construction of the contract. I will only
remark, as to Georgia and the Cherokees, that as that State was
clearly right in her pretensions from first to last, so she main-

276 SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY.

tained her rights by open force, and made no scruple about pro-
fessing to do so.

Mr. President, the argument which I now advance is too
clear for controversy. It addresses itself to the common sense
of mankind, and the bare stating of it is sufficient to show how
incongruous and absurd the doctrine of the veto is, so far as it
rests upon general reasonings, and the law of nature — the only
law acknowledged by sovereigns. I3ut if any authority be
wanted to confirm it, then is abundance of it at hand. Look
into the writings of publicists — they are full of it. By the esta-
blished law of nations, each party construes a treaty for itself —
but then it allows the other to do the same, and, if the difference
between them be deemed important enough, that other has the
option either of rescinding the whole treaty, (in the case before
us, putting the State out of the Union) or making war to enforce
it. "If one of the allies fails in his engagements, (says Vattel,)
the other may constrain him to fulfil them ; this is the right de-
rived from a perfect promise. But, if he has no other way but
that of arms to constrain an ally to keep his word, it is some-
times more expedient to disengage himself from his promises
and break the treaty. He has undoubtedly a right to do this ;
having promised only on condition that his ally should accom-
plish, on his side, every thing he is obliged to perform. The
ally, offended or injured in what relates to the treaty, may then
choose either to oblige the perfidious ally to fulfil his engage-
ments, or declare the treaty broken by the violation of it." — Vatt.
Sec. 200. This civilian then proceeds to lay down the rule,
that the violation of one article of the treaty is a violation of the
whole. He admits that this ought not to be rashly done, and
says that the sovereign deeming himself agrieved "is permitted
to threaten the other to renounce the entire treaty — a menace
that may be lawfully put in execution, if it be despised. Such
is, doubtless, the conduct which prudence, moderation, the love
of peace and charity would commonly prescribe to nations.
Who will deny this, and madly advance that sovereigns are
allowed suddenly to have recourse to arms or wholly to break
every treaty of alliance for the least subject of complaint ?
But the case here is about a right, and not about the steps that
ought to be taken to obtain justice — besides, the principle upon
which such a [contrary] decision is founded, is absolutely unsup-
por table," &,c; and he goes on to demonstrate this more at large.
He quotes Grotius to show that the clause is sometimes inserted,
"that a violation of some one of the articles shall not break the
whole, in order that one of the parties should not get rid of the
engagement on account of a small offence." — /See Sec. 202.

Now it would be mere caviling to say that Vattel allows of
this appeal to arms only where the party that has recourse to

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY. 277

such measures is, in fact, injured : for the question recurs who
is to judge of that? Each party judges for itself at its peril,
and war alone can "arbitrate the event," or if a peaceful course
be preferred, the whole compact is at an end.

Shall I be told, in answer to this reasoning and the concurring
opinions of all publicists of respectability, that Mr. Madison and
Mr. Jefferson did not think so in '98? Sir, if they taught any
other doctrine, I leave it to those who have better understanding
than mine, to explain what they meant. But, if it be affirmed
that the purport of their resolutions was that, by the inherent
attribute of sovereignty, any single party to the Federal Com-
pact may interpose in order to prevent the execution of a law
passed by the rest, and that the others may not maintain their
construction of the constitution, either by coercing that single
State into acquiescence, or shutting her out of the Union al-
together, at their option, then I have no hesitation in declaring it,
as my opinion, that they advanced a proposition, inconsistent
with every principle of public law, without a shadow of founda-
tion in the Constitution of the United States, and utterly repug-
nant to the common sense of mankind. And what, if they did
advance such a paradox, so novel, so singular, so incomprehen-
sible? Are the opinions of two men — however respectable and
distinguished — speculative opinions, too, for neither Virginia nor
Kentucky made a case by acting upon these notions — are the ad-
venturous and speculative opinions of two individuals, conceived
and put forth in a time of great excitement, to settle the public
law of this country, every thing in our constitution, and our
books, and our common sense to the contrary, notwithstanding?
Why, sir, even under the feudal system — a scheme of organized
anarchy, if I may use the expression — the most that an injured
feudatory ever claimed, was the right to make war upon his
lord, who denied him justice, without incurring the penalties of
treason. But it was reserved for the nineteenth century to dis-
cover that great secret of international law and to deduce it, too,
by abstract reasoning, upon the fitness of things — a right of war
in one party out of twenty-four, whenever the mood prompts, or
doing what amounts to an act of war, accompanied by the duty
of implicit acquiescence in all the rest ! But the truth is, that
neither Mr. Jefferson nor Mr. Madison had any such wild and
chimerical conceits ; as, I think, perfectly demonstrable from the
very text cited to maintain the opposite opinion.

I have had occasion, frequently, to examine this subject, and
I speak with confidence upon it. And, assuredly, that confi-
dence is not diminished by the emphatic declaration of Mr.
Madison himself — by the contemporaneous exposition of the
resolutions in the Virginia Assembly — by the disavowal of the
doctrine by all the leading members of the democratic party,

278 SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY.

with Mr. Livingston at their head — and by the unfeigned sur-
prise which the whole country, Virginia and Kentucky included,
expressed upon the first propounding of this extraordinary pro-
position, in 1828. The Virginia resolutions talk of the right to
interpose — do they say what is to ensue upon the exercise of that
right? No, sir, they thought that intelligible enough — they
were asserting no more than what has been so expressively and
pointedly designated as the "right to fight," and they meant, if
they meant any thing, no more than a declaration of opinion, to
back their declarations by 100,000 militia, as I understand the
phrase of the day to have been. This is the plain English of
the matter — and one ground of objection to the "Carolina doc-
trine," as it has been called, (though I doubt, not very accurately,)
is that it is not in plain English — that the people may be led, by
a fatal deception, to do what they have never seriously contem-
plated, and what no people ought to do, without a solemn self-
examination, and a deliberate view to consequences.

Sir, we have heard of "nursery tales of raw heads and bloody
bones." 1 am sorry that such an expression escaped the lips of
the distinguished person who uttered it, and I lament still more
that he gave it to the world in print. I am sure when he comes
to re-consider, he cannot approve it — unless, indeed, he means to
declare that the rest of the States are too cowardly or too feeble
even to attempt to enforce their construction of the compact.
This may be so, but for my part, I cannot consent to act upon
such a calculation. If we do what we firmly believe it is our
duty to do, let us make up our minds to meet all consequences.
If there is any feature of the American Revolution more ad-
mirable than another, it is that our fathers had fully counted the
cost before they took a single step. The leaders of the people
were at great pains to inform them of the perils and privations
which they were about to encounter. They put them on their
guard against precipitate determinations. They impressed it
upon their minds that a period was at hand, which called for
"patience and heroic martyrdom" — they had not as yet a coun-
try to save, or a government worth to be transmitted to posterity,
or how much more anxious would their deliberations have been.
The language of a great, popular leader at Boston, before the
first overt act of resistance, has made a deep impression upon
my mind, and deserves to be repeated here. "It is not the spirit
that vapors within these walls, (said Mr. Q,uincy) that must stand
us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth events,
which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salva-
tion. Look to the end. Whoever supposes that shouts and
hosannas will terminate the trials of this day entertains a child-
ish fancy. We must be grossly ignorant of the importance and
the value of the prize we are contending for — we must be equal-

SPEECH BEFORE THE UNION PARTY. 279

ly ignorant of the power of those who are contending against
us — we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy, and insatiable
revenge which actuate our enemies, to hope we shall end this
controversy, without the sharpest conflicts — to flatter ourselves
that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations
and popular vapor will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the
issue. Let us weigh and consider before we advance to those
measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible
struggle this country ever saw."

To this complexion it must come at last, and the only ques-
tion now submitted to the people of South-Carolina, is — Are you
ready to absolve yourselves from your allegiance to the Govern-
ment of the United States, and to take and maintain your station
as a separate commonwealth among the nations of the earth ?

I have confined myself, in the discussion of this subject, to a
single point in one branch of it. I have said nothing- about the
extent of our grievances, so enormously exaggerated by the
"Exposition." Even in regard to the proposed remedy by Nulli-
fication, I have chosen to take up the question as it is presented
by the warmest advocates of that doctrine — and I submit that I
have made it plain that, even on their own showing, it is neces-
sarily an act of war — a revolutionary measure. But, in doing
so, I have conceded a great deal too much — I have allowed them
to treat our elaborate and peculiar polity, which we have been
taught to regard as one of the master-pieces of human inven-
tion— as if it were the coarsest and loosest of those occasional
expedients to preserve peace among foreign powers, leagues, of-
fensive and defensive. If their argument is wholly inconclusive
and indeed manifestly incongruous and absurd even in this point
of view, what shall be said of it, when it is thoroughly and cri-
tically examined with reference to a true state of the case ? Sir,
I have no language to express my astonishment that such a doc-
trine should have found any countenance from the able and en-
lightened men who have given in their adhesion to it.

We have been taunted as submissionists — I am not afraid of
a nickname — "Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted
devil." It would be easy — very, very easy to retort — but I pre-
fer accepting our own denomination and putting my own inter-
pretation upon it. I give you, Sir,

The Submission-men of South- Carolina —

"They dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more, is none."

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

Speech on the Bill imposing additional Duties as Depositaries, in eertain eases
on public Officers, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United
States, October, 1837. Washington, D. C.

Mr. Chairman :

I do not know how I can more appropriately begin the re-
marks I am about to make, than in the very words with which
a most able English writer, addressing himself to the causes
and character of the recent crisis, concludes his : "The events,
(says Mr. Samuel Jones Lloyd, in a pamphlet published last
spring,) which have occurred in connection with the late pres-
sure upon the moneyed and mercantile interests, are full of
instructive illustrations of the effects, both beneficial and other-
wise, of our present system ; and the evil consequences of this
pressure will be as nothing, compared with its benefits ; if,
amongst these, we shall be enabled to reckon an increased de-
gree of intelligence upon subjects connected with currency, and
a nearer approximation to sound principles in the management
of our paper issues." The revulsion, it is true, has been far
more disastrous on this side of the Atlantic than in England ;
and yet, even at its darkest period — now, as I confidently believe,
passed away to give place to returning prosperity, — I found con-
solation in the idea that, dearly as we were buying our expe-
rience in this important matter, the price would not be too high
for the benefits we should ultimately derive from our reverses.
A national visitation ought to be considered as a great providen-
tial lesson. It teaches the most momentous truths, and it teaches
them in the most impressive manner, and what we have recently
seen and felt will dispose us — if any thing can dispose us — to
look the difficulties, with which this subject is surrounded, fairly
in the face.

Sir, it is surrounded with difficulties. Even in England, as
you perceive from the citation 1 have just made, they are felt
and acknowledged by the most able men. I have upon my desk
many other proofs of the same fact. They abound, for instance,
in the Minutes of Evidence, taken before the Committee of the
House of Commons, on the renewal of the charter of the Bank
of England, in 1832* You will find there that, while high au-

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 281

Ihorities* agree in thinking that there should be but one bank of
issue for the Capital, at least, if not for the whole country ; the
representatives of the great commercial and manufacturing inte-
rests, ou the contrary, protest against the continuance of a mo
nopoly to which they impute the most sinister influences over
their immense business,t and demand a system of joint-stock
banks, regulated by principles more agreeable, as they contend,
to the course and policy of trade. A third party insists upon
the necessity of compelling all banks of issue to give adequate
security to the public, (in Government stock, &c.) for the re-
demption of their issues,! while every stockholder or partner
shall continue to be, as at present, responsible for all the debts
of the company, to the whole amount of his private fortune. A
fourth, (and I have just received from London a little volume
in which that opinion is most plausibly maintained,) urges the
most unlimited freedom in banking ; and sees no more danger
to society from perfect liberty in this, than in any other branch
of business, — the supplying, for example, the market of a great
capital with the necessaries of life. § In this perplexity and dis-
traction of English opinion upon this subject, however, all parties
agree in one thing, and that is, in adhering to the paper sys-
tem. Nobody there thinks of any thing so extravagant as the
overthrow of that system, whatever defects may be seen or sup-
posed to exist in it, or whatever projects may have been imagined
to purify, to correct, and to improve it.

But if such is the state of English opinion in regard to this
subject, how must it be with us, when to all the intrinsic diffi-
culties of the thing itself, we add those arising out of the com-
plicated structure of our political institutions? It would be
hard enough to say what ought to be done, in the present emer-
gency, were this a simple consolidated Government, but how
much harder is it to advise the administration of a federal
Government as to the course it ought to pursue, where one hap-
pens to doubt its possessing all the power necessary to give
complete relief, without a co-operation of others ? For, sir, at
the risk of being set down in that category of "tiny politicians"
of whom the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. W. Cost Johnson,)
in a very amusing speech, in the course of which, however, he

* Messrs. Horsley Palmer, Tooke, Rothschild, &c.

t Messrs. Burt, Smith, and Dyer, of Manchester. It is worthy of remark, that
these remonstrances were admitted to be well-founded by the change which, in
consequence of them, was made in the law, in reference to joint-stock banks be-
yond 65 miles from London.

X Messrs. Ricardo, Maccullough, Norton, (the last in Minutes, &c. just cited).

§ Money and its Vicissitudes in Value, by the author of the Rationale of Po-
litical Representation, and Critical Dissertation on Value, &c. (Mr. Francis
Bailey.)

vol. i. — 36

282 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

uttered some grave and important truths, spoke last night with
such profound contempt, I must confess I agree with the Execu-
tive in the general principles of constitutional law involved in
the Message. In the division of the attributes of sovereignty
between this Government and the States, it may and must hap-
pen that we should experience sometimes a chasm, and some-
times a conflict of powers. More is taken from the States,
perhaps, than has been given to the confederacy, neither can do
enough, while each can do too much, for perfect harmony ; de-
fects, discrepancies, and contradictions exist in the scheme itself,
detected only in a long course of practice ; and which nothing
but practical skill, the wisdom called forth in the management
of great affairs, especially political affairs, can reconcile and
rectify. Undoubtedly the task is an immensely difficult one —
but it must be undertaken, and it must be done. The subject
before the committee is an example of the high and difficult
duties I refer to ; nor can I imagine an occasion better fitted
than this, to awaken the House to a lively sense of its infinite
responsibilities to the country.

Judge, then, sir, with what deep disappointment and regret, I
learned that the bill on the table was to be pressed upon us at
this short session. It is quite enough for me that it proposes a
great innovation upon the whole course of the Government,
from its foundation up to the present moment, and upon all the
habits of our people. They who see deeper or clearer into such
matters than I do must pardon me for declaring that I cannot,
conscientiously, vote for the measure in such haste. If I had
no positive objections to it, it would be quite enough for me,
that I have not had sufficient time to reflect on it. During this
extraordinary session, (for so it has been in every sense of the
word,) fatigued, harassed, exhausted, by incessant attendance,
by night and by day, in this Hall, it has not been in my power
to inform myself on any subject as I could have wished to be
able to do. I have had absolutely no time for minute research,
hardly a few hours for calm reflection. Under such circum-
stances, I cannot vote for the bill. I must go home to my
constituents and talk with them. Many, perhaps most of them,
understand these matters better than I do; but when I left them,
although this subject had been discussed, and ably discussed,
here and there, byan individual or two, public attention had not
been awakened to it : and nothing like an opinion — certainly no
opinion favorable to the principle of the bill — had been formed
in regard to it.

And here, sir, I might take my seat again, if I had risen only
to explain my own vote, or to influence those of others, on the
proposed measure. But the true issue seems to me very far to

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 283

transcend, in importance, that single measure, important as it
"unquestionably is. It involves, in my opinion, the whole credit
system of the country. I do not say that the bill on your table
presents that issue — still less that the Executive message pre-
sented it, or propounded any principle or opinion that should lead
to it. But no one who has watched the progress of this discus-
sion, in this House or in the Senate — in or out of this Capitol —
will deny that it must soon come to that. Sir, if there is any
truth, at all, in what has been urged with great ability and all
the zeal, I had almost said, the fanaticism, of the deepest con-
viction, by men accustomed to influence, nay, even to control
public opinion in different parts of this country — if they have
any idea of rigorously carrying out the principles they profess,
to their logical consequences, in practice — if what they say in
the highest places, on the most solemn occasions, is not such idle
declamation as such men are not to be suspected of — they mean
that, and nothing short of that. Doctrines have been uttered,
with all the authority which can be imparted to paradox from
talent ripened by experience, which seem to me inconsistent
with the constitution, not only of America, but of all modern
society, with its whole spirit and tendency — with all its wants
and all its ways. I have, sometimes, in the course of the de-
bates, looked around me to see where I really was — whether the
shade of some old lawgiver, some Minos or Lycurgus, had not
been evoked, to bring a degenerate age back to the stern princi-
ples of Dorian polity, to an agrarian equality of property, to iron
money and black broth — or else, if it were not, the spirit of Be-
nedict or Bernard, returned to the holy solitudes of Monte Cas-
ino, or Cluni, or Citeaux, to preach to a world lost in vanity and
pleasure, the blessings of poverty and the mortifications of the
flesh. Now, sir, it may be true that luxury, according to the
old saw, is the ruin of States, and that sumptuary and agrarian
laws are necessary to maintain your true Spartan discipline.
But I am excessively disinclined to try any such experiment
upon my constituents ; at least without receiving an express in-
struction, to that effect, from them. I am afraid they have no
taste for black broth — that Spartan discipline will be irksome,
and even revolting to them. In short, sir, I have reason to be-
lieve that, without being as deeply imbued, perhaps, as other
people are, with the spirit of the age, they do still partake too
much of it to be willing to forego the many agreeable objects
that principally engage and excite it.

Sir, I am far from denying that, in the eyes of a stern reformer,
with opinions of a certain complexion, this generation is a per-
verse and crooked one. We love money, I admit, as much as
men ever did — certainly as much as they did in the Augustan

284 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

age, nearly two thousand years ago. The committee will excuse
my quoting a very common piece of Latin to prove it, after the
example of other gentlemen in this debate.

Gtucerenda pecunia primum est;
Virtus post nummos — Hoec Janus summus ab imo
Prodocet.

Make money by all means, and before all things. Washing-
ton street certifies it to Wall-street, and Wall-street declares it to
Broadway, and Broadway proclaims it to Chesnut-street, and
Chesnut-street publishes it to the whole country. We have the
same strong thirst for gold which has unhappily afflicted man-
kind in other times, and especially in very civilized ages; and
the only difference is that we have learned how to acquire, by
honest means, a thousand times more of it. I will add, however,
in justice to the age, that it has made a great discovery in social
philosophy. We have found out that what I would call physi-
cal civilization — a demand for the conveniences and accommo-
dations of life, and an abundant supply of them — is, and must
be, the basis of all other civilization, that is intended to be high,
solid and lasting. Every real improvement in the condition of
mankind springs out of, or leads to, the elevating of the stand-
ard of comfort among a people. Sir, this is the grand work —
the mission — of modern commerce, which, in my opinion, is
just beginning to develope its mighty resources — to pour out the
inexhaustible fulness of its treasures, and its blessings. A great
revolution is taking place — has taken place, in human affairs.
War is every day becoming a more and more remote contingency.
I do not say an impossibility. I know human nature too well
for that. I am fully aware, too, how many disturbing causes,
growing out of the history of the past, still exist to prevent the
realizing, all at once, of the great end of Christian civilization,
the dream of Henry IV. and of Sully — the union of all nations
in a state of peace under the protection of law. I know, espe-
cially, what is to be dreaded, in this respect, from that dark power
that hovers over the confines of Europe and Asia, and throws
its vast shadow over both. But, during my last residence of four
years abroad, I saw sufficient grounds of quarrel to have led,
under the old order of things, to twenty wars, as spreading and
bloody as the Thirty Years' War, or the Seven Years' War —
and yet these threatening differences passed harmlessly away,
cloud after cloud dissolved as it rose above the horizon, leav-
ing the sky more serene than before. Sir, it is a favorite phrase
of those who boast of what is called "the march of intellect,"
that things are thus changed because the "schoolmaster is
abroad." But I tell you that something far more effective than
the schoolmaster, a mightier than Solomon is abroad. It is the

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 285

steam-engine — in its two-fold capacity of a means of produc-
tion and a means of transport — the most powerful instrument by
far of pacification and commerce, and therefore of improvement
and happiness that the world has ever seen ; which, while it in-
creases capital, and multiplies beyond all imagination the pro-
ducts of industry, brings the most distant people into contact
with one another — breaks down the barriers which exclusive le-
gislation would oppose to the freedom of mercantile exchanges —
effaces all peculiarities of national character, and promises, at no
distant period, to make the whole Christian world, at least, one
great family. Sir, the social effects of this great instrument
of modern improvement have been singularly promoted by a
branch of industry, in which the part of the country, I have the
honor to represent, is most deeply interested ; and I will avail
myself of this occasion to call the attention of the Committee to
a view of our Southern institutions, that may not have occurred
to it before, or made the impression it ought to make upon thern.
I beg you, sir, to believe that I do not speak in what is called a
"sectional" spirit, for I protest before God that^ nothing can be
further from my heart. But let not those whose minds have been
recently so much inflamed, against what they consider as the
abomination of domestic servitude, shut their eyes to the truth.
Sir, I allude to the cultivation of cotton, and its effects, through
the commerce it fosters, upon the condition of society. Who-
ever shall write the political history of that invaluable plant
will have a more important work to perform than has ever fallen
to the lot of a biographer of statesmen or philosophers. I will
venture to say, without going more into details, that the single
circumstance of bringing the wonderfully cheap fabrics pro-
duced by modern machinery, within the reach of even the hum-
blest of the laboring classes, of substituting decent and comfort-
able raiment for the few scanty and filthy rags — the squalid ex-
terior, which makes poverty not only more painful, but at once
more humiliating and degrading to its victim, and more disgust-
ful to others than it ought to be, will signally contribute to ele-
vate the condition of the poor in the social scale — to raise their
self-esteem, and to increase the sympathy of others for them — in
a word to make them feel themselves men, entitled to a place
among men — not pariahs and outcasts, whose contact is contam-
ination. A people well clad and well housed will be sure to
provide themselves with all the other comforts of life ; and it is
the diffusion of these comforts, and the growing taste for them,
among all classes of society in Europe — it is the desire of riches
as it is commonly called, that is gradually putting an end to the
destructive and bloody game of war, and reserving all the re-
sources hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises of industry and

286 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

commerce, prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once vented
itself in scenes of peril and carnage.

But, sir, the result of all this is, that very inequality of wealth,
that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against
which we have heard so much said lately, as if it were some-
thing inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral
and intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes
are acquired by a few years of prosperous commerce — mechanics
and manufacturers rival and surpass the princes of the earth in
opulence and splendor. The face of Europe is changed by this
active industry, working with such mighty instruments, on so
great a scale. I have travelled in parts of the continent which
the spirit of gain, with its usual concomitants, industry and im-
provement, has invaded since the peace, at an interval of fifteen
years, and been struck with the revolution that is going on.
There is a singularly beautiful, though rather barren tract of
country, between Liege and Spa, where, in 1819, my attention
had been principally attracted by the striking features of a moun-
tainous region, with here and there a ruin of the feudal past, and
here and there a hovel of some poor hind — the very haunt of
the "Wild Boar of the Ardennes"* in the good old times of the
House of Burgundy. I returned to it in 1835, and saw it cov-
ered with mills and factories, begrimed with the smoke and soot
of steam-engines; its romantic beauty deformed, its sylvan soli-
tudes disturbed and desecrated by the sounds of active industry,
and the busy hum of men. I asked what had brought about so
great a change, and found the author of it — a man having a more
numerous band of retainers and dependents than any baron bold
of the fourteenth century, and in every respect more important
than many of the sovereign princes on the other side of the
Rhine — was an English manufacturer, who had established him-
self there some twenty years ago, without much capital, and had
effected all this by his industry and enterprise. Such, sir, is the
spirit of the age — of course, in this young and wonderfully pro-
gressive country, it is more eager and ardent — and therefore oc-
casionally extravagant — than any where else. But it is in vain
to resist it. Nay, 1 believe it worse than vain. It is evidently
in the order of nature, and we must take it with all its good and
all its evils together. The great designs of Providence, in giving
to the most active and enterprising of all races a new world to
possess, to build up and to adorn, are not to be thwarted by our
policy, even if we thought it good policy to thwart them ; all
the instincts of that race would revolt at a system, which would
disappoint its high destiny.

Mr. Chairman, 1 have made these general remarks, because, as
* See Cluentin Durward.

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 287

you will have perceived, they have a direct and important bear-
ing upon the collateral issue presented by the advocates of this
bill, though not in the bill itself, as something to be accom-
plished hereafter. In a country so much governed by opinion,
it is all important that opinion should be enlightened ; and errors,
uttered by distinguished men in high stations, and surrounded
with whatever talent can contribute to render them seductive
and imposing, cannot, without public detriment, be suffered to
pass unnoticed. On this occasion, as I have already intimated,
it is far less the measure proposed, than what I consider as the
quo animo of its advocates here and elsewhere, that has excited
my alarms and my opposition. But I have objections which I
will now proceed to state, to the policy of the bill itself.

There are two very distinct questions presented to the com-
mittee. The first is, shall the revenues be collected only in gold
and silver ; the second, how shall they when collected, be kept,
and disbursed : shall Sub- Treasuries be established by the gov-
ernment, or shall banks be employed for that purpose, as hereto-
fore— and if the latter course be preferred, then shall the banks
be allowed the use of the public deposites, or shall special depo-
sites only be made with them. It is very evident that these pro-
positions have no necessary connection with each other, and that
either of them may be approved or rejected, by those who do not
reject or approve the other.

As to the collection of the revenue in specie, my objections
are by no means so strong, or 1 should say so vehement now as
they were at the opening of the session, when gold and silver
were selling at a premium of nine or ten per cent. At that time
it appeared to me that such a measure would have been a mere
wanton act of oppression upon the people of the States, for no
earthly good purpose whatever. It would have been simply au-
thorising usurers and money brokers to lay upon the importers,
and through these upon the consumers of foreign goods, that is
to say, upon the public, and especially upon the planters of the
south, a tariff of duties in a good degree arbitrary, for their own
benefit and that of the functionaries of the Government. Be
lieving as I did, and do, that the paper circulation of the country
from the great and sudden contraction in consequence of the
panic, was rather too much reduced than redundant, I confess,
as I said on a former occasion, I could not see that justice, at
least that equity and good conscience, made it imperative upon
us to resort to so stern a measure ; especially as the idea of fur-
nishing by that means a broader metallic basis for our circulation
had proved itself to our very senses to be completely fallacious.
We all now see that not a dollar, collected by the Government
and disbursed by its creditors, circulates for one moment as
money, but is carefully hoarded and sold as merchandise ; and

:^S> SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

that this will continue to be the case as long as, from any cause
whatever, exchanges shall be unfavorable to the country, is
equally evident.

I admit that, since the fall of the price of gold and silver to
live per cent., this objection loses somewhat of its weight, but it
loses none of its truth. The same law of currency now operates,
though in a mitigated degree, to make it an objectionable mea-
sure to repeal the act of 18 L6, and so to discredit, pro tanto, all
bank notes in perpetuity. Yes, sir, to organize panic and perpe-
tuate distrust, so far as your example has any weight. And why
do so ? What apology have you to make for an act that certain-
ly requires one ? What public occasion, what pressing exigency
requires it ? The message puts the subject, I admit, in a very
specious and captivating form — it supposes the case of a war,
and the Government to find its whole treasure suddenly turned
into bank credits ; and we are asked whether such a thing could
be borne. But admit that, in case of war, the Government
would be driven to that and any other measure of equal or even
of greater severity. What then? Does it follow that such a
system should be unnecessarily adopted in time of peace? But
the truth is that, even in time of war, it would make less differ-
ence to the Government than is generally supposed. Certainly,
some of its operations, distant naval expeditions and the like,
would require gold and silver, and they must be had at whatever
price from within or from abroad ; but, after all, with such credit,
as that of the United States now is, it is impossible to imagine
that the nation should be embarrassed even for a single moment,
by the failure of its banks to pay some millions in gold and sil-
ver. Look at England in the eventful period between the sus-
pension of payment in '97 and the peace of 1815. It is now
universally confessed that that measure, and that measure alone,
boldly empirical as it was once thought, enabled her to sustain
the burthens of that terrible conflict, and to achieve a triumph
worthy of her generous constancy under misfortune. I do not
therefore see how, even the necessities of war would compel
Government, abounding in such resources of public credit as no
other Government ever enjoyed, to resort to a measure so novel,
so harsh, so inconsistent with the established order of things in
the country, and with all the habits of the people.

But the great objection with me is, that which appears from a
passage quoted by the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Garland,)
to have presented itself to Mr. Dallas, in 1815. You will do
some harm by refusing bank paper ; considering how little specie
there has ever been in this country, you may, by requiring it to
be paid to you in a large amount annually, make it always an
article of merchandize ; you will thus permanently discredit bank
notes, and render impossible the restoration of their convertibi-

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 289

lily. But that is not all ; even should this mischief not ensue,
you at least, by thus rejecting them, to the whole extent of your
transactions, abandon the currency to its fate under the adminis-
tration of the States. You make no efforts, you exert no influ-
ence to maintain its purity and uniformity, by distinguishing be-
tween corporations which redeem their notes, and those which
are notoriously insolvent. You proclaim your distrust of all of
them alike — you write it in your statute-book — however disas-
trous the condition of the monetary concerns of the States may
be, through want of skill or want o: concert, you leave them to
themselves, and that when, standing in the most intimate and
the most commanding relation towards them, you might, if you
gave yourselves the leasf trouble about the matter, exercise a
most salutary control over them, and remedy these great incon-
veniences for the benefit of us all. For, sir, it is not enough to
say you have no power, strictly so called, under the constitution
to regulate the currency. I admit that you have none. What
then? Have you no influence — influence of example — influ-
ence of precept — influence of authority — influence of patronage
influence of connection and custom in business, in the use of
these very deposites l Has not the constitution provided that all
defects in our institutions shall be corrected by amendments re-
gularly recommended and introduced, and is it not one of your
duties so to recommend and introduce them ?

Why do you not urge upon the States any reform you may
judge necessary in the matter? 1 appeal to every one that hears
me, what he should think of an individual, who, possessing im-
mense influence in a community, with an income of many mil-
lions a year, should, in a time of trouble, coolly withdraw him-
self from society, andhoard his money, like an usurer, in a com-
mercial panic, waiting until the extreme necessities of his neigh-
bors shall throw them upon his mercy? Is this the morality
we are taught in our private relations ? Shall nothing be expect-
ed from him to whom so much has been given ? Shall he hide
his light under a bushel ? Shall he bury his ten talents in the
earth, and escape condemnation as an unprofitable servant l And
shall that be right in a government, which, in a private person,
shocks the moral sense of mankind ? in a government standing
towards the people of this country in relations so very peculiar !
Sir, what answer would you have to give to the States, if in a
moment of public calamity, like that which is just passing away,
feeling their distresses aggravated through your harsh exactions
of what their people had not to give, appealing in vain to you
for succour or for counsel, they were to hold to you the lan-
guage which indignation and astonishment would naturally in-
spire, under such extraordinary circumstances ? If they were to
say to you, "We have done every thing to exalt and to magnify
vol. i. — 37

290 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

you — wc have clothed you with authority and awe — we have
armed you with mighty powers, with the axes and fasces of su-
preme jurisdiction — we have surrounded you with all the glori-
ous equipage and pomp of empire, endowed you with a vast
treasury, with fleets, armies, senates, judges— that palace, these
gorgeous domes— this capitolhwi fulgens — what for? that you
should renounce all community of interest, all sympathy with
us ! that there should be no ties of affection or of duty between
us ! that you should ostentatiously proclaim yourselves, as your
worst enemies have sometimes alleged that you are, a foreign
government in the midst of our country, and even avail your-
selves of a moment of cruel revulsion and calamity, to make us
feel that you are so in spirit and in truth !" Sir, I do not know —
I cannot conceive, how such a course should fail to strike every
body as a perversion of all the eternal obligations of morality
which are and ought to be as binding upon communities as upon
the individuals that compose them — how gentlemen can, at such
a moment as the present, entertain, without emotion, the strange
proposition, that this government should bury itself, like Sarda-
napalus, in a selfish repose, a degenerate and inglorious indiffer-
ence to all the interests of the country: or, if I can make such a
comparison without shocking them too much, that, like Nero, it
should fiddle while Rome is burning.

Agreeing, then, sir, with the Executive in the principles laid
down in the Message, I differ with it in the practical inference
deduced from them. — In the division of power between the gov-
ernment and the States, I think with it, that all that is required
to meet this emergency has not been given to the former. But
the inadequacy of our powers is no excuse for not exerting them
to the uttermost for the public good, especially as there is reason
to think that the convention did not foresee the present state of
things. We can do much, if we cannot do every thing. The
occasion calls only for a good will and a moderate share of prac-
tical ability ; and I have no hesitation in saying that, among the
existing banking institutions of the country, can be found ample
means of accomplishing the two great objects of restoring specie
payments, and maintaining hereafter, in all ordinary times, a
convertible currency, which is all that we can expect to do.

Sir, I do not wish to be misunderstood. It is of the utmost
importance that the paper of the banks should not only not in
fact be depreciated, (as I believe is actually the case) but should
be able to stand the only sure, and to the public at large, satis-
factory test of that fact — I mean convertibility into specie. I
am fully aware that the accident of a failure in the means of
making their payments in the precious metals is one against
which, according to the course of modern commerce, there can
be no complete security ; and that nothing can be more absurdly

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 291

exaggerated, than the importance attached to that occurrence, by
persons not familiar with the principles of banking-, when it
happens in consequence of an extraordinary demand from abroad
or a sudden panic within. Nay, more, I admit that the most
usual effect of a great revulsion in trade is to throw much paper
out of circulation ; to contract the currency, and so to bring
down exchanges and prices, and raise the value of the money
that remains in the hands of the public. But a suspension of
specie payments, though it may not be a present evil, is always
fraught with danger. It is the indispensable duty of a statesman
to put an end to it as soon as possible, either by encouragement
or by compulsion. It is for this, among other reasons, that I so
cheerfully acquiesced in the issuing of Treasury notes ; inas-
much as it relieved us from the necessity either of directly re-
fusing to take the paper of the banks at par, or by receiving it,
(as we might otherwise very safely have done,) of betraying
those companies into an impolitic enlargement of their issues,
before the balance of payments had been turned in our favor —
as I hope it will be by the coming crop. I regarded it as an ex-
cellent temporary expedient for avoiding, at present, this choice
of evils. So far, I think nothing more unfounded than the gen-
eral charge of insolvency against all our banks, which is so in-
considerately uttered by the press, and in debate, as well as the
assertion repeated over and over again, on this floor, that the
country is laboring under an excessive and depreciated currency.
It is not yet so ; but it will, I fear, very soon be so, if the banks
do not make an effort to return to specie payments in the course
of a few months. Now is the time to do so : now, that their
issues are contracted ; that importations have been checked ; that
exchanges are become more favorable ; and that the great south-
ern crops are about to be sent forward to make them still more
so. Let every one interested in the fate of these institutions, as
well as in the commercial prosperity of the country, exert what-
ever influence he may possess to bring about that result ; and to
deliver the banks from the temptations to dangerous excess, to
which the return of an active and prosperous business will inev-
itably expose them, if they do not, once more, lay themselves
under the restraint of convertibility.

Sir, should they unhappily take a different course, and should
this government, after using all its influence and authority, to
establish the currency of the country on a better footing, fail of
success in its most zealous endeavors, I admit that it may be
driven to the necessity of taking care of its own business and
creditors, by independent legislation of its own. There is no
doubt that a variously depreciated currency cannot be tolerated
as the settled system of the country. The ports of one State

292 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

cannot be preferred to those of another, in this way, any more
than by an express statute to that effect. Nor can the public
creditor be justly paid in money really depreciated, — I mean not
in reference merely to gold and silver, which are themselves lia-
ble to great fluctuations in value, but to the general mass of com-
modities that compose the conveniencies and necessaries of life.
The effects of a redundant currency, when once they begin to
be distinctly perceived, are counteracted by a general rise of
prices. Money is twice as easy to be got, but you have to pay
twice as much for every thing which it buys. Hut there is one
class of persons who have no means of indemnifying themselves
by raising the nominal value of their property or their claims.
It is the class of those who live on fixed incomes — annuitants,
fundholders, functionaries of States, pensioners. They are paid
a certain swra, and with every diminution in the value it ex-
presses, they lose just so much of what they are fairly entitled
to. In this view of the subject, therefore, it is quite clear, that
government is under the highest of all moral obligations to see
that their dues be not paid them in what is really worth a great
deal less than it purports to be.

What 1 have hitherto said relates to the first question pro-
pounded by the bill on your table — shall gold and silver only be
received in payment of government dues. As to the second in-
quiry. sir, whether the revenue shall be kept by officers of our
own, or by die banks ; and if the latter, whether, in the shape of
special or general deposite, so much has been said, and so ably
said, upon that head, against the system recommended by the
message, that I am very little disposed to trouble the committee
with any additional remarks in regard to it. Were I driven to
make a choice between the two plans referred to, I should, as at
present advised, greatly prefer that of a special deposite, on a
small commission, as at once the safest, the cheapest, and most
simple — as departing less from our previous customs, and not
being so liable to the great practical objection of going perma-
nently to increase the already enormous and disproportionate in-
fluence of the Executive power, which, beyond all doubt, far
exceeds any thing that was anticipated by the founders of the
government, and seriously threatens to disturb, if not to subvert
the whole balance of the constitution. I need not say that 1
have no reference whatever to the present, or any other indivi-
dual incumbent. I speak of the operations of great general
causes, and of a system, whose effects are almost entirely inde-
pendent of the will of man. Another very grave objection to
the scheme reported by the committee, in its resemblance, or, at
least, its fearful leaning to that of a great political Bank of the
I'nited States, of which a justly celebrated report of one of my

SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY. 293

predecessors upon this floor,* demonstrated, some years ago. the
dangers and inconveniences, as I have always supposed, to the
universal conviction of the people. But, although I should pre-
fer the special deposite system to that of the committee of ways
and means, I am not yet prepared to adopt it. That immense
benefits have been conferred upon the country, by adding to its
productive capital the large amounts of public money, which
would otherwise have lain dormant in the Treasury, does not
admit of a question. I will venture to say that, in the course of
the half century that has elapsed since '89, countless millions
have been the fruit of this truly paternal and beneficent system.
Our predecessors, Mr. Dallas among them, seem to have been
deeply impressed with this view of the subject. They seem to
have felt themselves bound to render our system of taxation,
which, even in its mildest form is, in fact, a confiscation of pri-
vate property for public uses, as little burthensome as possible to
the community. Sir, whatever we may think of the policy of
pursuing their footsteps any further, no one can deny that they
are entitled to the gratitude of the country for the past ; and I,
for one, am too sensible of the benefit, to throw it away without
very mature consideration, unless under the pressure of a cogent
necessity.

But we have been told, sir, that, far from being an innovation,
this mode of collecting the public revenues was universal from
the earliest times until the beginning of the last century — that is
to say, until an age of philosophic light and diffusive civilization,
at which another good old plan, established from time immemo-
rial, the burning of witches and heretics, unhappily ceased too.
This coincidence certainly appears to me to be entitled to some
consideration ; the committee will see that, in the matter of in-
novation, going back too far is at least as dangerous as going for-
ward too rapidly. But there has been another reference to the
examples of the past which struck me still more forcibly as a
most extraordinary perversion of the lessons of experience. Sir,
I do confess to you, that before any discussion had taken place,
in either part of this Capitol, on the subject before you — long be-
fore I had heard of that allusion to the Qucestor, referred to the
other day by my eloquent friend from New- York, Mr. Hoffman,
at the bare stating of this project in its first conception and most

* Mr. McDuffie. Report of the Committee of Ways and Means, in 1831. Mr.
Gallatin remarks of this system of Sub-treasuries, presented as an alternative to
a Bank of the United States, in his celebrated pamphlet on that subject, that,
"with the exception of the power of receiving private deposites, the object of
which provision is not perceived, this is precisely the species of National Bank
which has been suggested in the President's last Message (1830). The question
whether the purchase of drafts would, as we think, be a. charge on the treasury,
or prove, as seems to be expected, a source of profit, is one of secondary impor-
tance. It is sufficient to observe that the issues of the State Banks could not, nor
indeed is it expected that they could, be checked by this plan."

294 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

general outlines, certain images presented themselves to my mind
and have ever since haunted it, in spite of all I could do to ban-
ish them. They were ideas that, in my simple way of consider-
ing such matters, shocked and alarmed me — ideas of Roman con-
quest and Asiatic despotism. I thought of that most fearful of
all things, a vast empire, with power centralizing at its capital,
with commerce centralized by the inevitable course of trade,
which always and every where tends to centralization, at some
great emporium, with its revenues collected only in gold and sil-
ver, to be hoarded, as was the way at Rome and Babylon, or
Persepolis. I fancied I could see one of the Proconsuls or Prae-
tors—the Bashaws of the Republic, as Montesquieu so justly
calls them — Verres, for example — going forth with that same
Quaestor, surrounded with an army of publicans or farmers of
the revenue, to gather the dues of Rome in some devoted pro-
vince— another Sicily — as dues were wont to be gathered by the
Satraps of that military commonwealth, that is to say, wrung
with their blood from subjugated nations, whose pleasant places
were laid waste, without remorse, to glut the rapacity of con-
quest. Sir, I little imagined that such a system would have been
cited, nay, alluded to, in this age, except with a view to inspire
the horror and execration it is so well calculated to excite. Ro-
man example ! "The Demon City," (as it has been well called
by a writer of genius,*) whose whole history, from beginning to
end, is a tragedy far deeper and more dreadful than the tale of
CEdipus or the Atridae, and leading to a catastrophe of an awful
political justice. Why, sir, there is nothing in the annals of
Mongolian conquest, worse than the ravages perpetrated by her
consuls — by Mummius, Paulus iEmilius, Sylla — in some of the
fairest and most civilized portions of the earth. There were
flourishing countries, whose fertility and population were ex-
hausted by a perpetual drain of corn and gladiators to feed her
lazy and licentious populace, and amuse them with the unutter-
able atrocities of her amphitheatre. And what was the end of
all this misrule? Weakness, poverty, desolation, barbarism —
the Goth, the Vandal, the Hun. Yet long before the footstep of
a barbarian had been impressed upon the soil of the empire, as
Gibbon has well remarked, long before that scourge of God, under
whose horses' hoof the grass was said never to grow again, had
been sent, to avenge the wrongs of mankind, in the course of half
a century after Constantiue had founded a new Rome, whole
tracts of fertile country had been completely depopulated and
abandoned.! Even of that paradise of all this earth, on which
poetry and panegyric have been exhausted in every age, in all

* Herder,
[t See the remarkable passage in Plutarch <le defedu oracidorum, c. viii., as to
the depopulation of Greece.]

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 295

languages, the Campania felix, a very considerable portion was
become a waste. Nor, sir, was this owing only to the despotism
of the Caesars, as an excellent writer has well observed,* in re-
ference to this passage of the "Decline and Fall," and as this
committee will do well to remark. There co-operated with that
misgovernment a curse which has been said, and is thus proved,
to be worse than "the inclemency of the seasons and the bar-
renness of the earth,"t a decreasing currency. The supply of
the precious metals had been for upwards of two centuries con-
tinually diminishing, while the quantity of them sent in quest
of luxuries to the East, to return no more, had been increasing
in the same proportion, and a revenue of £15 or 20,000,000 was
constantly levied, in gold and silver, to be expended at a distant
capital, or on the frontiers. This important fact speaks volumes
to us on this subject. It is unquestionably true that one of the
greatest calamities of the declining empire was a circulation
diminishing so frightfully that the pay of a general, in the third
century, was nominally not higher than that of a private had
been in the reign of Augustus. % So much for the Roman Sub-
Treasury System, and the example of the Quaestor !

But, sir, another objection to the present system is that it leads
to fluctuations in the currency ; and that brings me to consider
the general effects of the Credit System upon the prosperity
of the country.

I begin by admitting that there is something in this objection,
but by no means as much as is thought by persons who have
not very attentively considered the subject. Undoubtedly if
your revenue, instead of being uniform, or at least varying very
little from year to year, be permitted to fluctuate extremely — if
a great surplus like that of which you disposed last year is to be
allowed ever and anon to accumulate, and then to be withdrawn
from one depository and scattered among many others, to be
again suddenly withdrawn from them, and ultimately distribu-
ted without reference to the wants of commerce and the course of
business, but on merely arbitrary principles, among the States —
if such financial blunders are to be repeated often in our future
policy, we should do well to confine the effects of them within
as narrow limits as possible, and even a system of hoarding
might, in such a case, perhaps, do less harm than all this vexa-
tious irregularity and uncertainty. But in the first place, whose
fault was that ? Whose legislation occasioned that preposterous
accumulation I Whose unequal and oppressive tariffs extorted
from commerce the vast sums which were afterwards to be lav-
ished upon it with such intoxicating effects? Yours, sir, — this
House, this Congress is responsible for whatever mischiefs grew
out of that strange anomaly. Let the blame light upon the heads
* Jacobs. t Ad. Smith. \ Herder.

296 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

of the guilty. I trust in God we are not destined soon to see an-
other such surplus — and if we should, most certainly I should
expect proper precautions to be adopted to prevent its operating
again so powerfully to derange the business of the country. But
what sort of argument is it against the comparatively moderate
deposites made in the ordinary course of things by the govern-
ment, to recompense the banks for their services as fiscal agents,
and make taxation less oppressive, that an enormous accumula-
tion like that referred to, so capriciously disposed of, so violently
transferred from one place to another, produced much evil 7
And here, sir, I beg to ask gentlemen, whether it has ever oc-
curred to them to imagine what would have been the effect —
what would always be the effect of such an accumulation, if it
had been in gold and silver ?* What if our revenues should
ever again amount to what they were in 1815? Will any man
undertake to say that the abstraction from the circulation of the
commercial world of so large a sum as forty or fifty millions of
specie would not, at any time, occasion a serious derangement of
business and fall of prices at home and abroad, attended with all
the usual evils of such an event? I shall advert, hereafter, more
particularly to the important subject of the supply of the precious
metals for the purposes of commerce ; but I here call the attention
of the committee to a view of it that is entitled to their profound
consideration. If I do not greatly err in all the conclusions to
which I have been brought by my researches in this matter, no
calculation can be made of the effect which the adoption — I will
not say of the "hard money system," but of any system what-
ever, calling for a much greater demand of the precious metals —
might have upon the state of trade.

Sir, I have said that the importance of these fluctuations in
the paper currency of a country have been much overrated.
Some people seem to think an expansion in the circulating me-
dium must always be attended with a sudden rise in prices and
a spirit of extravagant speculation. But it is not so. Mr. Tooke
has shown that these two things have in fact very seldom coin-
cided— that speculation depends, in the first instance, upon moral
causes wholly unconnected with the state of the currency; and,
although an abundance of money may, and does aggravate the
evil where its exists, yet, by itself, it never leads to any excite-
ment. Take any example of a commercial crisis you please,
and you will find that there were extraordinary circumstan-
ces which acted on the imaginations of men — florid pictures
of general prosperity, bright visions of possible success in new
channels of trade, and adventures as yet untried. There is a re-
markable proof of this in the terrible convulsion in England in
1825, the most serious perhaps, that she had ever passed through.
[* See a case in point Tacit. Annal. vi. 17.]

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 297

In 1822, there was a most depressed state of prices below the
cost of production. The lowering of the interest on an immense
amount of government stock, in 1823 and '24, engendered an
impatient desire of more profitable investments. Then came
the acknowledgment of the independence of the South Ameri-
can States, with hopes of advantageous loans to the new go-
vernments, of great mining speculations, and of a vast extension
of all branches of trade, upon which that great political event,
it was supposed, could not fail to produce sudden and incalcu-
lable effects. The spirit of adventure, thus awakened, soon spread
itself abroad over every department of commerce, and a moral
epidemic, as it has been well termed, broke out, such as no po-
licy of government, of free government at least, could possibly
control. But the same excitement would have occurred, had
the circulation of England been metallic ; and, sir, a proof of it
is to be found in the fact, that, owing to long series of good har-
vests, and to the preparations which the Bank of England had
been making to substitute gold for the small notes which still
circulated in 1824, her treasure was unusually large, (something
like £14 millions, instead of £10, its regular maximum,) and, so
far as her issues had any thing to do with exciting the spirit of
circulation, it was not a deficiency, but an excess of bullion that
occasioned the mischief — just as the case in this country during
the last two years. I say, sir, this spirit of speculation is inci-
dent to the adventurous operations of commerce, and it makes
no difference whether those operations be carried on in specie or
in paper. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, who sits near
me, (Mr. Sergeant,) anticipated me in citing the example of
the famous bubble year in England, (1721,) when, as he justly
remarked, the circulation of that country might be considered as
almost exclusively metallic, for the issues of the bank were what
they had been for some years before, only about £2 millions, and
not more than half what they were a few years after, in a state
of perfect calm. But 1 will add another instance, a most memo-
rable and instructive one, from our own history. If this country
has ever been blessed with a purely metallic currency, it was
shortly after the peace of 'S3, and from that epoch until the
establishment of the first Bank of the United States; and, sir, if
a man were called to point out that era in its history in which
its pecuniary condition was most deplorable, he would, without
hesitation, name that. There was a want of money even to
transact the ordinary business of life; a good portion of the little
trade left us was carried on by barter;* industry was languishing
for want of the means of exchanging its products ; nobody had
any credit; all was embarrassment, despondency, and gloom. In
the midst of all this distress there was a cry, not for hard money,
* Washington's Writings, vol. ix. Hamilton's Report on the Bank in '90.

vol. i. — 38

29S SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

as in the present crisis — they had enough of that, in one sense, at
least — but for the good, old fashioned paper-money issued by the
States* — and the discontents of some ol the boldest and most
active spirits of New-England broke out into open revolt against
society, and seriously threatened its overthrow. Sir, never since
we have been a people, have we passed through a period so full
of perils of all sorts! Never was the morality of the nation
put to so severe a trial ; or its peace and its institutions, and its
destinies brought so near to the very edge of the precipice.
And what was the immediate cause of all this intense pecuniary
distress? Speculation, sir, far wider, in proportion, than any
that has since occurred. We had imported, in the two first
years after the peace, a large amount, $30,000,000, against exports
of some eight or nine millions. Look into Pitkin's Statistics.
And yet, with a fact from our own history, so important, so an
thentic, so full of instruction on all the points involved in this
discussion, you hear able and leading men speak of the spirit of
speculation, as something inseparably connected with paper mo-
ney alone. No, sir, it results from what is called the "course
of trade," in its perpetual round of quiescence — improvement —
increasing confidence — prosperity — excitement — over-trading —
convulsion — stagnation — pressure — distress — ending in quies-
cence again.f Nor is it by bank issues, even where banks most
abound, that it is supplied with the means of compassing its ob-
ject. In 1825, it is said that mercantile paper, to the amount of
near $600,000,000, was negotiated in London. Mr. Rothschild
mentions that his house received in the course of two months,
bills to the amount of a million and a half,! while the circulation
of the Bank of England, and the country banks together, did
not exceed thirty millions. It is commercial credit and private
loans, that at such periods encourage and sustain those great and
perilous operations — not banks, not bank notes, not redundant
currency, strictly so called.

But if banks do not occasion such excitements, they, on the
other hand, greatly mitigate the effects of the revulsion that
follows. We had no banks in this country in '86, to help the
people in their distress, as the Bank of England aided and saved
the commercial community of England in 1825.

But let us look a little more closely into the causes of the late
excitement in the moneyed and commercial interests of this
country. In my opinion, they have been too partially con-
sidered, and we have added to our other misfortunes mutual
reproaches, which are certainly, (I speak of it with the profound-
est deference for the very able persons with whom I differ,) not
all of them well founded. The merchants, as a body, have been

[* In South-Carolina the Paper Medium Lo.in Office.]

t Mr. S. Jones Lloyd. \ "Minutes of Evidence," &c, in 183*2.

SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY. 299

censured for imprudent and profligate speculation. They, in
turn, accuse the government, of a wanton aud even wicked
tampering: with the great interests of commerce, which govern-
ments seldom touch without doing some mischief. Sir, I do not
think this a fit occasion for angry recrimination, and having been
absent during the conflict, to which I allude, I desire to mingle
as little as possible in the passions of the past. 1 must say,
however, that I incline to believe more importance has been
attached to the Specie Circular in a mere economical point of
view — I say nothing of its political character — than it deserves.
I do not mean to affirm that it had not its share in adding to the
embarrassments of the money market after the revulsion had
begun. But the tide had turned before. That paper was issued
here on the 11th July, 1836. Now. as early as the 1st of July,
the Bank of England had felt itself constrained to adopt a course
which led to an instant fall of prices, and this fall of prices was
in a short time as much as 20 or 30 per cent. Mr. Horsley
Palmer, in the pamphlet already alluded to, admits the fact, and
justifies the proceeding. Habes confitentem reum* Now, sir,
be pleased to, consider what frightful havoc a loss of 20 or 30
per cent., on 1,500,000 bales of cotton alone, would occasion in
the commercial world, especially when such a terrible deficit
happens to be accompanied by a contraction of bank issues and
great scarcity in the money market, at a period of prodigious
excitement in every branch of trade, (for it is then only that
contractions are dangerous,) and of speculative investments in
every sort of enterprise. The Bank of England, through its
deputy governor, alleges, in justification of its course, that its
treasure, which was just beginning to recover from the drain oc-
casioned by speculations in Spanish and Portuguese funds dur-
ing the year 1834 — another phrenzy of the times, that led to a
catastrophe which I witnessed in the spring of 1835, and in
hard money countries too — was again reduced by drafts made
upon it for various purposes in America to the amount of
£2,600,000. Of this amount, £1,200,000 was borrowed for the
Bank of the United States, and the rest came over to be laid out,
no doubt, in canal and railway or bank stock : or, to supply, as
Mr. Palmer supposes, the vacuum in our circulation occasioned
by the prohibition in some of the States of small notes, or the
new demand for gold consequent upon the change introduced
by the gold bill in the session of '35. Sir, as the guardian of
the currency of England, the bank was, no doubt, on strict

* The Causes and Consequences of the Pressure upon the Money Market, with
a statement of the action of the Bank of England from the 1st of October, 1833,
to the 27th of December, 1836, by J. Horsley Palmer, Esq. London, 1837.

"The fall in prices of almost all the leading articles of raw produce, (sugar,
coffee, tea, silk, cotton, (fee.) from the 1st of July last, when the rate of interest
was first advanced, has not been less than from 20 to 30 per cent." p. 23.

300 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

principle, justified in pursuing that cautious policy, in imposing
a salutary check upon speculation ; but I have very great doubts
whether it did not begin too late and go too far; and whether its
sudden and rather violent interference with the natural course of
things, has not been attended, in England as well as in this coun-
try, with evil consequences that might have been avoided, or at
least very much mitigated, had exchanges been left to correct
themselves, as they have a natural tendency to do. It is a circum-
stance worthy of the particular attention of the committee — and
I advert to it to show that nothing can be more unjust than the
charge of profligate speculation made against the great body of
our merchants, (however, individuals may deserve censure,) —
that, from 1831 until late in the autumn of 1830, exchange with
Europe never fell below, and was often much above par, al-
though the apparent balance of trade was during that period
steadily and greatly against us. Sir, this singular phenomenon
is now satisfactorily explained. We know that it was owing to
immense investments of British capital (much of it, no doubt,
sent over in the shape of goods,) in the United States, quite in-
dependent of the ordinary commercial balance. For example, a
run was made upon the Bank of England in May, 1832, during
the agitation that accompanied the passing of the Reform Bill,
to the amount of £2,000,000 ; which never returned to the bank
and was supposed to have been hoarded, but which I believe
came hither. This circumstance was at the time, attributed to
a political trick to prejudice the minds of the people against the
great measure then before Parliament. I have reason, however,
to know, that the panic was by no means feigned — that appre-
hensions of revolution were seriously entertained by many of
the higher classes in England — and, as the payment of our na-
tional debt and our immense prosperity, had called the attention
of European capitalists to this country, large amounts were sent
hither, not only in quest of higher interest, but as a safer invest-
ment than could be made at home — for in the present state of
the world, capital will go abroad in spite of all the contrivances
of government, recommended, I regret to say, by Mr. Palmer,
to prevent its seeking more profitable employment there. We
know all this now, and we see what this vast influx of British
gold and British credit had to do with prices and speculation
here — but who saw it then ? How was the merchant to know
what was at hand ? that the ground upon which he was stand-
ing covered an abyss that was so soon to open and swallow
him up — that the scene of most flattering prosperity, which had
for five years excited and entranced his senses, was to vanish
like a dream at the touch of a foreign power'/

A great many circumstances conspired to keep up the delusion,
and even some which one might have thought would produce

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 301

the very opposite effect. Thus the removal of the deposites, and
the panic and contraction in 1834, consequent upon that measure,
led to further importations of the precious metals, and accord-
ingly it appears that there was an accession of nearly 12 millions
of specie in that single year. A metallic basis was thus formed
for the inordinate number of banks, chartered by the State Legis-
latures, to supply the place of the United States ^Bank ; and still
great aliment was added to the spirit of speculation, already ex-
cited by the high prices of produce in England, and the unpre-
cedented demands for the public lands in the West by emigration
from abroad. The idea that an excessive circulation was the
sole cause of all the mischief, an idea encouraged both by the
friends of a national bank, and by the enemies of all banks, ap-
pears to me entirely fallacious. It is vain to state, as is so con-
tinually done in such discussions, the amount of currency at
one period, and to compare it with that amount at another, with-
out any reference to the amount or the prices of the commodi-
ties it has to circulate. No sound inference can be drawn from
the naked fact of such a difference. For instance, had the price
of produce riot fallen in the English market ; had the cotton
crop been worth $ SO or 90,000.000, instead of being fallen to
half the former sum, it is manifest that it would have required,
ceteris paribus, twice the amount of circulation to effect the
usual exchanges in it. Not only so, but, in periods of great ex-
citement, it is not merely the products of our industry that we
sell, it is not simply the annual income of the land and labor of
the country that is exchanged, but the very soil itself, the whole
country with all that it contains, is in the market. This, to the
extent to which it is carried, is a peculiarity of our people. Sir,
I do not mention this as a very prepossessing or honorable trait
in our character — I mention it simply as a fact. We have no
local attachments, generally speaking1 — nothing bears the preti-
um affectionis in our eyes. If an estate, a residence in town, a
country seat, rises a little beyond what we are accustomed to
think its value, it is sold without any hesitation. Accordingly,
there is in such times a capacity for absorbing an expanded cur-
rency in this country, greater perhaps, in proportion than was
ever known in any other country. I am of opinion, therefore,
that prices in the United States were, in general, not relatively
much higher than elsewhere during the last two years, except in
cases where, on the usual relation of demand and supply, it was
easy to account for their being so. By far the greatest amount
of speculation, too, no doubt was carried on in private paper.
But of course, as soon as a fall took place in that great leading
staple commodity in which we pay our foreign debts, and of
which the value affects that of almost every thing else in the
country, and that, too, to so fearful an amount as $30 or 40,000.-

302 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

000, the currency became (before the late contraction) at once
redundant. It was precisely as if property to the value of 3 or
400,000,000 had been swallowed up in the sea, for it destroyed
the income of property to that amount.

From this view of the causes that led to the present distress,
I do not see what inference can be drawn from it, unfavorable to
the connection that has always subsisted between the govern-
ment and the banks. It is one of those extraordinary revulsions
to which the adventurous spirit of commerce will always be ex-
posed, organize your currency as you will, and take what pains
you please to diminish the sources of excitement. In this coun-
try, especially, holding out so many temptations to foreign capi-
tal, so many hopes to enterprize, such dazzling prizes to fortu-
nate speculation, with a people distinguished above all others by
their intelligence, sagacity, activity, and boldness in affairs, such
periods of crisis and convulsion are inevitable, and no mischiefs
which they can possibly do would be half so bad as the only
preventive that would insure us against their occurrence, the en-
tire extinction of the spirit that leads to them.

Sir, to the general declamation against banking we have to
oppose the experience of the most prosperous nations in the
world There is a country, for instance, whose whole currency
is of paper, and where one seldom meets with a piece of gold —
whose banking companies, whether with or without charter,
subjected to no restraints or control, but such as spring out of the
vigilance of a free and eager competition, have, for upwards of a
century together, conducted their affairs with so much skill, in-
tegrity, and prudence, as not only never to have occasioned any
loss either to the public or the parties interested, but, on the con-
trary, by the confession of all competent judges, to have confer-
red the greatest blessings upon both — to have contributed more
than any single cause, perhaps, than all other causes put together,
to bring out and develope completely all the resources of the
land, to foster industry, to animate enterprize, and, by an abund-
ant supply of the means of exchange, to turn its capital and
labor to the greatest possible account — where, in addition to these
economical advantages, they have contrived to exercise a high
moral control, a sort of censorial authority, over the community,
and especially the humbler classes of it. by bestowing rewards
in the shape of credit upon industry and economy, and lending
upon good personal character as if it were solid capital, and,
through a system of cash accounts and interest upon small de-
posites, have given to the deserving laborer the combined advan-
tages of a Savings Bank and a friendly endorser — a country,
which has made greater progress, within the period mentioned,
than any other in Europe, with an agriculture second (if second)
only to that of Flanders, with a flourishing commerce, with

SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY. 303

manufactures of the greatest extent and the most exquisite re-
finement— whose cities have almost kept pace with ours, whose
whole face in its gladness and beauty bears testimony to the spi-
rit of improvement that has animated her — what country is that?
Scotland, sir. Every body has heard, or ought to have heard,
of the Scotch system of banking, and I ask if any thing can be
more irreconcilable with the theories so confidently advanced
here, than the facts connected with its history ? I know, sir, what
may be said in reply to this otherwise triumphant example. I
am aware that the Scotch banks^have, in times of pressure, been
compelled to lean upon the Bank of England — that objections
have been made, by high authorities, to the principles on which
they have been conducted, and that other persons, admitting their
unquestionable usefulness and success, have ascribed it to cir-
cumstances which render the system an unfit model for imita-
tion elsewhere. Be it so. But still it is banking — banking on
the English plan, with a very inadequate supply, scarcely any
supply, of bullion ; banking without limitation or control, with-
out any reference or responsibility to government — banking, in
a word, with' all the defects imputed to that system, in their most
exaggerated forms.

But, if this example be not satisfactory, let us look at the expe-
rience of the two other countries in which the system exists, as
we are told, in its most vicious state — England and the United
States. Look at the result. I have no faith at all in specu-
lative politics. A theorist in government is as dangerous as a
theorist in medicine, or in agriculture, and for precisely the same
reason — the subjects are too complicated and too obscure for
simple and decisive experiments. I go for undisputed results in
the long run. Now surely a philosophic inquirer into the history
of the commerce and public economy of nations, if he saw a
people pre-eminently distinguished in those particulars above all
others, would be inclined to ascribe their superiority to what was
peculiar in their institutions ; at least, whatever might be his
ideas a priori on such subjects, he would be very slow to deny
to any remarkable peculiarity in those institutions its full impor-
tance as one of the probable causes of the success which he wit-
nessed, unless he could clearly show the contrary. Then, sir,
by what example are we to be guided in such matters if not by
that of England — by far the most magnificent manifestation, that
the world, in any age of it, has ever beheld, of the might and
the grandeur of civilized life. Sir, I have weighed every sylla-
ble that I utter — I express a deliberate conviction, founded upon
a patient inquiry and a comparison as complete, as my limited
knowledge has enabled me to make it, between the past and pre-
sent condition of mankind, and between the great nation of
which I am speaking and those which surround her. Sir,

304 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

there is a gulph between them — that narrow channel separates
worlds — it is an ocean more than three thousand miles wide. 1
appeal to any one who has been abroad, whether going from
England to any part of the continent — be not descending im-
mensely in the scale of civilization. I know, sir, that that word
is an ambiguous one. I know that, in some of the graces of pol-
ished society, in some of the arts of an elegant imagination, that,
in the exact sciences and in mere learning and general intellec-
tual cultivation, some nations have excelled, perhaps, many
equalled. England. But, in that civilization, which, as I have said
before, it is the great end of modern political economy to promote,
and which is immediately connected with the subject before
you — which at once springs out of, and leads to, the accumula-
tion of capital and the distribution of wealth and comfort through
all classes of a community, with an immense aggregate of national
power and resources — that civilization which enables man to
"wield these elements, and arm him with the force of all their
legions," which gives him dominion over all other creatures, and
makes him emphatically the Lord of the Universe — that civili-
zation which consists not in music, not in playing on the flute,
as the Athenian hero said, but in turning a small city into a great
one ; in that victorious, triumphant, irresistible civilization, there
is nothing recorded in the annals of mankind that does not sink
into the shades of the deepest eclipse by the side of England.
I say nothing of her recent achievements on the land and the
sea ; of her fleets, her armies, her subsidised allies. Look at the
Thames crowded with shipping ; visit her arsenals, her docks,
her canals, her railways, her factories, her mines, her warehouses,
her roads, and bridges ; go through the streets of that wonderful
metropolis, the bank, the emporium, and the exchange of the
whole world ; converse with those merchants who conduct and
control, as far as it is possible to control, the commerce of all
nations, with those manufacturers who fill every market with
their unrivalled products ; go into that bank which is the reposi-
tory of the precious metals for all Europe ; consider its notes as
well as the bills of private bankers, at a premium every where,
more valuable than specie, symbols not merely of gold, but of
what is far more precious than gold, yea, than fine gold, of per-
fect good faith, of unblemished integrity, of sagacious enterprise,
of steadfast, persevering industry, of boundless wealth, of busi-
ness co-extensive with the earth, and of all these things possess-
ed, exercised, enjoyed, protected under a system of liberty chas-
tened by the law which maintains it, and of law softened and
mitigated by the spirit of liberty which it breathes throughout.
Sir, I know, as well as any one, what compensations there are
for all this opulence and power, for it is the condition of our
being that we "buy our blessings at a price." I know that

SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY. 305

there are disturbing causes which have hitherto marred, in some
degree, the effect of this high and mighty civilization ; but the
hand of reform has been already applied to them, and every
thing promises the most auspicious results. I have it on the
most unquestionable authority, because, from an unwilling wit-
ness, that within the memory of man, never were the laboring
classes of England so universally employed, and so comfortably
situated as at the beginning of the present year.*

But I said that there was another nation that had some expe-
rience in banking and its effects. Sir, I dare not trust myself
to speak of my country with the rapture which I habitually feel
when I contemplate her marvellous history. But this I will
say, that on my return to it, after an absence of only four years,
I was filled with wonder at all I saw and all I heard. What
upon earth is to be compared with it? I found New-York
grown up to almost double its former size, with the air of a
great capital, instead of a mere flourishing commercial town, as
I had known it. I listened to accounts of voyages of a thou-
sand miles in magnificent steamboats on the waters of those
great lakes, which, but the other day, I left sleeping in the
primeval silence of nature, in the recesses of a vast wilderness ;
and I felt that there is a grandeur and a majesty in this irresis-
tible onward march of a race, created, as I believe, and elected
to possess and people a continent, which belong to few other
objects, either of the moral or material world. We may become
so much accustomed to such things that they shall make as little
impression upon our minds as the glories of the Heavens above
us ; but, looking on them, lately, as with the eye of the stran-
ger, I felt, what a recent English traveller is said to have re-
marked, that, far from being without poetry, as some have vain-
ly alleged, our whole country is one great poem. Sir, it is so ;
and if there be a man that can think of what is doing, in all
parts of this most blessed of all lands, to embellish and advance
it, who can contemplate that living mass of intelligence, activ-
ity and improvement as it rolls on, in its sure and steady pro-
gress, to the uttermost extremities of the west; who can see
scenes of savage desolation transformed, almost with the sud-
denness of enchantment, into those of fruitfulness and beauty ;
crowned with flourishing cities, filled with the noblest of all
populations ; if there be a man, I say, that can witness all this
passing under his very eyes, without feeling his heart beat high,
and his imagination warmed and transported by it, be sure, sir,
that the raptures of song exist not for him ; he would listen in
vain to Tasso or Camoens, telling a tale of the wars of knights

♦Westminster Review for January, 1837. Some ascribe the fact to an ample
circulation.

vol. i. — 39

306 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

and crusaders, or of the discovery and conquest of another
hemisphere.

Sir, thinking as I do of these things — not doubting, for a
moment, the infinite superiority of our race in every thing that
relates to a refined and well ordered public economy, and in all
the means and instruments of a high social improvement, it
strikes me as of all paradoxes the most singular, to hear foreign
examples seriously proposed for our imitation in the very mat-
ters wherein that superiority has ever appeared to me to be
most unquestionable. The reflection has occurred to me a
thousand times in travelling over the continent of Europe, as 1
passed through filthy ill-paved villages, through towns in which
there is no appearance of an improvement having been made
since the Reformation, as I have looked at the wretched hovel
of the poor peasant or artizan, or seen him at his labors with
his clumsy implements and coarse gear — what a change would
take place in the whole aspect of the country, if it were to fall
in the hands of Americans for a single generation !

But is it paper money and the credit system alone that have
achieved all these wonders? I do not say so, sir; but can you
say, can any one presume to say, that they have not done much
of all this? I know that the cardinal spring and source of our
success is freedom — freedom, with the peculiar character that
belongs to ,it in our race — freedom of thought, freedom of
speech, freedom of action, freedom of commerce, freedom not
merely from the oppressions, but from those undue restraints
and that impertinent interference of government in the interests
properly belonging to individuals, which stand in the way of
all improvement in the nations of continental Europe. It is
this vital principle, the animating element of social equality,
tempered and sobered by a profound respect for the authority of
the laws, and for the rights of others, and acting upon that
other prominent characteristic of the Anglo-Norman race, the
strong instinct of property, with the personal independence and
personal comfort that belong to it — that explains our unrivalled
and astonishing progress. But of this rational, diffusive liberty,
among a people so intelligent as ours, the credit system is the
natural fruit, the inseparable companion, the necessary means
and instrument. It is part and parcel of our existence. Who-
ever heard of credit in a despotism, or an anarchy? It im-
plies confidence— confidence in yourself, confidence in your
neighbor, confidence in your government, confidence in the ad-
ministration of the laws, confidence in the sagacity, the integ-
rity, the discretion of those with whom you have to deal ; con-
fidence, in a word, in your destiny, and your fortune, in the
destinies and the fortune of the country to which you belong ;

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 307

as, for instance, in the case of a great national debt. It is the
fruit, I say, of all that is most precious in civilized life, and to
quarrel with it is to be ungrateful to God for some of the great-
est blessings he has vouchsafed to man. Compare Asia with
Europe ; hoarding has been the usage of the former from time
immemorial, because it is slavish, oppressed and barbarous ; and
it is curious to see the effect of English laws in breaking up (as
they are doing) that system in Hindoostan. Depend upon it,
sir, all such ideas are utterly alien to our way of thinking — to
all the habitudes of our people, and all the interests of the
country. My friends from beyond the mountains are familiar
with the great principle, the magical effect of credit in a young
and progressive country. They know that miracles are wrought
by a small advance of money to enable enterprise and industry
to bring into cultivation a virgin soil. They know how soon
the treasures of its unworn fertility enable them to pay off a loan
of that sort with usurious interest, and make them proprietors of
estates rising in value with the lapse of every moment. Com-
pare the great Western country now, with what it was twenty
years ago — sell it sub hasta — and compute, if the powers of
arithmetic will enable you to do so, the augmentation of its
riches. Sir, this is one of the phenomena of our situation to
which attention has hardly ever been called — the manner in
which the mere increase of population acts upon the value of
property. To be struck with the prodigious results produced in
this simple way, you have only to compare the estimated taxable
property in Pennsylvania and New-York, when it was returned
for direct taxation in '99, with the returns of the same property, for
the same purpose, in 1813, after an interval of fourteen years* —
you will see how it is that our people have been enriched by
debt, and "by owing, owe not" — how with a balance of pay-
ments almost continually against them from the first settlement
of the country, they have grown in riches beyond all precedent
or parallel. You will appreciate all the blessings of the credit
system — and imagine, perhaps, how this wonderful progress
would have been impeded and embarrassed by the difficulties
of a metallic circulation.!

But the fluctuations of the currency — the ruinous irregularities
of bank paper! Why, sir, I have already shown they belong to
commerce itself, not to the means which it employs, and that
there is no remedy for them. Rut, after all, what is the sum of
the evil'/ Look again at general results. Tell me not that re-
actions produce fewer disasters, or less extensive derangements
of business and circulation in countries whose money is princi-
pally metallic. — It may be so; but what does that prove? If you

* Pitken's Statistics, 1835. t Mr. Gallatin's Pamphlet, p. 68.

30S SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

never soar, you will be in no danger of falling, certainly — but
then,

Serpit humi tutus nimium timidus que procellce.

A go-cart may be a very safe contrivance for the tottering foot-
steps of infancy — but is it thus that manly vigor is to be trained
for the dust and heat of the Olympic race? Sir, it is the condi-
tion of all that is grand and awakening in nature to be somewhat
wild and irregular. In the moral world, especially, peril and
difficulty are the price which Providence exacts of us for all
great excellence, and all eminent success. It is in struggling
with them that the heroic virtues, which elevate and pnrify hu-
manity, are called forth and disciplined ; and it is precisely be-
cause our people have been trained in that stern school, that they
have effected more, and are now able to effect more, with equal
means, than any other in the world. Sir, it is not our currency
only that is obnoxious to the imputation of irregularity. What
is democracy, popular government itself? How often has it
fallen to my lot to defend it by the very considerations which I
now urge on a kindred topic, when foreigners have spoken to
me of the disorders that have occasionally checquered our his-
tory. When they exaggerated the importance of such events,
I have reminded them that all human institutions must have
their imperfections ; and that it is by their general effects in a
long course of experience, not by occasional accidents, however
striking and important, that they are to be judged. That the
absence of restraint, which leads to occasional licentiousness,
fosters that bold, robust, energetic, and adventurous spirit, and
that habit of haughty self-reliance, and independent judgment,
which are the very soul of republican government ; which have
rendered that form of government, wherever it has existed, so
illustrious for heroic achievements, and has made every era of
liberty in the history of mankind, even in its most imperfect jbrm,
an era of flourishing prosperity and progress. Sir, such a people,
as has been said of beings of a higher order, "live throughout,
vital in every part."

All head they live, all heart, all eye, all ear,
• All intellect, all sense.*

This is the great secret of our superiority, and that of every
free people — not the forms of a constitution, not the outlines of
a system, not mere organization — but the principle of life, the
all-pervading animation and vitality that informs the whole body
politic, and gives it the warmth, and strength, and activity — the

[* Monstrum horrenduin, ingens, cui quot sunt corporc plumee,
Tot vigiles ocnli subter, mirabile dictu ;
Tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures.

Virgil's jEneid, lib. iv., I. 181, 2, 3.]

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 309

winning graces and expressive countenance of a man, instead of
the cold and repulsive stillness of a painted corpse. Jury-trial
is another of these irregularities — liable, undoubtedly, to much
criticism in detail, scarcely susceptible, as a judicial institution,
of a strict defence in theory — yet what should we think of a re-
former that should propose to us the abolition of a system so full
of practical good, because it was unknown until recently, any
where but in England, and often leads, as it certainly has often
led, to great abuse and injustice.

But, then, it seems, our banking system is an innovation, in-
troduced only a century and a half ago, and deviates from the
primitive model of the Bank of Amsterdam, — the honest system,
as it is called^— and that instead of lending money, it lends mere-
ly credit.

As to the idea of its being an innovation, I would just remark,
that it had its origin at that great epoch of human improvement,
as I must still be allowed to call it, when mankind ceased to cut
each other's throats for differences in religion, and began to make
war for colonies and* commerce — an era perfectly familiar, as
such, to every one that has studied history philosophically. But
there is something more in the historical reminiscence than the
mere fact just referred to. If the comparative effects of Dutch
and English banking are to be judged by the event, what an in-
structive lesson is to be drawn from a parallel between those two
powers, at the close of the seventeenth century, and their relation
towards each other now ! Where is Van Tromp? Where is De
Ruyter? What is become of the mighty fleets which disputed
the dominion of the seas with England and France? Poor
Holland ! her defenceless ports, blockaded by British squadrons —
her court brow-beaten by British diplomacy — shorn of all her
strength and glory, she seems almost sinking again into the wa-
ters out of which she merged. So much for the innovation.
But what is the objection to the system ? Let us understand
each other. I will put a case. The quantity of the precious
metals required in any transaction, or any number of transactions,
between two countries, (or two individuals, for it comes to the
same thing,) depends not only upon the balance of payments
between them, but also on the confidence they have in each other.
Thus, Hamburg imports corn for England in a season of dearth,
from Prussia. If trade be prosperous and the world at peace,
she will probably pay for this corn by a bill at six months, with
interest, and when the time comes for meeting her engagement,
she will do so by sending to Dantzic a cargo of colonial produce.*
But should the times be such (from war, commotions, &c.,) as
to make commerce uncertain, or to impair credit, the purchase
can be made only for cash, and paid for in gold and silver. Now,

* Thornton.

310 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

sir, commerce being a mere exchange of commodities, every
body must see, at a glance, that it is very much more promoted
by a state of peace and order, than by one of war and commotion,
by a state of confidence, than by one of distrust, by a state of
things that admits of payments in bills, than by one that requires
payments in cash. In a simple operation, like the one described,
this is quite manifest, and yet the whole theory of money and
of banking, is contained in that simple operation.

Sir, it explains at once why it is that, in countries very far ad-
vanced in commerce and civilization, the precious metals, for all
purposes of currency, are superseded by commercial paper, as is
particularly the case in England, whose paper circulation of all
sorts is something like two hundred millions, resting upon a basis
of only thirty millions of specie.* Money is nothing more than
what is called by the brokers "a bought and sold note" — it is a
token which shows that its holder has parted with commodities
to that amount, and that he is entitled to receive their equivalent
in other commodities whenever it shall be his pleasure to do so.
Why should that token be of gold? Why should a mere title
or evidence of debt be itself of a material as costly as the thing
of which it is the symbol and the evidence ?

It is clear that were there any means of insuring society
against excessive issues of paper, besides its convertibility into
gold and silver — were not that the only practical test hitherto
discovered by which prices in different countries can be com-
pared— all commercial nations would dispense with the precious
metals as a medium of exchange. But as yet there is no such
means, and the currency, theoretically the most perfect, is for the
present impracticable. The nearest approximation to it has cer-
tainly been made occasionally in the United States, where the
specie basis has just answered the purpose of ascertaining that
our currency was on a level with that of other nations.

But there is another step in the commercial operation just
mentioned. The holder of the bill of exchange, received in
payment of corn, stands in need of some other commodity,
which his own credit does not enable him to procure. He ap-
plies to a banker or any other capitalist for the cash, or what will
answer his purpose just as well, his credit in the shape of a note
payable on demand, or at a short date, for which the original bill
at six months is given in exchange, with a reasonable discount.
This last operation is what is considered as the great abomina-
tion of banking. The bank receives a discount on giving its
own bill payable on demand, or one at a short date, (for which
therefore it is compelled to reserve or prepare a fund.) for a bill
payable at six months, of which of course payment cannot be de-

•Mr. Burgess in the Minutes of Evidence, &c., before the Committee of the
House of Commons in 1832.

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 311

manded until the expiration of that term. And, now I ask,
where is the difference between the first operation, which every
body must perceive is eminently conducive to the extension of
commerce and the last ? What objection can be made to it that
does not lie equally against the drawing and discounting of bills
of exchange — an improvement of which Europe has been boast-
ing for at least six hundred years, and of which the advantages
have never to my knowledge been questioned before J Why is
not a credit founded on property as good in the one case as in
the other? and why should gold and silver be used in either
when they are not wanted ?

The banking system, sir, is only one form of that division of
labor which takes place in all opulent countries. It leads to a
great economy both of time and money— of the former, because
the business of a whole community in receiving and paying
away can be transacted by the clerks of a single institution, as
well as by one hundred or one thousand times the number, in
the separate employment of individual merchants — of the latter,
because instead of each individual in a community reserving the
quantity of gold and silver necessary to meet current demands,
a much smaller proportional amount kept by a banking house
has been found to answer the wants of the whole society. But
the utility of that system is not confined to the advantages just
mentioned. It appears to me very clear in the first place, that
the credit system carried to the extent in which it exists in Eng-
land and the United States, could not possibly be made to rest
upon any thing so liable to be disturbed by a foreign demand,
and by other contingencies, as the metallic basis, and of which
a given quantity cannot therefore be counted on at any given
time. What is commonly called the currency of a country, that
is to say, bank paper and the precious metals, really constitutes a
very small portion of it, but it may be considered as the test or
touchstone of all the rest, and, if engagements in bills of exchange
&c, be not met according to their tenor in what is considered as
cash, it is difficult to calculate the effects of the alarm that may
ensue. But there is another point of view in which banks ap-
pear to me quite essential to our commercial system. It is that,
according to the remark o'f an excellent writer,* the appreciation
of the credit of a number of persons engaged in commerce has,
by means of them, become a science, and to the height to which
that science is now carried in Great Britain, (and in this coun-
try,) that country is in no small degree indebted for the flourish-
ing state of its internal commerce, for the general reputation of
its merchants abroad, and for the preference which in this res-
pect they enjoy over the traders of all other nations.

Sir, I have been driven to this elementary way of considering
* Thornton.

312 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY.

the subject by the course whicli the argument has taken here
and elsewhere, and because, in solemnly reviewing, as we are
now compelled to do, the whole monetary system of the coun-
try, it is of the very last importance that the subject, in all its
aspects, should be fairly presented to the people. 1 shall there-
fore proceed briefly to consider the question, how far it is practi-
cable or desirable to substitute a metallic currency for bank paper
or even very materially to widen the metallic basis of our present
circulation.

I presume it will hardly be disputed that, by a general return
to the precious metals as the only medium of exchange for the
whole commercial world, the operations of trade would be every
where embarrassed and impeded, and the vajue of money en-
hanced, or, which is the same thing, the prices of commodities
reduced in an incalculable degree. How far a similar effect has
already been produced by the diminution of the supply from
the Mexican and South American mines, within the last twenty
years, is one of the most difficult and controverted questions of
the day. This is not a fit occasion for stating the arguments
advanced by the advocates of different views on that subject, but
I will mention to the committee that, in a very able work to
which I have already referred as having been recently sent to
me, the author, who examines this point with perfect candor, ad-
vances the opinion that thousands have, within the period alluded
to, been precipitated into embarrassments from that cause alone.*
If it be true, as is alleged by Jacobs, that the whole stock of coin
in circulation, in 1S29, was less by upwards of £60,000,000 than
that which circulated in 1809 — and, if any thing like the sup-
posed diminution of the actual quantity by abrasion, by loss, by
consumption in manufactures takes place, (1 per cent.t a year,)
it becomes matter of serious speculation, what means shall be
adopted to obviate so great an inconvenience as a continually
decreasing metallic basis, at a period when commerce and its
productive powers are so immensely on the increase. Sir, that
question is infinitely more interesting in a highly progressive
country than in any other. In such a country, the currency
must be regularly enlarged with the growth of its population and
of its productive power, or it is subjected to the most terrible of
all evils, falling prices. Every body that has ever treated of
such subjects has dwelt upon the effects of an increasing cur-
rency, as wonderfully favorable to industry. No more striking
example of this truth can be desired than what was witnessed
in the sixteenth century, after the importation of gold and silver
from America began to produce a decided effect upon the distribu-
tion of wealth. It is admitted on all hands to have been the period
of the greatest improvement in society that has occurred in its
* Money and its Vicissitudes in Value. t Ibid.

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 313

history ; and of all countries, bo it remembered, England bene-
fitted most by the general rise of prices, because so large a por-
tion of her farmers held leases for long terms of years, and paid
money rents : the increase of the circulation operating to re-
duce the real value of the returns, made to the landlord, in favor
of his tenant. The great benefit of a full and especially an in-
creasing circulation thus consists not only in quickening and
facilitating exchanges, (itself an immense stimulus to industry,)
but in securing to the industrious classes rather a larger propor-
tion of the income of society than they would otherwise enjoy.
Every thing which they buy to sell again advances in price
while it is in their hands, and this unquestionable truth is of it-
self a total refutation of all that is said concerning the oppressive
operation of bank paper upon the productive classes, by the very
persons who, in the same breath, speak of its excess and depre-
ciation.

With a population then, increasing at the rate of 4 to 5 per
cent, a year, and with an accumulation of capital and productive
power proportionally greater, I hold it to be utterly absurd to
talk of any thing like a metallic currency in the United States.
There is no possible means of procuring, and if by any means
it could be procured, I venture to affirm that our people would
get rid of it in the course of a few years, though all the penal
laws of Spain against the exportation of gold and silver should
be re-enacted here — laws which were passed with no other effect,
even in that country, but to show the utter futility of such legis-
lation. I say, sir, that with their present habits of active enter-
prise and strict economy, the American people would export the
precious metals as fast as they were imported, beyond any amount
of them which might be absolutely necessary for the domestic
exchanges of the country, and they would do so because gold
and silver would be of use abroad in purchasing commodities,
and would be wholly superfluous at home, where paper would
do as well. If you put down "the banks," it would have no ef-
fect but to set up something worse in their place, in the shape of
private paper. There are some things over which the most des-
potic lawgivers are unable to exercise any control, and one of
them, as all experience shows, is this commerce in bullion.

Sir, it has been said that the only advantage of a paper cur-
rency over the precious metals consists in its cheapness. I am,
by no means, as you may gather from what I have said, ready
to admit this, but supposing it to be true, is that saving really an
unimportant matter ? Mr. Gallatin, in a pamphlet of signal abil-
ity,* has, as I conceive, fallen into a grave error on this subject,
which it is so much the more important to rectify, as I perceive,

* Considerations on the Currency and Banking of the United States. Philadel-
phia, 1831.

vol. i. — 40

314 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

that ho has misled others more disposed than himself to turn a
speculative error into a practical mischief. He states the whole
benefit derived from the use of paper instead of the precious
metals in the United States in 1830, including, under the name
of circulation, private deposites in the banks, as they ought un-
doubtedly to be, at about five millions of dollars a year. It is
true that, according to principles admitted by Mr. Gallatin, the
progress of the country, both in wealth and population, in the
last seven years, would require a very considerable addition to
be made to this estimate in order to a correct application of it to
our actual condition. But, sir, it appears to me that the estimate
was made on data altogether erroneous. In the first place, the
quantity of currency, if it were metallic, necessary to the circu-
lation of this country, was prodigiously underrated. For rea-
sons that need not be* stated here, it is found that a given amount
of metallic currency does not circulate as rapidly as an equal
amount of paper, and therefore, that more of it is, ceteris pari-
bus, required to do the same business. But, without going into
such minute inquiry here, why should the United States, with
sixteen millions of inhabitants, and relatively the most active
trade both foreign and domestic in the world, and with extraor-
dinary productive power of all sorts, not need, at the very least,
half the circulation necessary in France, with only double their
population, and not half their industry ? The stress that ought
to be laid on this latter circumstance may be illustrated by com-
paring Asia with Europe in this particular ; double the popula-
tion in the former, possessing, according to the most accurate re-
searches, only one-fifth the quantity of gold and silver, which,
in addition to paper of all sorts, is required in the latter. Now,
the circulation of France was, before the first revolution, set
down by Neckar at £88,000,000*— and Thiers, in his history of
that event, makes a similar estimate.! Its present amount ought
in reference to the increase of her capital and population, to be,
at least, 600,000,000 of dollars, and accordingly, as was observed
by one of my colleagues, (Mr. Thompson) it is stated at that, on
good authority}. Mr. Rothschild, in his examination before the
Committee of the House of Commons in 1832, mentions the
paper circulation of the Bank of France as amounting to 750,-
000,000 of francs. According to this, then, we should require, on
the footing of population alone, at least 300,000,000 of dollars.
So much for the amount ; now for the loss upon it.

Mr. Gallatin considers it only as so much interest on dead cap-
ital, and even the interest he puts at an exceedingly low rate.
But I apprehend the difference to the country between having a

* See an article in Blackwood's Magazine, for last February.

t Burke's Letter on the French Revolution.

: Thiers' Hist.de la Revolution Francaise, v. 5, p. 24.

SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY. 315

vast inert mass of gold and silver as currency, and turning it
into productive capital, must be determined, not in reference to
interest merely, but the profit of stock laid out in active industry,
which is no where in this country less than 10 per cent., and, in
the great majority of cases, the new states and all included, near
double that amount on an average. You see then, sir, what an
enormous loss a metallic currency would be to the nation, with-
out taking into the account, its wear and tear. Look back at the
half century that has passed away, and say what that loss would
have been, on principles of compound interest, from the begin-
ning up to the present day. Why, sir, it exceeds all powers of
calculation, nay of imagination. Do not suppose for a moment
that so important, so palpable a truth, although never stated in
abstract terms or as a general proposition, has not occurred to the
people of the United States. They have/e/£ it without perceiv-
ing it, they have acted on it without reasoning about it, they
have perfectly well comprehended the real uses of money, without
studying the principles of currency, and they have preferred pa-
per as a circulating medium to gold and silver, because it was
better for their purposes than gold and silver, on the simplest
maxims of prudence and economy. You may depend upon it,
this conclusion is as deeply rooted as it is just. You will never
be able to shake it. All your policy will be of no avail, as all
legislation is forever vain which comes in conflict with the genius
of a people, especially in matters so deeply and visibly affecting
their private interest. The Barbarian who, in his impotent rage,
threw fetters into the Hellespont and scourged its foaming bil-
lows, did not wage a more insane war against the nature of
things.

But we are told that, if it is an experiment that has been propos-
ed to us, we need not be alarmed at it, because we are accustom-
ed to experiments, and successful ones; that our Constitution it-
self is a mere experiment. Sir, 1 deny it utterly, and he that
says so shows me that he has either not studied at all, or
studied to very little purpose, the history and genius of our in-
stitutions. The great cause of their prosperous results — a cause
which every one of the many attempts, since vainly made to
imitate them, on this continent or in Europe, only demonstrates
the more clearly— is precisely the contrary. It is because our
fathers made no experiments, and had no experiment to make,
that their work had stood. They were forced, by a violation of
their historical, hereditary rights under the old common law of
their race, to dissolve their connection with the mother country.
Their external, their federal relations were of course changed, and
in that respect, and, in that respect only, they were compelled to
do their best in the novel situation in which they stood. What
relates, therefore, merely to the union of the States is all that

316 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURV.

gives the least countenance to this superficial idea of an "experi-
ment", which has done so much to misguide the speculations of
some visionary minds upon these important matters. Even in
this respect, however, an attentive study of our history will
show that strong federal tendencies existed and had, frequently,
on former occasions manifested themselves.* But the whole
constitution of society in the States, the great body and bulk of
their public law, with all its maxims and principles — in short,
all that is republican in our institutions — remained after the revo-
lution, and remains now, with some very subordinate modifica-
tions, what it was from the beginning. Our written constitutions
do nothing but consecrate and fortify the "plain rules of ancient
liberty," handed down with Magna Charta, from the earliest his-
tory of our race. It is not a piece of paper, sir, it is not a few
abstractions engrossed on parchment, that make free govern-
ments. No, sir, the law of liberty must be inscribed on the
heart of the citizen : the word, if I may use the expression with-
out irreverence, must become flesh ; you must have a whole peo-
ple trained, disciplined, bred, yea, and born, as our fathers were,
to institutions like ours. Before the colonies existed, the Petition
of Right, that Magna Charta of a more enlightened age, had been
presented in 1628 by Lord Coke and his immortal compeers. —
Our founders brought it with them, and we have not gone one
step beyond them. They brought these maxims of civil liberty,
not in their libraries but in their souls ; not as philosophical
prattle — not as barren generalities, but as rules of conduct ; as a
symbol of public duty and private right, to be adhered to with
religious fidelity ; and the very first pilgrim that set his foot upon
the rock of Plymouth stepped forth a living constitution !
armed at all points to defend and to perpetuate the liberty to
which he had devoted his whole being.

ft only remains for me to advert briefly to one or two ad-
ditional topics, and I have done. It has been argued as if the
currency given to bank paper in this country were due almost
exclusively to the countenance which government affords it, by
receiving it in payment of public dues. Certainly sir, the patron-
age of government is an important concurring cause of this
credit ; but it is not true that it is essential to it. What docs the
house of Rothschild owe to the government of Europe — that
house to which all the governments on the continent are obliged
to have recourse in their financial exigencies? And here let me
call the attention of those, who declaim so vehemently against
the agency of banking corporations, to the fact, that this mighty
house, with its scarcely less than royal influence and splendor,
like most of the other establishments of the same kind in Europe,
is no corporation at all, but a mere private partnership, and to

* Convention at Albany, &c.

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 317

the additional fact, that its colossal fortune has been amassed
in little more than a single generation, by an obscure person,
born in a corner of the Juden-Strasse of Frankfort on the Maine,
and his four sons. Do you not see then, sir, that the odious
common places about Hhe money power," and "the political
powers," either have no meaning, or apply with all their force to
every accumulation of capital, and all the great results of mod-
ern commerce? The "money power," I presume signifies "the
power of money," which is widely diffused in this country,
thanks to the protection of equal laws, and which will exist and
continue to have its influence, so long as those laws shall protect
it from confiscation, whether it shall borrow the credit of the
government, or the government shall borrow its credit. It is
scarcely necessary to notice an idea, analogous to the last, which
has been very much insisted on, and that is, that the commerce
of New- York has been built up by government credits. Why,
sir, this does appear to me too extravagant to need exposure.
New- York has been built up by her unquestionable natural ad-
vantages, and there is no measure of this government — there is
only one event, that can possibly deprive her of her immense
commercial ascendancy, — the dissolution of the Union — that,
and nothing but that, can do it. Commerce, as I have already
remarked, tends every where to centralization : look at Liverpool,
look at Havre, the last, in a hard money country. But on this
head there is a very important consideration, which has been
urged with all his admirable eloquence, by one of my colleagues
in the Senate (Mr. Preston). If this concentration of commercial
business at that city be injurious to the others now, what will it
become, if, by collecting the revenue in gold and silver, and thus
making gold and silver mere merchandize, you add to the dis-
advantages of centralization all the difficulties of procuring
coin — make New- York the great specie market — and render the
whole country tributary to the money changers of Wall-street?
Sir, a word more to the South and for the South. When
your system of protection was still in all its vigor, we, (I mean
the people of South-Carolina,) sent you a protest against its prin-
ciples and tendency, which contained, among other objections to
it, one that deserves to be repeated here. We told you that we
depended absolutely upon commerce —commerce on the largest
scale — commerce carried on as it has been for the last half cen-
tury, with an ever increasing production, provoking and creating
an ever increasing consumption, and permitting us to send a mil-
lion (now a million and a half) of bales of cotton into the market,
without any danger of a glut. We told you the staple commo-
dities, especially'the principal one which we produced, were
among the very few in the production of which slave labor can
enter into competetion with free. We reminded you that, great

318 SPIRIT OP THE SUB-TREASURY.

revolutions in trade, sometimes arose from apparently slight
causes, and that, however far it might be from your purpose, or
even your apprehensions, it was possible that your legislation
might occasion us the loss of our foreign market, our only re-
source— that the result of that loss to us would be poverty and
utter desolation, that our people in despair, would emigrate to
more fortunate regions, and the whole frame and constitution of
our society would be seriously impaired and endangered, if not
dissolved entirely. And we adjured you not to persist in a course
of legislation of which the benefit to yourselves, even were they
unquestionable, were nothing in comparison of the danger to
which they exposed us — a danger which, however contingent or
remote, involved our whole existence, and could not be contem-
plated without well-founded alarm. — Sir, I repeat to you now —
I repeat to the representatives of the whole South on this floor —
the words then addressed to the house on a different subject.
Let well alone. Resist this uncalled for innovation, of which no
one can foresee the whole extent nor the ultimate results. Mark
what your Secretary of the Treasury has told you, in the very
paper in which he reveals the project on the table — you pro-
duce too much cotton. Go home, gentlemen of the South,
and tell your people that their successful industry is a vice — that
the fertility of their soil is a curse — that their excessive produc-
tion occasions disorders in the state — and that the remedy for
our troubles is that they should live on short commons.

Let them co-operate with our political economy, by depriving
themselves of the little mercantile capital they have — let them
abolish those corporations to which people, who cannot them-
selves do business — the widow and the orphan — have contri-
buted their means for the accommodation of commerce — let them
but do this, and their docility will be admirable, and shall have
our approbation.

Sir, before 1 take my seat there is one other topic that I feel it
my duty to advert to — I mean to the supposed injurious effects
of banking institutions upon the laboring classes of society. Al-
though I have no doubt but that there are many defects in the
constitution, as well as the management of those institutions in
this country, and should be most willing to co-operate, if oc-
casion served, in reforming them, I have no hesitation in acquit-
ting them at least of this charge. Who that has ever heard of
the relation between capital and labor, between wages and profits,
but must see at once, that it is unfounded ; and accordingly Hume
objects to banks that by their issues they raise wages, and so
hurt the manufacturing interests of a nation. I have already
remarked that one of the effects of an increasing currency is to
a distribution of the wealth of society more favourable to the
industrious classes of it — to confiscate, in a manner, the property

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 319

of those who lived on fixed incomes, for the benefit of those
who produce the commodities on which those incomes are laid
out. It is for this reason that the radicals of England— Mr. At-
wood, for example — are all strenuous advocates of paper money,
and even of inconvertible paper. The idea that the poor are to
gain by a return to metallic currency is, so far as I know, con-
fined to their friends in this country, whose zeal is certainly
greater than their knowledge. It is true, sir, that, among other
disadvantages attending frequent fluctuations in the currency, it
is said that wages are the last thing that rises in a case of expan-
sion. And that may be so in countries where the supply of labor
is greater than the demand, but the very reverse is most certainly
the fact here where the demand — especially, when stimulated by
any extraordinary increase, real or fictitious, of capital — is always
greater than the supply. All price is a question of power, or
relative necessity between two parties, and every body knows
that in a period of excitement here wages rise immediately, and
out of all proportion more than anything else, because the popu-
lation of the country is entirely inadequate to its wants. During
the last year, for instance, the price of labor became so exorbitant,
that some of the most fertile land in South-Carolina, rice fields
which have been cultivated a hundred years, were in danger of
being abandoned from the impossibility of paying for it. Sir,
as a southern man, I represent equally rent, capital and wages,
which are all confounded in our estates — and I protest against
attempts to array, without cause, without a color of pretext or
plausibility, the different classes of society against one another,
as if, in such a country as this, there could be any natural hostil-
ity, or any real distinction between them — a country in which
all the rich, with hardly an exception, have been poor, and all
the poor may be rich — a country in which banking institutions
have been of immense service, precisely because they have been
most needed by a people who all had their fortunes to make by
good character and industrious habits. Look at that remarkable
picture — remarkable not as a work of art, but as a monument of
history — which you see in passing through the Rotunda. Two
out of five of that immortal committee were mechanics, and
such men !* In the name of God, sir, why should any one study
to pervert the natural good sense, and kindly feelings of this
moral and noble people, to infuse into their minds a sullen envy
towards one another, instead of that generous emulation which
every thing in their situation is fitted to inspire, to breathe into
them the spirit of Cain, muttering deep curses and meditating
desperate revenge against his brother, because the smoke of his
sacrifice has ascended to heaven before his own ! And do not
they who treat our industrious classes as if they were in the
* Franklin and Sherman, signers of the Declaration of Independence.

320 SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASUU V.

same debased wretched condition as the poor of Europe, insult
them by such an odious comparison ? — Why, sir, you do not
know what poverty is — we have no poor in this country, in the
sense in which that word is used abroad. Every laborer, even
the most humble, in the United States, soon becomes a capitalist;
and even, if he choose, a proprietor of land, for the West witli
all its boundless fertility is open to him. How can anyone dare
to compare the mechanics of this land, (whose inferiority in any
substantial particular — in intelligence, in virtue, in wealth — to
the other classes of our society, 1 have yet to learn,) with that
race of outcasts, of which so terrific a picture is presented by
recent writers — the poor of Europe? A race, among no incon-
siderable portion of whom famine and pestilence may be said to
dwell continually — many of whom are without morals, without
education, without a country, without a God ! and may be said
to know society only by the terrors of its penal code, and to live
in perpetual war with it. Poor bondmen ! mocked with the
name o, liberty, that they may be sometimes tempted to break
their chains, in order that, after a lew days of starvation in idle-
ness or dissipation, they may be driven back to their prison-house,
to take them up again, heavier and more galling than before: —
severed, as it has been touchingly expressed, from nature, from
the common air and the light of the sun ; knowing only by
hearsay that the fields are green, that the birds sing, and that
there is a perfume in flowers.* And it is with a race, whom
the perverse institutions of Europe have thus degraded beneath
the condition of humanity, that the advocates, the patrons, the
protectors of our working men, presume to compare them? Sir,
it is to treat them with a scorn, at which their spirit should
revolt, and does revolt ! Just before I left Charleston, there was
a meeting called for some purpose, which was regarded by the
people of that city as unfavorable to public order. There was
something, I suppose, in the proceedings, which looked to the
invidious distinction of which I have been speaking ; for it led,
as I have heard, to an expression of sentiment from one of our
mechanics,! which struck me as noble beyond all praise. He
said, he wondered what could be meant by addressing, to the
industrious classes particularly, all inflammatory appeals against
the institutions of the country — as if they were not a part of
the community, as much interested in its order and peace, as any
other — as if they had no ties of sympathy or connection with
their fellow-citizens — above all, as if they had not intelligence and
knowledge enough to take care of their own interests, but were
reduced to a state of perpetual pupilage and infancy, and needed
the officious protection of self-constituted guardians ! Sir, that

* Michelet. t Mr. Henry J. Harby.

SPIRIT OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 321

was a sentiment worthy of a freeman, and which may be record-
ed, with honor, among the sayings of heroes.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the committee for the attention with
which it has honored me. I have detained it long : but 1 was
full of the subject which appears to me to be one of vast impor-
tance, in all its bearings. I have spoken what I felt and thought,
without reference to party. But I will say one word to those
with whom I have generally acted on this floor. I have heard
that some of them disapprove this measure, but are disposed to
vote for it to oblige their friends. Sir, this is a strange and great
mistake. A true friend ought to be a faithful counsellor.* Let
them remember the deep reproach which the great poet puts in
the mouth of one of his heroes :

Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause,

When I spoke daikly what I purposed;

Or turned an eye of doubt upon my lace !

[* Phocion to Antipater. Plutarch de Adulatore et Amico. ou duvaffai (/.<><
Kjy <p»X6J xprjtfSrai x,' xoXaxj tout' ££»>,*/ <p»Xw x^ jxtj cpjXw.]

vol. i. — 41

RECOGNITION OF IIAYT1.

Speech, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United Slates,
December 18, 1838.

Mr. Saltonstall, of Massachusetts, having presented a me-
morial praying for the recognition of the Republic of Hayti, and
the establishment of international relations with her, and hav-
ing moved its reference to the committee on Foreign Affairs —

Mr. Legare desired further information as to the nature of
the memorial, and the grounds on which it asked for its object.

The Chair said there was no question before the House but
the question of reference.

Mr. Legare raised the question of reception. He objected to
the memorial being received. There was a wide difference
between petitions which were presented bona fide by our mer-
chants with a view to relieve themselves from a difficulty or
embarrassment under which they labored in their business, and
petitions of similar form got up by abolitionists for purposes of
political effect, and to promote the ends of abolition. If this
were a petition of the former character, he saw no difficulty in
receiving it. He was aware how difficult it was to distinguish
practically between them. Still, if it were a memorial of the
latter kind, it was virtually an act of war against one portion of
the Union, and the House had not only a clear constitutional
right to reject it, but was under the most solemn and imperative
duty to do so. He had been desirous of an opportunity of ex-
pressing his views in relation to this subject ; and it was certain-
ly much to be regretted that a question of such vital importance
to a great and growing confederacy, whose members were con-
tinually multiplying, and with them the diversities in condition,
character, pursuits, and interests, that made the administration
of a Federal government so very delicate a matter — a question,
too, which mustj in the nature of things, be perpetually recur-
ring— should be smothered in this manner. But he was out of
order, he knew, and he would not press his remark further.
[Cries of "Go on! go on!"] If not out of order, I should really
like to address a few words to this question. The gentleman
from Massachusetts, (Mr. Adams), in a spirit, 1 must be per-
mitted to say, less offensive than he usually displays on this
subject, has contended that the amendment of the constitution

RECOGNITION OF HAYTI. 323

touching the right of petition has set at nought all the prece-
dents of the British House of Commons. But look at the
amendment ; what does it say ?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The question is whether there is any thing in this language
to render inapplicable here the parliamentary law touching the
subject of petitions. And is it not as clear as day that there is
not ? The thing prohibited in this amendment is a new law ;
an act of both Houses, approved by the Executive ; a statute,
declaring that the right of assembling to petition their rulers does
not belong to American citizens, or which shall in any wise
weaken or impair that right. The words are, "Congress shall
pass no law? What is "CongressV The Senate and House
of Representatives together. The object was, as in the analo-
gous case of trial by jury, to preserve freedom of debate and the
right of petition forever as they stood at common law. But
here we are not called to pass a statute, but simply to declare
what is the meaning of the common law itself.

It is not a legislative but a judical function we are exercising
in relation to the reception of petitions, under our undoubted con-
stitutional right of regulating our own procedure. The right of
petition is as much protected by this amendment of the constitu-
tion as the freedom of speech is, and no more. And will any
man tell me that the freedom of speech is absolute and inherent,
and cannot be restrained by this House? Is a member of this
House, under this provision of the constitution, entitled to say
just what he pleases in this hall ? May he vomit forth blasphe-
mies ? May he shock your ears with foul obscenity ? May he
attack the fundamental principles of republican government — for
that I pronounce to be clearly out of order? I think no man
will maintain this, or any thing like this.* The meaning of the
amendment is clear. It means that what is liberty of speech in
this House shall be judged by the House, and by the House
alone. Not by the Senate ; not by the President ; not by any
power other than the House itself. It is not to make the right
absolute, but to render the jurisdiction exclusive. And I say
that the judicial right of this House to decide on all such
questions is not in the least impaired, but, on the contrary,
secured and guarded by this amendment to the constitution.
The right is preserved as a sacred prerogative of the American
people, but to be exercised, with reference to the ends of the con-

* So the previous question, a motion to lay on the table, &c, are familiar in-
stances of the control of the House over liberty of speech in its own members.

324 RECOGNITION OF HAYTI.

stitution under the control of this House, and in conformity to
the established practice of the country.

The same doctrine precisely applies to the right of petition;
and in relation to that right there are precedents innumerable in
the British books. If you go as far back as the times of the
Long Parliament, you will find a case in which a petition was
ordered to be burnt by the hand of the common hangman.
And let no man object that the influences of royalty operated
there. This was done by the hands of the regicides, yet reeking
with the blood of their monarch : patriarchs of constitutional
government — great men, if there ever were such, and men from
whom we learnt all our original lessons and ideas of liberty, and
who anticipated, at that early period, almost all the reforms we
have since carried into effect. I will not carry you to the Par-
liament of 1680, when England, on account of the exclusion
bill, was on the brink of civil war. I admit that these were
periods of great popular excitement ; and that, in some cases, at
such periods, the House of Commons may have gone further
than strict law would warrant. I do not stand in need of the.se
exceptionable precedents. There is authority enough without
them ; for, although I have not been happy enough to meet
with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the thousand com-
mentators on parliamentary law, spoken of the other day by one
of my colleagues, (Mr. Pickens), yet the thousanth is all-suf-
ficient for me. I mean honest Hatsell, whose work may scarce-
ly aspire to the dignity of a commentary, but is, at any rate, a
most useful and faithful compilation. If you will turn to his
indexes, you will find abundance of law for the proposition I
am now maintaining. The House of Commons, in 1669, in a
famous quarrel with the Lords, about this very question of pri-
vilege, in the case of a man of the name of Skinner, (if I mis-
take not), asserted two fundamental maxims as part of the gene-
ral parliamentary law: 1st. That it is the undoubted right of
every commoner to prepare and present his petitions to the
house of Commons ; and, 2d. That it is the undoubted right
and privilege of that house to adjudge and determine how far
such petitions are proper to be received. It is true that the pro-
ceedings in this case were subsequently — for reasons not affect-
ing this point, however — erased from the journals ; but the
same doctrine was, in the next generation, under circumstances
altogether different, completely established, and has ever since
been enforced in practice, without the slightest question or
opposition. It was I think, in 1706, under a whig ministry,
some years after the famous controversy with the Lords about
the Kent petition, that the House of Commons adopted a rule,
which it made perpetual in 1713, that no petition against a gen-
eral tax or money bill should be received, except it were special-

RECOGNITION OF HAYTI. 325

ly recommended to their consideration by the ministers of the
Crown. Why '! Because, says Hatsell, it were a vain thing to
receive what the House is predetermined not to consider ; and,
in a matter of great national concernment, like the one in
question, it is not at liberty to consult the wishes and opinions
of any single man or set of men. It is, therefore, on every ac-
count, the best and the fairest course to save the petitioners
and the House itself much inconvenience and loss of time, by a
general exclusion of all such petitions. But the right of the
House to refuse to receive is fully established by the standing
question, "Shall this petition be received?" which although
seldom in fact put, is in all cases whatever supposed to be put, and
may at any time be demanded, according to the parliamentary
practice recognized by Mr. Jefferson. This alone is conclusive.

Assuming it, then, as incontestably established, 1st, that the
amendment of the constitution does not in the least affect the
right of this House to regulate its proceedings according to the
settled law of Parliament ; and 2d, that, according to that law,
there are petitions which it is both authorised and bound to re-
fuse to receive, the only remaining question is, whether these
petitions fall within that category.

Upon this point, as I said just now, if I were called upon in
the spirit of peace, and bona fide, with a view to the commercial
benefit of the country, or in order to relieve it from some embar-
rassing difficulty, to receive a memorial like that now offered,
God forbid that I should be seen to treat it with contempt or
harshness, or should throw any obstacle in the way of its being
candidly examined upon its merits by a committee of this House.
I say nothing as to the proper course to be taken there ; that is
another affair. But the memorials before you, as I understand,
are but another step in the war which a band of wicked conspi-
rators are daring to wage upon the constitution and the peace of
the country through this House. It is not for the paltry com-
merce of a horde of barbarians that agitation is beginning on
this subject. It is because it affords a plausible pretext and a
convenient opening to a continued discussion of that fatal question
which has been agitated in and out of this House of late, with
so much vehemence, with so many extravagances of heated
imagination, with apparently such fiery enthusiasm, that no man
who considers what is the genius of this age can contemplate it
without anxiety for his country. Sir, I would awaken the public
mind at once to the tremendous issues involved in this question.
Let me assure gentlemen they are mistaken if they suppose that
it is to be managed by mere party manoeuvring — that it is to be
settled by a word-catching caucus, splitting hairs and shunning
difficulties with all the little subtleties of grammar and philology.
No, sir, no ; non tali auxilio — it is a plain practical matter ; full

326 RF.rOQNITION OF IIAYTI.

of deep and dreadful interest, it is true ; but on that very account,
to be treated without artifice, evasion, or reservation of any kind.
You must meet it, sooner or later, in all its gigantic extent and
importance. It is a question in which the destinies of such an
empire — I speak prospectively as well as of the present — as the
sun has never yet shone upon — of a world — are involved — a
question which you cannot seriously agitate here, without sha-
king this whole continent, if you will pardon the boldness of
the expression, to its foundations. The heart of a great people —
I mean that people who inhabit the broad land from the Susque-
nannah to the Red river — from the capes of Virginia to the
recesses of the Missouri — look at the map — it is more than half
the country — the heart of that whole people, I say, throbs with
indignation and alarm, when what involves their life and being,
and concerns you here nothing, is so wantonly drawn into dis-
cussion, so daringly threatened with violence. My friend there
(Mr. Dawson) knows what those feelings are.

The Chair here called Mr. Legare to order. [Cries of "Go on!

ffo on

Mr.Legare proceeded. This question, I say, cannot be smoth-
ered or evaded; it must be met at once; it must be met with the
wisdom of statesmen ; it must be met with the courage of men.
Gentlemen should be allowed to give not only their votes, but
their reasons. They should be ready, they should be eager, to
do so. The man, who on such a subject shrinks from his high
responsibility to the country, who is afraid to proclaim before
the civilized world his obedience to her constitution, his devotion
to her safety and welfare — what is he doing here? Such a man
is far below his place — he is utterly unworthy of the awful
functions in which his constituents have clothed him. There
was a symptom of the times, he said, which was particularly
offensive to him. In the conflicts of rival factions there seemed
to be men who took delight in witnessing, or at least were dis-
posed to turn to account, the convulsions of the Southern mind
under the perpetual torture of this agitation — who appeared to
flatter themselves they could treat our people of the South like
animals, in a chemical experiment, under the influence of poi-
sonous gases — measuring, with cool precision, their capacity for
suffering — renewing their cruel agonies, and prolonging them
just so far as might be necessary for the occasional purpose,
without bringing on dissolution. Sir, let me warn gentlemen
of all parties — this will not do. The most precious interests,
the dearest sensibilities, the life and the blood of our people, arc no
subject for party speculation — no stock in trade for political ad-
venturers. The present mode of proceeding would never calm
the feelings and the conscience of the American people. The
question ought at once to be disposed of, in a fair, open, candid,

RECOGNITION OF HAYTI. 327

and manly spirit. Look at the progress of things. The aboli-
tionists came, and first told the House it must abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia ; in the next place, it must refuse to
admit Florida into the Union ; when they asked it to prevent
the removal of the black race to more southern climates ; now —

Here the Chair interposed. (Cries of Go on! go on!"]

The Speaker said it was not in order to cry "go on" when a
gentleman was violating the rules of order. If the gentleman
was permitted to proceed, it would open the whole abolition
question to debate, while the House had resolved and ordered
that no debate on the subject should be entertained. The gen-
tleman must confine himself to the rules of order. The question
was on the reception of a memorial.

Mr. Legare, protesting against the interruptions of the Chair,
said my objection against this memorial is that it aims at aboli-
tion— is a part of a system — is not for the benefit of commerce,
but for the ruin of the South.

The Chair. If the memorial had anything on its face about
abolition, it would be at once laid on the table.

Mr. Legare. Well, sir, I want to show that it is a firebrand
cast into the House for the worst purposes; that it originates in
a design to revolutionize the South, and to convulse the Union,
and ought, therefore, to be rejected with reprobation. As sure
as you live, sir, (said he,) if this course is permitted to go on,
the sun of this Union will go down — it will go down in blood — •
and go down to rise no more. I will vote unhesitatingly against
nefarious designs like these. They are treason. Yes, sir, I
pronounce the authors of such things traitors — traitors not to
their country only, but to the whole human race. I have a
clear constitutional right to refuse to receive such papers, and I
am bound, by every tie of duty, to do so. I have spoken, perhaps,
with too much ardor, and I trust the House will make allowance
for whatever may be amiss in the unpremeditated language I
have uttered. But I cannot express, by any words I command,
a tithe of the anguish with which I rise to speak on the subject
at all. Without being, perhaps, a legitimate democrat — whether
1 am or not, God knows ; I leave it to the doctors of the school —
I have been nursed from my youth in an idolatrous love of that
most noble of all forms of polity, republican government, and I
have dreamed for my country the highest things within the
reach of humanity — a career of greatness such as the world has
never yet witnessed. There is one subject, and, so far as I am
able to perceive, but one, that, for the present at least, threatens
to cloud this glorious prospect, and to disappoint these high
hopes.

It is said this is a question of liberty. Ay, sir, it is a question
of liberty; not a wild, visionary, impracticable scheme forgiving

328 RECOGNITION OF HAYTI.

liberty to a race utterly incapable of it, did our constitution even
permit us to do so; but a question involving tbe sober, stable,
rational, enduring, hereditary liberty of the Anglo-Ameru nn
which has hitherto been identified with our whole being, but of
which the knell is struck whenever the schemes of these petition-
ers shall have been consummated. Dissolve this Union, and your
republican institutions are gone forever. In the scenes of blood
and anarchy which will infallibly succeed, no human prescience
can anticipate precisely what results will ensue; but one thing,
at least, I hold to be perfectly certain, and that is that popular
government will cease to exist in States engaged in perpetual
hostility with one another. And can gentlemen bring themselves
lightly to tamper, in spite of the most solemn constitutional obli-
gations, with interests like these? Do they imagine that the
people who sent them here are prepared to peril the peace, the
union, the liberty, the hopes, of this continent, in an idle pursuit
of a mere visionary, unattainable good; that they are ready to
overthrow the constitution, and to dismember the confederacy,
in violation of their most sacred duties under the one, and their
unspeakable interest in the other? Sir, I tell you they are not.
I have a consoling and triumphant confidence in their calm
reason and sage and serious morality. I am not using the base
language of adulation. I disdain it. I know that, like the rest of
mankind, our people are fallible and often doing wrong. 1 have no
doubt, too, that we are responsible for much of the error into which
they are occasionally betrayed ; that we do not hold to them the
sincere and courageous language of truth, and dare to present
to them every important issue in its true character. But of their
ultimate decision on every thing that relates to the preservation
of the Union, I will not permit myself to doubt. I am sure
that, if they were now here, within the sound of my voice, it
would not be addressed in vain to their bosoms. Let the ques-
tion be fairly presented to them, before it is too late ; let them be
brought to pass upon the true issue involved in these schemes,
before they are driven to madness by a most unhallowed agita-
tion— and all is safe.

I have now, in a very hurried manner, gone through the whole
subject, so far as it was my purpose to deal with it. I have
established, I trust satisfactorily, that the amendment of the con-
stitution has not at all changed the lex parliamenti (as part of
the common law) touching this matter. That, by the law o(
Parliament and the constitution of the United States, this House
has an undoubted right to adjudge and determine what petitions
are not proper to be received by it. And, lastly, that the petitions
now in question are in fact such as are not proper to be received;
and I have, accordingly, without hesitation, voted against receiv-
ing them.

SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT,

Speech, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States,
January 11, 1839.

The House, having under consideration the bill providing for
a dry dock, at the navy yard, at Brooklyn, New- York, which
bill Mr. Paynter proposed to amend by making provision for a
similar improvement at Philadelphia, and the question imme-
diately pending being on a further amendment, moved by Mr.
Thompson, to strike out Philadelphia and insert Pensacola —

Mr. Legare said that, when he entered the House a few minutes
ago, nothing was further from his thoughts than that he should
be then addressing the Chair in reply to what he had understood
to be a violent attack of the gentleman from Maine upon the
peaceful city which he (Mr. L.) had the honor still to represent.

[Here Mr. Evans rose and disavowed an intention of saying
any thing that might be offensive to Mr. L's constituents, further
than a fair argument against their claims to have a navy yard,
&c, might be considered as offensive.]

Mr. Legare. I did not hear the gentleman myself. I received
my impressions from what others understood the gentleman as
saying. I am informed, for instance, that he repeated the words,
"begging, begging, begging," as if to imply that no importunities
had been spared^ by the citizens of Charleston to obtain what
they knew they had no right to ask on broad grounds of justice
and policy.

[Mr. Evans explained again.]

Mr. L. Be it so, sir; I am not quite sure that I should very
materially have altered the spirit of my reply, had the gentleman
really been betrayed into the use of language so unjust and
unbecoming. It is not my habit to sacrifice the dignity and the
decencies of this House to wrangling personalities; nor, standing
here as the advocate of so good a cause, would I cast a suspicion
upon it by resorting to the language of passion. As to the
imputations thrown out by the gentleman against Southern mem-
bers, for the sectional spirit (as it is called) with which they
discuss matters of the kind, I fearlessly appeal to the House
whether the uniform tenor of my conduct and language here
does not entirely exempt me from such a charge. I have never
resorted to topics of that sort without reluctance, and in the
vol. i. — 42

330 SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT.

exercise of those rights of self-defence which sanction so many
other deviations from strict formal rules. I do not ask for my
constituents any thing but what 1 think them fairly entitled to
any tiling which they would not consent that I should grant to
others. Hut it is surely no objection to a measure, that, besides
being recommended to your adoption by general reasons of na-
tional policy, it will be attended with peculiar local advantages;
and, if my predecessor, in the zealous and able arguments which
hC from time to time put forth on this subject, did urge it as a
weighty consideration that the establishment of a navy yard at
( 'harleston would feed and employ a strong body of white me-
chanics and laborers, in a part of the country where that descrip-
tion of people are more wanted, and need, perhaps, more encour
agement than in any other, he uttered sentiments which 1 here
adopt for my own, and of which I will undertake to maintain
the propriety upon the most incontrovertible grounds.

To begin, however, with the subject before the Committee. 1
was, from the first, inclined to vote for the appropriation recom-
mended by the Committee on Naval Affairs ; and, although my
opinion has been occasionally shaken in the course of the debate,
I am still determined to do so. It appears to me obviously pro-
per that there should be a dry dock at New- York — the great scat
ot our commerce — the centre of our navigation — the port, in
short, which, in times of actual service, is, for many reasons,
more likely to be the point of rendezvous and resort than any
at the North. This opinion I find confirmed by that sort of evi-
dence which, I agree with the gentleman from Maine, must gene
rally govern, or, at least, very much influence our determination
here — the demands of the Navy Department and the reports of
the appropriate committee of this House. There may be some
weight (I do not think as much as one would be led to ascribe
to it from the present embarrassment of the finances) in the ar-
gument founded on the necessity of retrenchment. But, looking
at the immense resources, actual and eventual, of the country, i
will not consent to neglect or to weaken any of its military de-
fences, simply because, from transient causes, our Treasury hap-
pens to be rather low. Unless our affairs be miserably misman-
aged, a few years will restore to us a redundant revenue, and we
should, by refusing this money, only sacrifice the strength and
protection of the country, which ought never for a moment to
be neglected, to an ill-timed and most timid and unreasonable
parsimony.

So much for the appropriation called for ; but the amendment
of my colleague, (Mr. Thompson,) to whom I consider the
country as under a great obligation for having drawn public at-
tention to a matter of such vast and fundamental importance, as
well as his able speech and that of another of my colleagues,

SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT. 331

(Mr. Elmore,) have given a range to this discussion which it
had not at first ; and both with a view to aid them in their most
laudable efforts, and to expose the fallacies of the gentleman from
Maine, (Mr. Evans,) I will trespass upon the committee a little
longer while I speak of the defenceless state of the Southern
coast, and the urgency of its claims upon this body for a better
system of measures to protect it. I deeply regret, however, to
have to speak on such a subject so entirely without the prepara-
tion to which its magnitude entitles it ; but it has long occupied
my thoughts, and I will venture to throw out some general ideas
in regard to it, in the hope that such suggestions will not be lost
upon those who have an interest in the inquiry, and may find
sufficient leisure to pursue it more in detail, and, it is to be hoped,
to great practical results.

It is impossible, Mr. Chairman, to cast your eyes, however
carelessly, over a map of the United States — and such is the im-
portant influence of geography, natural and physical, upon the
destinies of empire, that no man can pretend to the character of
a statesman, in such a country as this, who does not closely
study its map. — without at once perceiving that Pensacola is des-
tined, by nature, to be the key of the most gigantic commerce
that was ever, in the history of the world, concentrated upon a
single spot. I speak not of the West as it is, wonderful as it is.
I speak of what a very few years — for what is a century in the
life of a nation ? — will most certainly bring about. Every thing
on this side the mountains will be dwarfed in the comparison.
The valley of the Mississippi, in its whole extent, is capable of
supporting as great a population as that of all Europe put toge-
ther ; and its external commerce, borne upon the waters of a sin-
gle river to New-Orleans, must follow the course of the Gulf
stream to more northern latitudes. There is something over-
powering in the idea of such a state of things, and it is scarcely
less startling to reflect upon the facility with which a foreign
enemy may throw obstacles to any extent in the way of such a
trade. He has only to blockade the mouth of the river with
such a fleet as the possession of a port in the West Indies will
enable hiin to keep at sea, and evils, far beyond all calculation,
may be inflicted on the whole country watered by its various
streams. Sir, I have only to mention a name, which no Ameri-
can can hear pronounced in connection with certain possibili-
ties without some excitement — Cuba. Do you doubt that, in the
event of another war with England, for instance, she would
take possession of that island, and hold it if she could'.2 She
already has the keys of almost every important sea. Will she
neglect that of the most important of all ? Sir, it is with a view
to contingencies so probable, to exigencies so pressing as these,
that I regard Pensacola, according to the best information I pos-

332 SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT.

sess upon the subject, as entitled to your most earnest attention.
Looking to the facilities, in such a country, of artificial commu-
nications by canals and railways, and to the great advantages it
possesses in the character of its bar and harbor, that city will, not
improbably, be the Havre of New-Orleans. You should render
it, as far as possible, impregnable — you should arm it with every
means and instrument of war, offensive and defensive. It should
be your Gibraltar. And now, sir, I ask whether, in the face of
such a prospect as this, it is reasoning like statesmen to argue,
with the gentleman from Maine, that the wages of labor will be
a little higher there ; that the munitions of war and ship stores
will not be so cheap as in New-England? Does not the gentle-
man perceive that if this argument is good for any thing, it
proves too much for his purposes ; that it would show that we
ought to break up the great establishment at Norfolk, to which
it applies just as forcibly as to any other port in the South ; in-
deed, that it would make it necessary to crowd all your dry docks
and navy yards into that part of the country where contracts
could be entered into upon the most reasonable terms?

[In the course of these remarks Mr. Legare was interrupted
more than once by Mr. Evans, the latter gentleman stating, at
some length, that what he had said on this subject was not in-
tended to convey his own opinions so much as to refute those of
Mr. Thompson and others, who contended for the superior ad-
vantages of Pensacola, in respect of its forests of live oak, &c.
Mr. Thompson also explained.]

Mr. L. replied that, although he held himself responsible only
for his own opinions, yet he must say that forests of live oak,
&c, were, at least, no disadvantage.

But, sir, (he continued,) to look at the subject in a point of
view in which it most deserves the consideration of statesmen,
we are to regard the seaport in question as a place rVarrnes—a.
great port of military equipment. In Europe, where the state of
war is the basis of all political systems and calculations, such a
point could escape the observation of no minister entrusted with
the affairs of a great nation. An ingenious writer has remarked
that the three men whose memories are dearest to France — I do
not mean in the vulgar sense of the word "popularity" — but who
have the strongest hold upon the French mind, as identified with
the history and the destinies of their country — Richelieu, Louis
XIV. and Bonaparte — will be remembered after all transitory
grounds of reputation and influence shall be passed away, as
founders of the three great military ports of Brest, Dunkirk, and
Antwerp. The last of these I have often visited with interest.
Its great importance to the empire of Napoleon was well express-
ed in his saying that it was a pistol loaded and presented at the
very heart of England. The whole argument on this subject is

SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT. 333

summed up in that sentence; it is, that your preparations should
be made as near as possible to the spots where they would be
most wanted. Consider, for a moment, what is passing in the
other hemisphere. The navigation of the Bosphorus and the
Hellespont is almost become the pivot of European politics.
Russia must have this outlet for her commerce. It is only our
old quarrel with Spain about the navigation of the Mississippi
and the use of New-Orleans as an entrepot. Well, sir, Pensacola
commands our Bosphorus and Hellespont, or will enable us to
prevent others from commanding it ; and if we do not, by a fore-
sight worthy of the lawgivers of a great nation, anticipate events
by preparing it at once to serve the purposes for which Provi-
dence seems to have marked it out, we shall, I have no doubt at
all of it, be made to feel its importance by disastrous experience
in some future war.

But to proceed to what the gentleman from Maine said in con-
nection with the claim of the citizens of Charleston to have that
place used as a naval station, and provided with a navy yard, for
sloops of war. I have already said that the gentleman is mis-
taken in supposing that this claim rests upon the ground of fa-
vor— that it was merely because an establishment of the kind
would be a great encouragement to mechanics, so much wanted
in that part of the country — although this would certainly be a
very signal incidental recommendation of the measure — that I
should urge it upon this House on a proper occasion. I maintain
that it comes fairly within that principle which the most strenu-
ous advocates of freedom of trade have admitted to be a fair ex-
ception to their general rule ; and that is that whatever is ne-
cessary to the defence of a country ought to be protected at some
cost by the government. It stands, for instance, on precisely the
same principle as the navigation act, of which the gentleman
seemed to speak with a perfect unconsciousness that it was a case
in point against his own argument. By the navigation act a
monopoly was secured, and from the foundation of the govern-
ment had been continually secured, to the Northern and Eastern
States, of the whole coasting trade. It had been secured to them
for the very purpose of breeding the seamen, the possession of
which by those States the gentleman thought a sufficient argu-
ment to show that no naval establishments ought to be kept up
at the South, because they would cost a little more. He had
quite forgotten that the South had borne, without any compen-
sation, its share in this tax for the support of Northern navigation,
and borne it without murmuring, on the ground of the necessity
to the defence of the country in time of war, that its commercial
marine should be encouraged in time of peace ; for his colleague
over the way (Mr. Elmore) had told them truly that we were

334 SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT.

willing to divide our last dollar with them to repel a common
enemy.

[Here Mr. Evans interrupted Mr. Legare, saying that the
monopoly was not for the benefit of Northern sailors alone, but
of all the American shipping interest.]

Mr. L. Nominally, to be sure, it is so ; but, the fact being
that all our seamen are residents of the North, it is perfectly ac-
curate to say that it is virtually a tax levied upon the whole
country for the benefit of Northern navigation. Foreign com-.
]>etition, which would lower freights for Southern produce, is
entirely excluded by it, and I have reason to know that this is
no imaginary advantage. I heard frequent complaints, from our
consuls abroad, that the Swedes and other nations in the north
of Europe were interfering with us, as carriers, to a fearful ex-
tent ; so much so, that great doubts seemed to be entertained by
these experienced persons about the policy of our treaties of re-
ciprocity in this particular. I say, then, sir, that the objection
of its costing a little more to maintain these naval establishments
necessary, as I think them, to the permanent defence and secu-
rity of a country — besides that, it really is one of no weight at
all — comes with a very ill grace from the lips of a gentleman
from the Eastern States.

Now, sir, I claim for Charleston a navy yard, for the construc-
tion and repair of sloops, on the ground that there is not a sin-
gle port of military equipment along the whole line of coast,
immense as it is, from the capes of Virginia to Pensacola : that
this coast is precisely the frontier most exposed, and exposed to
the most dangerous attacks in the event of a maritime war with
any great European power ; that, from its situation in regard to
the Bermudas and the West India islands — the latter especially
likely to become either the strongholds of the great powers, with
a view to hold us in check, or dens of picaroons and bucaniers —
this exposure becomes doubly perilous to it. I maintain that to
leave this vast tract of country in so helpless a state with regard
to maritime warfare, as to be unable to fit out the smallest vessel
of war, is a neglect wholly inexcusable on any ground of equal
justice or wise systematic policy. There are two circumstances,
especially, that combine to render the situation of Charleston pe-
culiarly interesting as a port of equipment for such vessels as
may be able to pass over her bar. The first is one agreed in, so
far as 1 know, by all who have, whether officially or otherwise,
examined this subject ; and that is, that, it is the nearest port to
the windward station on the West India islands. The advan-
tages of this proximity to a fleet on that station are too obvious
to need a remark, especially when you consider that, in suppres-
sing piracies on those seas, the description of vessels employed is

SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT. 335

precisely that to which a bar, not very deep, would present no
obstacle, and which would need the most frequent renewals of
supplies. But the other circumstance alluded to is still more
important. It is the immense importance of Charleston as a place
cFarmes and point d'appui to the whole surrounding low coun-
try of South-Carolina, and even of Georgia, and a part of North-
Carolina. I have had occasion to urge this subject very earnest-
ly upon the attention of the Navy Commissioners, as well as our
Committee on Naval Affairs. For reasons which appear to me
quite sufficient, I shall not, at present, dwell upon it. But I un-
dertake to say that, were this country governed by a wise mili-
tary despot — if such a one there be — a Napoleon, for instance —
he would, in the view of contingencies which it requires no deep
political forecast to anticipate, lose no time in arming the city of
Charleston with all the instruments and resources of defence
which its situation requires and admits of. I look upon that
place, peculiarly blessed as it is with a most salubrious climate,*
to persons accustomed to it at all times — even to strangers, with
the exception of three months at an average interval of seven or
eight years — in the midst of a country desolated with malaria —
as one of which it is impossible to overrate the importance.
More especially is it so, now that its commercial prosperity,
through extended and extending communications with the inte-
rior, seems to be returning to it, and that every thing in its con-
dition is awakening hopes of a great increase of capital, enter-
prise and population. Certainly, too, as I said just now, it will
be a great incidental advantage, and ought to be a strong addi-
tional motive with the government to endow it with all the es-
tablishments necessary to its permanent defence, that the money
laid out there will do something more than provide it with the
means of protection in war ; that it will stimulate the industry
already awakened by other causes ; that it will add to the
strength of those laboring classes so much wanted in the South-
ern country ; that it will be a "twice blessed" cause of prosperity
by at once inspiring greater security and furnishing motives to
further improvement. As to the spirit in which we have prefer-
red and prosecuted our claims, we are somewhat embarrassed to
know how we shall act. We were told yesterday, by the gen-
tleman from Virginia, (Mr. Wise,) that to get any thing, even jus-
tice, here, we must be sturdy and indefatigable beggars ; and that
Southern people cannot, or will not, become so. We are to-day
twitted by the gentleman from Maine, (Evans,) with the exces-

[* Salubri loco in regione pestilenti, says Cicero of Rome, de Repub. ii., G —
Niebuhr, ii., 413. It was then, as now, sickly on the Esquinal and Viminal.
The country people had, during the summer months, to take refuge in towns.
All over Italy, the climate is a negative datum in inquiring into the site of old
towns. All on hills, and where none can now live in summer,— no town for 2500
years.

336 SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT.

sive eagerness of our importunities. I trust I have done sonic
thing to render these, for the future, less necessary, and that the
House will hereafter look at the subject in the true national point
of view in which it is so fully entitled to its gravest considera-
tion. I shall uot myself, it is probable, have an opportunity of
pleading the cause when it shall come up in its turn, but 1 am
sure it cannot be presented in vain to men who shall survey the
whole subject in the comprehensive spirit of statesmen.

The gentleman from Maine, not content with objecting to the
founding of particular establishments in different parts of the
South, on grounds of the merest parsimony, seemed to think it
perfectly reasonable that that section of country should make
greater pecuniary sacrifices than any other, in consideration of
certain imaginary advantages of political power and influence.
My own opinion is. that the ratio of population and direct taxes
was a most mistaken concession on the part of the South ; but,
without touching here a question which is precluded by the
constitution, I venture to say that it is impossible for any powers
of arithmetic, to compute the amount of the price paid by it for
the blessings of the Union. Sir, I do not affect to question these
blessings — far, very far, from it. They are the most precious
which any form of government can secure to a country — bless-
ings of peace, of liberty, and of glory. Our people have paid
their contributions to the general weal, in whatever form they
have been demanded ; and they have paid them, whenever de-
manded within the limits of the constitution, with willing hearts
and with self-devoted generosity. But let not gentlemen from
other parts of the country deceive themselves into an idea that
we have not bought these blessing at an immense price ; or that
we are not fully aware of it. I solemnly protest that I speak of
such things with the deepest reluctance, and shall not now do
more than just hint the most general view of a subject full of
grave matter for reflection. Sir, in the scheme of God's provi-
dence, there is compensation in all things ; and the South, if it
labors, as it certainly does labor, under several disadvantages
with regard to commerce and industry, had, in its fertile soil and
privileged staple commodities, the means of indemnifying itself
to a considerable degree, had all that was drawn from the soil by
taxation been returned to it in expenditure, and had her com-
merce and industry been protected to the exclusion of those of
the other States. We should have had sailors of our own, had
not the navigation act of the Union enabled those of the East to
become our carriers. We should have had importing merchants
in our great cities, had not merchants of New- York, &c, with-
out the disadvantages of residence, been enabled to enjoy among
us all the benefits of citizenship. This topic is a fearful one, sir,
and may be pushed much further, but I forbear.

SOUTHERN NAVAL DEPOT. 337

I have said enough, however, to expose the radical futility and
injustice of the arguments which would deprive us of institu-
tions and establishments, of which no great country ought to be
destitute, on no better ground than that they will cost a little
more in our cities than in those of the North.

I repeat, in conclusion, that I claim nothing for my constituents
to which I shall not be able to show they are entitled on the
broadest grounds of justice and policy, and I shall expect that
every such claim will be unhesitatingly granted by the House.

vol. i. — 43

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

Speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States,
January 15, 1839.

Mr. Legare said he would, in the remarks with which he
was about to trouble the House, confine himself, as much as pos-
sible, to the subject immediately submitted to its consideration.
He said as much as possible, because the questions that had for
some time past occupied and agitated the public mind were so
complicated, and ran so naturally into one another, that it was
not very easy to single out any one of them, and treat of it as if
it were perfectly isolated. As he trusted, however, that he should
have an opportunity — perhaps more than one — before the close
of the session, to explain at large his views in regard to these
high matters, he would content himself, for the present, with
stating and enforcing the reasons which had determined him —
and he thought would (as they ought) determine the House —
to vote, without any hesitation, for the amendment of the gentle-
man from Virginia. He would be glad if he were fortunate
enough to satisfy the Chair itself that the course marked out by
that amendment was the proper one. He would not for the world
that any thing he did in that hall should be fairly construed in-
to a wilful trespass upon the jurisdiction of the Chair ; much
less, into a wanton slur upon the character of the Speaker. He
had (he said) too high a sense of what was due to the relations
that subsisted between that gentleman and the House, as presi-
dent and members of a high deliberative body. He knew that
the official dignity of that officer was identified with that of the
House : that his personal feelings are recommended, in a peculiar
manner, to its tenderest protection ; and he would promise the
Chair that it might count with confidence on receiving at his
hands — what certainly it would cost him no great effort of gene-
rosity to afford — the most indulgent, the most delicate, and the
most scrupulous attention, both to the one and to the other.

But, sir, (said Mr. L.,) if the Speaker stands, as I think he
does, in a false position in relation to this subject, it is his friends,
they, I mean, who profess to be his exclusive friends — that have
placed him in it. Not satisfied with claiming for the Chair, as
belonging to it of right, a power it does not possess, they have
chosen to rest their pretensions on grounds as bad as the claim

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 339

itself. Not only does their argument not prove what they pur-
pose, but it leads, if it proves any thing at all, to the very oppo-
site conclusion. If their law is bad, their logic is worse. In-
stead of showing that the House ought, as its rules now stands,
to confide the appointment of this committee to the Speaker, it
would justify the House in depriving him of the power, even if
it hitherto belonged to him. What is it ? Say the gentleman,
your committee ought to be composed of members of whom a
majority should be favorable to the administration. This is their
first assumption. Then they proceed to their second proposition,
which is that the Speaker is pledged to his party, and bound
upon principle to appoint such a committee ; and from these pre-
mises they draw their conclusion that he is properly vested with
power to appoint it, and should be allowed to exercise it in this
case. In other words, the House, which has been called upon
by the Executive to institute an extraordinary inquiry into the
causes of a defalcation itself so extraordinary as to demand the
the most rigid scrutiny, ought, contrary, as I shall show, to every
sound principle, to confide that inquiry to a committee so consti-
tuted as to be, by the confession of gentlemen, advocates rather
than judges of the department of the government whose con-
duct is the subject of investigation.

Nothing, indeed, can be more extraordinary than the whole
course of those professing to be the exclusive friends of the ad-
ministration on this subject. If a stranger to the proceedings of
this House had happened to come into it, for the first time, when
the gentleman from New- York was making what I must be per-
mitted to call his very singular opening speech — a speech in
which he said a'.l that he ought not to have said, and left unsaid
all that he ought to have said — a speech which he yesterday
boasted had occupied the House but ten minutes, and in the
course of which, I will add, he did not give a single second to
any argument to show that the investigation he demanded should
be carried on at all — such a stranger would naturally have asked
what foul conspiracy had been detected ? who they were that
were moving with such "a stealthy pace," in deep darkness to
some purpose as dark —

[Here Mr. Cambreleng disclaimed any intention of indulging
in denunciation, and asked what he had said that could be so
interpreted.]

Mr. Legare. Did the gentleman mean nothing by "voting in
the dark," and "shunning responsibility ?" Did he mean nothing
by the private interests to which he so significantly alluded l
Would he venture to utter imputations, in an assembly of gen-
tlemen, about "Morris Canals," and things of that sort, of which
he (Mr. L.) knew nothing, and then ask, so innocently, what he
had said that could be considered as denunciation?

340 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

[Mr. Cambreleng here made some explanation, (scarcely heard
by the reporter,) of which the purport seemed to be that what
he had said on the subject of the conservatives and the Morris
( 'anal was in reply to Mr. Wise, who urged as a reason, against
the Speaker's appointing the committee, that it would be so con-
stituted as to shield the wrong-doers of his own party — that he
made no charge himself, &c]

Mr. Legare. Sir, I call the attention of the House and of the
country to the avowal that has been just made. The gentleman
from New- York is one of the most ancient and experienced mem-
bers of this House ; he is its official leader: the accredited organ
of the administration ; a guide and an adviser, followed by a great
party here ; and does he talk of our shunning responsibility and
shielding fraud — does he hint at combinations to protect pecula-
tors, because they disgrace this or that political party by assu-
ming its name — and then come forward before the American
people, and coolly confess that he has uttered language of this
sort without any sense of the responsibility which it imposes
upon him — that they were mere idle words, thrown out at ran-
dom against a gentleman of one party, because he and his friends
had been attacked by another gentleman of a different party ?
But I will omit what I was going to say on this head. I will
not hold the gentleman to language so inconsiderately uttered.
I will proceed with the argument which he said not a syllable to
impugn, and will show conclusively that, by adopting the amend-
ment of the gentleman from Virginia, the House, far from de-
parting from every precedent, violating every principle, and tram-
pling under foot the rights of the Qhair, as had been so confi-
dently alleged, will only be exercising its own undoubted rights,
according to the very letter of its positive and written rules.

Why, sir, it was but a very few moments after the gentleman
from New- York had taken his seat that the Speaker read from
the Chair the law which, from time immemorial, has governed
the practice of this House. By our rules, the Speaker is charged
with the app&intment of committees, unless the House shall
see fit to order otherwise, in which case they shall be chosen by
ballot. The law is on your table — it stares you in the face — it
is, clear, direct, unequivocal. In general, the appointment of
committees is referred to the Speaker, as was said by my col-
league over the way, (Mr. Pickens,) for the sake of convenience,
but the unquestionable power of this House to make the appoint-
ment itself has been expressly reserved ; and, whenever a case
shall arise calling for the exercise of it, the choice shall be made
by ballot. And now, sir, I ask, how comes it that nothing was
ever heard before of the darkness and the odiousness of this form
of proceeding? Are we better or wiser than our predecessors?
Have we any lights on the subject now which we did not possess

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS, 341

when those rules were adopted ') And, if it be admitted that
there are any cases in which this rule should be enforced, can it
be denied that this is such a case ?

But, before I proceed to show this, as I trust, conclusively, I
will say a few words upon a subject which has been more than
once alluded to in our debates, and seems, from several things
that have been recently said in the House, not to be sufficiently
understood by gentlemen. I mean the principles of parliament-
ary law that ought to govern the appointment of committees and
their relation to the house.

We have very generally deviated in this country from the
practice of the House of Commons, and what I have understood
to have been that of our own legislative assemblies at an earlier
period. In the House of Commons there are no standing com-
mittees at all. The principles involved in the measures proposed
for its adoption are uniformly discussed and settled in the House,
on resolution, or on a motion for a committee. When the ma-
jority of the House has determined that a report by bill shall be
made on any subject, in conformity with principles thus previ-
ously established, a committee, of which the majority are always
friends of the proposed measure, is named to mature and perfect
its details. The propriety of this course is obvious, and it has
the merit of precluding some very inconvenient consequences
of our practice, according to which our committees, instead of
being mere ministerial agents of the House, are turned into a
sort of sub-legislatures, passing upon the principles of all mea-
sures committed to them, and forestalling, in some degree, and
prejudicing the opinions of the House. According to the strict
parliamentary course, committees have the merit of reflect-
ing, with perfect exactness, all the shades of feeling and opin-
ion that pass over the minds of a deliberative assembly in
the fluctuations of debate — so that there is scarcely a possibility
that such difficulties, both as to the principles and the details
of a measure, as so frequently embarrass the proceedings of this
House after a report has been made, should ever arise there. But
there is an evil attending our practice which is more serious
than any mere inconvenience in its proceedings. The Speaker,
being almost invariably elected as the representative of a party,
is expected to appoint our committees on party principles; and
so it happens that the Executive, where it has a majority in this
House at the opening of a Congress, exercises through the Chair
an influence which is unknown in the constitutional monarchies
of Europe, and is enabled, through the chairmen of our own
committees, to give a direction to the business of the House and
the opinions of the country the very opposite of that which
would be impressed upon them by the fairly expressed sense of

342 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

a majority here.* So far as the committees, connected with the
great executive departments of the Government are concerned,
there is some plausibility in the pretension that the administration,
with which the great bulk of our most important measures orig-
inates, ought to have a majority of its friends upon them. At
any rate the practice is now so inveterate that it is too late to
find fault with it; but surely this is no reason why a principle
so irregular should be extended to other cases, and, least of all,
to such cases as that before the House. And this leads me back
to the proposition from which I digressed just now; which is
that if there ever was an extraordinary case, a case calling for
the exercise of the power reserved to the House, of electing its
own committees, that case is the one under consideration.

What is it, sir? The administration, through its official organ
in this House, conies here and demands, at our hands, a commit-
tee— to do what? Why, to inquire how it happened that one of
the principle agents of the Executive has been guilty of malver-
sation in office. What right, in the first place, has the Executive
to make any such call upon this House? What have we to do
with the conduct of officers appointed by it — removable at its
will, subjected perpetually to its censure and superintendence,
responsible to it for their good behaviour, and for whose good
behaviour it is itself responsible to the country through this
House? The very proposal of such an interference as this
implies a confusion of ideas, which can only be accounted for
by the extraordinary development of the executive power which
has taken place in the silent progress of things, and to which
we are become so much accustomed that we are losing sight of
the simplest and most elementary principles of our Government.
What is the meaning of that fundamental separation of the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial powers — of what prac-
tical effect will it be — if such a system as is implied in the motion
of the gentleman from New- York (Mr. Cambreleng) should be
carried out in the appointment of a committee, according to the
wishes of the administration — a system by which we shall be
made to assume the responsibility of another department of the
Government, without any of the powers essential to the per-
formance of its duties — a system by which whatever is odious
in that responsibility shall fall to our lot, without any of the
honor, the influence, or the efficiency, that should accompany it?
Sir, the constitution contemplates no such confusion and conse-
quent destruction of responsibilities. We are not placed here
as the associate, but the antagonist, not as copartners, but as a

*E.g. the case of the sub-treasury. The Committee of Ways and Means,
appointed by the Speaker, has repeatedly reported a bill, which has as often been
rejected by the House.

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 343

check and counterpoise, to the Executive. We are to watch it
with a jealous eye, to call it to continual account, to inquire, to
impeach, to punish it. We are the grand jury — the great inquest
of the country — our business is inquisitorial. We represent, in
a word, the popular jealousy of power. When, therefore, the
Executive asks us to appoint a committee of this kind, our an-
swer, if it conform to the true theory of the Government, must
be, "We shall appoint one, but not for your behoof — we hold
you to your whole responsibility under the constitution; if we
look at all into this business, it will of course be with a view to
discover and to correct your errors, and, if need be, to visit them
with appropriate penalties. The very fact that it is necessary to
inquire at all requires the inquisition to be severe, unsparing,
and, in some sort, even hostile to you." With what sort of color,
then, can you come here, and, acknowledging by the very re-
quest you make that there is occasion for the exercise of our
powers as a check upon the Executive, demand, in the same
breath, that we shall exercise those powers under your dictation,
and through your friends, to be appointed in the usual way on
party grounds.

Sir, if I stopped here, every body, I think, would agree that
the argument sufficiently establishes that if there ever was a
case calling for the election of a committee by the House itself,
and not its appointment by the Chair — especially if it is to act
on the principle, avowed by its friends here, of the right of the
Government to a control of the committee — that case is the one
before you. But this is by no means all. The argument I have
hitherto urged would be good under any circumstances. How
much more cogent is it under what no one can deny are the
very extraordinary circumstances of the present case? What
are these? It is now ten years since a man, represented by
gentlemen themselves as laboring under the darkest imputations,
and especially obnoxious to suspicion in regard to his prudence
and fidelity in money matters, was appointed by the late Presi-
dent to one of the most important pecuniary trusts — perhaps the
most important — in this country. I understood the gentleman
from New- York (Mr. Cambreleng) to say that the appointment
was made against the wishes of the party in power, and expressly
against those of the actual President of the United States. [Mr.
Cambreleng assented.] Well, sir, this man was hardly warm in
office before what had been foretold occurred. He was a defaulter
from the beginning, but his defalcations were, at first, compara-
tively inconsiderable, and such as might have escaped attention,
or been plausibly accounted for. At the end of four years, defaul-
ter as he was, he was reappointed to office — the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Thomas) says, so much against the wishes of
some of the best friends of the Executive, that they went so far

34 1 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

as to use their influence with the Senate to have the nomination
rejected there — but of that more hereafter. After this second
appointment, he still observed, at first, a certain degree of mode-
ration, for at the end of another year he was in default only
$50,000 or so, (I think) ; but now, hardened by habit, emboldened
by success, counting with greater confidence upon the inveterate
drowsiness of the sentinels of the Treasury, whom he had found
so long ''mocking their charge with snores," he plunged desper-
ately forward in his career of fraud, and, in the course of the
three last years, under the eyes of this very Secretary of the
Treasury, and, for twelve months together, during which the
greater part of the whole defalcation occurred -under the admin-
istration of the very President who denounced him from tlir
first as unworthy of any confidence -achieved a peculation so
magnificent as to place him by the side of the great historic
plunderers of antiquity — the devastators of subjugated provinces.
One fact just brought to light aggravates still more the monstrous
characteristics of this case. It appears that the official bond of
Swartwout, given on his second appointment in 1834, was
actually not approved for three years afterwards.

Now, sir, upon this simple state of the case, [ put it to your
candor, I appeal to the common sense of the House, does the
Secretary of the Treasury come before us, as he ought to do,
with clean hands? Do not misunderstand me, sir. I do not.
charge Mr. Woodbury with corruption, I do not charge him with
misprision of corruption by connivance at this enormous fraud.
I do not speak, as yet, of impeachment— although I beg leave to
say that I am quite clear there may be misdemeanors in office
so gross as to call for the interference of this House as the im-
peaching power, without any proof of corruption. I hold it to
be our undoubted right to remove a public officer, whom the
President will not or cannot displace, if we can make out against
him, to the satisfaction of the Senate, evidence of gross negli-
gence, which the law likens to fraud, or of such glaring and
notorious incompetence, (through drunkenness, for instance,) as
makes him utterly unfit to be trusted with the interests of a great
people. The sentence, in case of impeachment, need not go
further than a removal from office. But of this by the way. \
do not, however, charge the Secretary of the Treasury even with
gross negligence. I charge him, indeed, with nothing, for that
is not my object here. But I contend that he stands before us
self-accused. I affirm, and challenge gentlemen to deny it, that
he has made out a prima facie case against himself — that the
burden of proof, by his own showing, lies upon him ; that he
has a presumption to repel ; that he has doubts and difficulties
to explain away. And now I ask the friends of that gentleman
whether they think they are doing — I will not say their duty to

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 345

the House and to the country, but — justice to the Secretary
himself, by the course which they are pursuing here. The gen-
tleman from New-Hampshire, (Mr. Cushman,) for instance ; did
he not perceive how his declaration, the other day, that the Secre-
tary was ready to justify himself whenever the House would
consent to give him a committee of his own naming, was received
by the House? that it was greeted with an involuntary burst of
merriment from all sides, as if the gentleman had been indulging
in a joke at the expense of his friend?

[Mr. Cushman explained. His objection had been to raising
the committee by ballot. He was still opposed to raising the
committee unless it could be done viva voce in the broad light of
day, &,c]

Mr. Legare. Still, it appears to me, with all possible defer-
ence, that he who renders his friend ridiculous, by whatever
means he may do so, is not doing him any great service.

But, sir, is it fit, is it decent, that a man, who sits where so
many great men have served and honored the country — the suc-
cessor of Alexander Hamilton and Alexander Dallas — of Mr.
Crawford and Mr. Gallatin — the head of one of the great execu-
tive Departments of this Government— a confidential adviser of
the President — armed with mighty powers, clothed in imposing
authority, surrounded with whatever of splendor still remains to
the dignities of this country — is it fit, I say, that a gentleman,
standing where Mr. Woodbury does, with appearances — whether
by his fault or his misfortune is wholly immaterial — so much
against him, should present himself, or rather suffer his friends
here to present him, in the posture of a culprit at the Old Bailey,
challenging jurors without cause, picking flaws in indictments,
and resorting to all the little devices of a mere technical defence.
Should he not rather challenge investigation — defy it — allow the
House to choose time, place, manner, weapons —

[Mr. Cushman here said that he had informed the House that
the Secretary did challenge investigation.]

Mr. Legare. Well, then, sir, why should he object to our ap-
pointing a committee according to our own rules? What is it
to him how our committee is appointed ? Does it lie in his mouth
(to use that phrase) to say that, having covered himself with a
cloud of suspicion, it shall not be removed unless the committee
be appointed in this or that particular way ? Is it not manifestly
due to his honor, no less than to the interest of the country, that
the investigation should be conducted in the manner best calcu-
lated to satisfy the public, and make them acquiesce in its results
whatever they may be. And now, again I ask, if ever occasion
was extraordinary — if ever there was an occasion that called for
the appointment of a Committee by the House itself, as the great
vol. i. — 44

346 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

inquest of the country, on the principles of a free, impartial, and
rigid scrutiny, is not this so?

But not only is it an extraordinary occasion, for the reasons
hitherto given— it is rendered still more so hy the very peculiar
juncture at which the inquiry is called for. We are fairly ar-
rived at what is called a crisis in the financial affairs of this
country. The public mind is as much awakened, perhaps, as
it ever has been, to the importance of the great question of the
day. I have always thought it a question infinitely too grave
and too fundamental, as well as too full of difficulties of all sorts
to be made matter of party contention and management, and
that it was really an object worthy of all our attention as states-
men, to arrive at sound, scientific conclusions in regard to it. For
this reason, sir, when the gentleman from New- York (Mr. Cam-
breleng,) omitted to state the grounds on which he called upon
us to institute this inquiry, as I do not happen to be very san-
guine about the results promised by others, I employed myself
with imagining some more plausible pretext to indulge him in
his wishes. The consideration which first presented itself and
most weighed with me was precisely this : Here we are about
to pass upon a system in which the safe keeping of the public
money is one of the most important elements and one of the
most debateable points. We differ most widely among ourselves
as to its probable effects in this respect, and the whole country
is, and has been for nearly two years past, deeply agitated by the
same doubts. The measure, repeatedly rejected here, is again
pressed upon us by the executive department for a solemn recon-
sideration. Just at this moment a case occurs which, whatever
any of us may think of its peculiar causes and circumstances,
all must admit to have an immediate, and, perhaps, most impor-
tant bearing upon this engrossing subject. Now, sir, 7, for one,
want to see the precise features of what may possibly prove a
most instructive experiment in this department of public policy.
At any rate, it is very desirable that it be surveyed with all pos-
sible impartiality and from various points of view. It will not
do to confide the examination of such a subject to a committee
composed principally of minds committed to foregone conclusions
or laboring under strong prepossessions ; at least, as it may be
difficult, in the present state of the controversy, to avoid this
evil, we ought, at all events, to correct and mitigate it as much
as we may, by an equal representation in it of the three classes
of opinions that prevail in this House. I should not be satisfied
with any report made by gentlemen who differ with me in their
views, whatever might be their integrity or abilities. This is a
matter which I will not consent to look at through another's
prejudices.

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS, 347

And now, sir, I ask you, what indignity I am offering to the
Chair, when I say so ? And, since it is regarded by its friends
as bound and determined to give us a committee of partizans, is
it not reasonable that we should insist upon the undoubted right
of the House to see that, on a subject of this peculiar character,
all the parties that compose it, should be present at the exami-
nation, and report the facts according to their respective im-
pressions ?

I submit, then, that I have made out my case ; that I have
shown, if ever a committee ought to be appointed by the House
according to its rules, this is that committee. The reasoning is
entirely conclusive, I defy the gentleman from New- York to an-
swer it. He is driven back to the darkness he seems to love —
darkness of inuendo — darkness of imputation— darkness of ar-
gument.

[Mr. Cambreleng was surprised that the gentleman from South-
Carolina should ask him to give reasons for that about which he
(Mr. C.) felt so little care. He had stated then, as he did now,
that the mode of appointing the committee was a matter of in-
difference to <him; and it was extraordinary that, after having
made this declaration, he should be asked to hunt up reasons
why the Speaker should appoint it.]

Mr. Legare. What, then, did the gentleman mean by "dark-
ness ?" Or, if he meant nothing, why not honestly say so at first?

Before I close my remarks, it is necessary that I should advert
to what fell from the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Thomas).
The House could not but be struck with the fact, to which I
have more than once alluded, that, although this committee was
officially asked for by the administration, through its leader upon
this floor, no reason why we should comply with so extraordi-
nary a request was so much as hinted, until a late hour of the
second day of debate upon the subject. Then it was that, for
the first time, this important hiatus in the conduct of such a
cause was attempted to be supplied by the gentleman from
Maryland. The high place which that gentleman occupies in
his party would alone entitle his opinions and reasonings here to
the greatest consideration. But there is another circumstance
which still further enhances their claims upon the attention of
the House. The gentleman seems to me any thing but "lavish
of his presence" in debate, and I think I have generally observed
that it is only where his friends are in some serious difficulty —
ubi res ad triarios rediit — that he thinks himself called upon to
expose himself in the thickest of the fight, and, dismounting from
his horse, like a great captain of antiquity, to charge, sword in
hand, at the head of his troops. Accordingly, his appearance in
the melee on this occasion awakened in me the liveliest interest.
I was curious to know how he was going to defend what ap-

348 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

peared to me the untenable position of his party, and I accord-
ingly left my seat, and approached so near to him as not to lose
any part of an argument which was the last and only hope of an
otherwise derelict cause. If any thing were wanted to show
how bad that cause was, it was the utter failure of so able a man
in that argument. It amounted scarcely to any thing in itself,
and was, besides, perfectly inconsequential in every part of it, as
far as it went. The whole sum and substance of it was, that the
administration, being responsible tor the recovery of the money,
or for catching the defaulter,* had a right to control the committee
to be appointed for that purpose.

[Mr. Thomas explained. He had not said the administration,
he had said the friends of the administration on this floor.]

Mr. Legare. I never heard the distinction made before, and
do not even now perceive its importance. At any rate, it can
have no sort of effect on the argument, as I shall show.

Now, sir, let us analyze this argument. And, in the first
place, it is obvious to object that it is wholly inapplicable to the
subject before the House. In the resolution on your table there
is not one word relating to the recovery of the money. We are
called upon to inquire into the causes which led to the loss of it —
a very interesting inquiry, no doubt — with a view to our future
policy, as well as to the past conduct of the Treasury Depart-
ment : but why it should result in restoring what has been lost,
or why it should be conducted only by those most interested in
restoring it, or what it has to do with restoring it at all, it is diffi-
cult to conceive.

But, if the recovery of this money is the only, or even the
principal object, why trouble us with this investigation ? Why
have a committee of this House to do, what, after all, it could
not possibly do well ? Where are all the ordinary instruments
of executive power — its law officers of various classes : its courts
with their process : its judges, counsel, sheriffs, bailiffs? Surely
a court of chancery, with its bills of discovery and relief, its
searching interrogatories and oaths of parties, can do more to de-
tect and defeat fraud than any committee of this House, albeit
authorized to send for persons and papers, in a few weeks of in-
vestigation. It does appear to me that nothing ever was more
nugatory than this whole proceeding, considered in the light in
which the gentleman seems exclusively to view it.

Then, sir, as to the argument that, because the friends of the

* As to Mr. Swartwout himself, he is, of course, out of our reach. Like the
classic plunderer in Juvenal's lines —

Damnatus inani
Judicio, (quid enim salvis infamia nummis)
Exul ab octava Marius bibit et fruitur D!s
Iratis — at tu victrix provincia ploras.

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 349

administration are more interested in the recovery of the money
than the rest of us, we should commit the management of this
inquiry to them ; it is, in the first place, founded upon a gratui-
tous assumption, and is, moreover, a most illogical conclusion,
even from a false premise. I deny that any party in this House
is really more interested than another in restoring so considera-
ble a sum to the common treasury of the country. I am sure it
would be a boon for which both Charleston and Pensacola would
be most grateful to you, if it were laid out in those places upon
the establishments we were speaking of a few days ago. But,
even conceding what is thus taken for granted, the reasoning of
the gentleman from Maryland is surely most extraordinary.
Says the gentleman, the friends of the administration in this
House should be employed in recovering the money. Why?
Because the administration lost it. This House, by its commit-
tee, is to recover what was lost through the carelessness or un-
skilfulness of the head of the Treasury ; and that, it seems, is to
exonerate that officer from every imputation of neglect of duty !
Was there ever a stranger confusion of ideas ? Why, what sort
of connection is there between the recovery of the money by
the Legislature and the loss of it by the Executive ; and how
arc the merits of our committee to be imputed, by this most
anomalous relation back, to him, who, for the purposes of this
argument, must be presumed to have incurred a just censure, for
a most culpable remissness or incapacity ? And, above all, what
satisfaction would it be to the country, justly alarmed at pecula-
tions and abuses so unprecedented and enormous, naturally ex-
pecting of this House that it should take measures at once to
visit with its vindictive justice those who have been, directly or
indirectly, engaged in them, and to prevent, as far as possible,
the recurrence of them in future — what satisfaction would it be
to the American people to hear that, having recovered their pro-
perty, we had agreed to stop the prosecution, and hush up the
whole matter ? And is this the only argument which the friends
of the administration have to urge why they should have the
control, through the Speakers appointment, of this extraordinary
inquiry ? Even so, sir.

But the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Thomas,) apologizing
for "the pressure" under which he was obliged to speak, added a
few observations to those which I have just examined. By his
first argument he admitted that the "friends of the administra-
tion" were responsible for the safe keeping of the money ; and
it was because they were so responsible that he thought them
entitled to a majority in the committee. As the "friends of the
administration," however, could only be responsible through the
administration itself, to which the custody of the money was ex-
clusively confided, the gentleman, very naturally, went into an-

350 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

other argument, to show that the Executive was not, in fact, to be
blamed for the offences of Swartwout. How these two positions
are to be reconciled, or whether they can be reconciled at all, is
no business of mine ; certain it is, however, that the gentleman
from Maryland thought it perfectly consistent in himself, first to
claim a privilege for the friends of the administration on the
ground of their being answerable for the consequences of this
embezzlement, and then to deny that any blame whatever at-
tached, or could attach, to the administration itself, for the impu-
nity with which these peculations were carried on for years to-
gether 7 And why? Because, forsooth, many whigs and many
conservatives thought the man innocent, until he was found to
be guilty : and it could even be proved, by credible witnesses,
that he had presided over some public meetings held by citizens
of New- York, belonging to one or other of those parties ! Why,
sir, this is really too much. A public officer, repeatedly appoint-
ed to one of the most important trusts in the country, and ac-
quitting himself of its duties, as the public were led to believe,
by his continuance in office, with perfect fidelity, is treated by
the community in which he lives with the respect due to his
high station ; and this makes them as much responsible for what
he does as the Government, whose confidence in him it was that
enabled him to deceive that community. The merchants of
New- York, who had nothing to do with his accounts, who had
no means of knowing what was his official conduct, who took it
for granted, good easy men, that the agents of the people here at
Washington, when they told them all was well, knew what they
said to be true, as they were bound to know it, believed Swart-
\vout no defaulter. And, therefore, it is not for them, nor for us,
now to ask those very agents why they made or countenanced
these false reports, by which we have all been misled so much to
our cost ! The gentleman went on to adduce other proofs of
the high credit which Swartwout enjoyed, and then, suddenly
taking a turn in his argument, stated, by way of exculpating the
administration, that many of its friends used their influence
with the Senate, when the second appointment of this man was
under consideration in 1834, to have him rejected. The present
President of the United States is expressly named among those
who endeavored to prevent the confirmation of this unfortunate
choice. Sir, I wish to say nothing unnecessarily unkind of that
heroic old man, now retired forever from the stage of public life.
He certainly erred in making this nomination ; but why did not
his friends go to him with their objections to it, instead of whis-
pering suspicions into the ears of the Senate ? The difference
between the power that appoints and the power that confirms or
rejects, is that the action of the former is perfectly untrammelled,
whereas it is incumbent upon the latter to show some reason for

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 361

its dissent. Had the Senate rejected Swartwout upon vague ru-
mors, who doubts but their conduct, especially at that particular
juncture, would have been denounced as factious and arbitrary ?
That the friends of the administration, therefore, endeavored to
prevent the confirming of a nomination, of which they seem
to have taken no measures to prevent the making, no more ex-
onerates them from. all responsibility for it than it proves that
the Senate were as much to blame for it as the Executive. But,
if this whole argument fails to prove what the gentleman desires
to make out, there is at least one purpose which it does very ef-
fectually answer. It shows that every possible circumstance
combined to point Swartwout out to his official superiors as an
object of most vigilant suspicion; it shows conclusively that
they cannot plead surprise or ignorance ; it still further inflames
all the presumptions arising out of the other circumstances of the
case, and justifies this House, triumphantly, in its visible deter-
mination to give to this whole subject a most severe and search-
ing examination, through a committee of its own choosing.

One word, sir, as to the proposal to vote viva voce. I under-
stand gentlemen to insist upon this deviation from the express
rules of the House, on grounds most offensive to its dignity.
They treat us as if, instead of an assembly of gentlemen, repre-
sentatives of a great nation, we were a gang of crouching slaves,
urged to the performance of our duties only by the lash, and
skulking, whenever we find an opportunity, from the eye of our
masters. Sir, there was a time when such insinuations, now
become so familiar to us as to be mere words of course, would
have kindled a flame of generous indignation in the bosoms of
parties in this House. That day, I am sorry to say, seems to be
past forever, and I suppose the proudest of us must submit, with
what grace we may, to our destiny. Some of us, at least, have
nothing to fear — the gentleman from New- York, (Mr. Cambre-
leng,) for instance, and myself.

"Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."

lean feel, personally, no interest at all in the matter : but,
having no experience in the vote viva voce, I fear it would be
found inconvenient in such an election as this. However, if we
must comply with the condition of publicity on the grounds
upon which it is exacted — if we must submit to such humiliating
terms, let every member write his name upon the ballot he gives.
Would not that answer the purpose 1

Before I take my seat, sir, I cannot refuse myself the privilege
of saying a few words in reference to the observations that fell
from my colleague, (Mr. Pickens,) who happens now to be near

352 OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS.

me. Sir, I listened to him with an interest which 1 am unable
to express; and, when he avowed his belief that the honour of
the country called for this enquiry, and his readiness to go into
it in the manner best fitted to accomplish its objects, 1 felt my
bosom awakened as with the sound of a trumpet. I heard once
more the voice of South-Carolina as she was of yore. I rejoiced
with a patriotic cry — I exulted with an honest haughtiness at
the thought that she was restored to her old and her true place
here. For, sir, without meaning to intimate in the most distant
manner any thing offensive or unkind to my colleague, he will
permit me to confess that I had looked with a painfully anxious
interest to the course which he and his friends were going to
pursue in this matter — not that I distrusted their honor, and
integrity, but I did not know how far the fatal sophistry of party
had' triumphed over their naturally clear heads and elevated
characters — that sophistry which is rooting itself so deeply in
our political practice, and perverting so fearfully the opinions of
the wisest and best among us, as to threaten nothing less than
an entire revolution in the genius and character of our institu-
tions. Sir, my colleague has spoken without reserve on this
subject — he scruples not to declare that there has been foul cor-
ruption in the conduct of our affairs. I do not go so far — prob-
ably because I know less of these things than he does. Bui I
do say that these strange portents and prodigies of fraud — these
spectral terrors of official profligacy, almost unheard of in our
previous history, but which have so often of late "visited the
glimpses of the moon," make me fear that "something is rotten
in the state of Denmark." It is time, sir, that we should all be
roused up ; and most heartily do I felicitate the country on the
prospect that the South, at this important juncture, will be brought
back to her proper position in our federal politics. That position
is necessarily defensive and conservative. We have nothing to
desire or to hope from innovation or abuse of any kind. Our
only salvation is in the constitution as it was formed by our
fathers, honestly carried out in all its principles, and in its true
spirit. The sceptre is departed from us. The axes and fasces,
consulships and dictatorships, are not for us None of us, it is
probable, will ever more lead the pomp of the triumph up the
steep of this Capitol. But we have still our power and our
mission, and if we execute them with courage and constancy,
we shall entitle ourselves to the gratitude of the country and of
posterity. We have the Tribunitian veto to restrain Power.
We have the Censorial authority to rebuke and to chastise Corrup-
tion. Standing, as we ought, aloof from the perverse influences
of ambition, it should be our aim, as it is undoubtedly within
our power, to maintain that high public morality which is worth

OFFICIAL DEFALCATIONS. 353

more than all constitutions, and without which all constitutions,
be they what they may, are a mere mockery. No language can
characterize the baseness and folly of the Southern man who
would sacrifice the independence, the elevation, and the control-
ling advantages of such a position to the slavish discipline and
low ends of faction. I repeat it. I rejoice, from the bottom of
my heart, in the hope that my colleague and his friends are still
ready to lay bare their right arms in defence of the good cause ;
and never, let me assure them, never was a prouder post assigned
to brave men in a mighty battle than will be theirs, if they but
will it so.

vol. i. — 45

ARBITRAMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES.

June 13, 1838. — Read, and laid upon the table.

Mr. Legarc", from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, made the following

REPORT :

The Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of the
New- York Peace Society, and other individuals friendly to the peace cause,
report as follows :

The prayer of the memorialists is two-fold. They desire, in
the first place, that our differences with Mexico should be referred
to the arbitration of a third Power. The House is already in-
formed that, to this extent, their petition has been answered and
fulfilled by the Executive — our claims upon that Government
having, at the instance of the latter, been submitted to an umpire
of its own choosing. So far, therefore, as the object of the
memorialists was to bring about this practical result in a public
interest of great importance and pressing exigency, it has been
accomplished, no doubt, to their entire satisfaction.

But they do not stop here. They proceed to recommend to
Congress that it "adopt the principle of reference to a third
Power of such international disputes as cannot be amicably
adjusted by the parties themselves, as an invariable rule of action,
instead of an occasional one." And they further pray that, "in
pursuance of this principle, a proposal be sent forth by this
Government to those of other nations, that they would unite
with it in the establishment of a great international board of
arbitration, or a congress of nations, to which to refer interna-
tional disputes ; and also for the purpose of digesting and pre-
paring a regular code of international law, obligatory on such
nations as may afterwards adopt it." They think that this
board of arbitrators should be composed of delegates from various
nations, and that to this board should be confided the forming a
code of international law.

It is proper to observe, however, that they do not propose that
this code "shall be binding upon any nations which may not
willingly adopt it, after its enactment by the tribunal :" nor do
they propose that that tribunal be clothed with power to enforce
its decisions, but that it shall rely for its efficiency solely on the

ARBITREMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES., 355

impartiality and correctness of those decisions, and the honor
and justice of the parties concerned.

The petitioners conclude by expressing a desire that this coun-
try should not only combine with others in what they character-
ize as "the great and glorious scheme under consideration," but
that they "should lead the way, by sending forth the proposal
for a congress of nations" to the various Governments of the
civilized world.

The Committee have been earnestly pressed to take this latter
prayer of the petitioners into consideration, and to make a direct,
full, and solemn report both upon its principles and its practica-
bility. It is in compliance with a desire thus entertained in
many respectable quarters, that they have the honor of submitting
to the House the following reflections :

The Committee need scarcely say that they fully appreciate
and sympathize with the philanthropic feelings and purposes
expressed in the memorial. They agree that the union of all
nations, in a state of peace, under the restraints and the protection
of law, is the ideal perfection of civil society. Not, however,
that they would be understood as affirming that war has always,
in the history of mankind, been an unmixed or uncompensated
evil. They do not think so. To say nothing of the heroic
virtues which are formed under its stern discipline, and exercised
by its trials and perils, war has, in fact, been often, both in an-
cient and in modern times, a mighty and even a necessary in-
strument of civilization. It is sufficient, in this connection, barely
to mention the names of Alexander and Charlemagne. But the
committee also think that those times are gone by. Far other
agents of amelioration and progress are at work now — agents
infinitely more powerful in their quiet and silent, but incessant
operation, and whose efficacy would be greatly impaired by war,
did they not tend, more than any thing else, to supersede and
put an end to it. The age is reproached with being a mechanical
and ignoble one — with its sordid love of gain, its plodding devo-
tion to business, and its preference of physical comforts and
personal accommodation, to objects that elevate the imagination
and refine the taste in art and literature. This reproach is, no
doubt, to a certain degree, well founded ; but we must not forget
that we do not forego (as far as we do) the advantages referred
to, without a real, and, in the eye of sober reason, an abundantly
adequate compensation. It is true that the most peculiar charac-
teristic of the civilization of these times is a demand, becoming
universal among all classes of society, for the various physical
comforts, of which commerce is the inexhaustible source. But
it is this very peculiarity that opens an entirely new prospect to
the human race, and makes the present moment an epoch in its
history. This commercial or economical civilization, if we may

356 ARBITREMENT OP NATIONAL DISPUTES.

call it so, is reconstructing society on the broadest and most
solid basis. It is essentially democratic in its character and
tendencies. It pursues steadily, and achieves, with more and
more success every day, the greatest good of the greatest number.
It is every where increasing population, and adding immensely
to the fund that employs and rewards labor. In spite of many
disturbing causes, which will disappear in the progress of things,
it is elevating the poor in the social scale, providing for them
better food, raiment, and lodging, as well as means 01 a suitable
moral and intellectual education. It is bringing the most distant
families of mankind, as it were, into contact with one another,
and effacing all the sharp and salient peculiarities of national
character that now estrange them from each other. It is reveal-
ing the great cardinal truth of free trade, so pregnant with moral
as well as political results — that "self-love and social are the
same ;" that every country is interested in the prosperity of every
other ; that production can never be excessive, because, where
exchanges are entrammelled, it produces its own consumption ;
that nothing, in short, can be more shallow in science, as well
as sordid and narrow in spirit, than a restrictive policy founded
upon the idea that a nation can only enrich itself at the expense
of its neighbours, or has any thing to gain in the long run, from
their losses. When we reflect that, during the whole of the last
century, and for a considerable period before, the far greater part
of the blood and treasure so prodigally lavished in almost inces-
sant war, was a sacrifice, directly or indirectly, to fallacious
views of commercial monopoly and colonial dominion considered
as instrumental to that monopoly, we shall fully appreciate the
importance of this simple truth, once become, as it will infallibly
become, a settled maxim of national policy. With notions of
economy and personal comfort, such as are made the reproach
of the times, mankind are not likely much longer to acquiesce
in the wanton and profligate waste of their resources, of the
means of so much private and public prosperity, in contests
which — to say nothing of the unspeakable evils that accompany
them — cannot possibly result in any adequate advantages to
either party. Their reluctance to take up arms will be increased
by a regard not only to their own interests directly, but to that
of their adversaries, which is in effect the same thing ; to make
war upon their customers in trade will be felt to be a mischiev-
ous and suicidal insanity. This motive is, perhaps, not a
romantic one, but it is not the less powerful for addressing itself
less to sentiment and the imagination than to the habitual self-
ishness of human nature. It is thus that physical causes are
producing moral effects of the greatest importance, and that
political economy becomes the most effective auxiliary of Chris-
tianity. We already see, in a manner not to be mistaken, the

ARBITREMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES. 357

influence of such ideas in the contemporary history of Europe,
although they are just beginning to take hold of the public mind,
and there are so many obstacles to their progress in the actual
state of things there. It is scarcely possible to imagine a greater
revolution of opinion, in the same time, than has occurred since
the peace of 1815. A single generation is not yet passed away
since the downfall of Napoleon, and his military despotism begins
already to strike the minds of men as a barbarous anomaly in
such an age. Since the last French revolution, causes of con-
troversy, without number, sufficient to have produced desolating
wars at any previous epoch, have arisen and passed away without
occasioning one, except the disputed succession in Spain — an
exception that proves the rule. Much is due, no doubt, to the
personal character and enlightened views of those whose position
enabled them to control that great event ; but, let it be remem-
bered that that character and those views were themselves the
work of the age they would reflect so faithfully.

The committee will add that there is another point of view in
which every thing that tends to preserve the peace of nations will,
ere long, come to be universally regarded as peculiarly interest-
ing to mankind : they allude to its effect in promoting the great
cause of limited or constitutional government. War has ever
been the most fruitful source of arbitrary power. They are, in-
deed, to a certain extent, inseparable. A military is, necessarily
in spirit and effect, a despotic, and must generally be a monarchi-
cal organization. Not only so, but the evil tends to propagate
and to perpetuate itself. One great power arming for conquest
compels all neighboring powers to arm for defence ; and it is not
a vain or fanciful saying, that laws are silent amidst the din of
arms. The instinct of self-preservation is at least as strong in na-
tions as in individuals. They ever have been, and ever will be,
ready to sacrifice, without scruple, their dearest rights and liber-
ties in order to maintain their national independence. The yoke
of the foreigner is so galling and degrading that there is no other
which mankind are not willing to bear in order to avoid it.
"The salvation of the people," (salus populi,) at whatever cost
or risk, must and will be the supreme law, under every form of
government. The dictators of republican Rome, the terrible
despotism of the executive committees of the French convention,
are only instances of a universal law of society and of human
nature under such circumstances. Hence the impossibility, for
the present at least, of maintaining such institutions as ours on
the continent of Europe.

Mirabeau imbodied the whole philosophy of the subject in his
well-known apophthegm that France was "geographically mon-
archical." The federal relations of Europe (for Europe is, in fact,
a confederacy) admit, in strict theory, of no arbiter but the sword

358 ARBITREMENT OP NATIONAL DISPUTES.

and the independence of most of the powers has been preserved —
as far as it has been preserved at all — at the cost of popular lib-
erty. That happy compromise, by which the wisdom of our fa-
thers— availing itself, it is true, of such circumstances as have
never occurred elsewhere — has reconciled, on this continent, the
sovereignty of the States with the rights of individuals under a
peaceful, judicial administration of the law, is still, and is likely
long to continue, a desideratum there. But the spirit of the age
is gradually becoming more favorable to such institutions, just
in proportion as it is becoming less disposed to war. Peace is
the hope of liberty — peace, consecrated as the standing, funda-
mental policy of the world. Such a state of opinion, or such a
condition of things as will dispense with large armies and mili-
tary discipline, with a power, in effect dictatorial, in the execu-
tive department of governments, and with the ambition, the
glory, and the fatal popularity and influence of successful gene-
rals ; such a perpetual and perfect intercourse, commercial and
otherwise, among men as will mitigate extremely, if not extin-
guish, all mutual jealousy and hostility between nations des-
tined, under the blessed influences of Christian civilization, to
form but one great family, and will thus deprive politicians of
the occasion of turning the wildest phrensy and worst calamities
of mankind into a means of sanctifying the abuses of govern-
ment— will inevitably lead, in this age, to the general establish-
ment of representative institutions. All the tendencies of com-
merce and industry are to social equality ; peace will add to that
equality rational liberty under a government of laws; and both
will tend to perpetuate, by a mutual reaction, the causes that
produced them.

Concurring thus fully in the benevolent objects of the memo-
rialists, and believing that there is a visible tendency in the spirit
and institutions of the age towards the practical accomplishment
of it at some future period, the committee regret to have to say
that they have not the same confidence in the means recom-
mended in the petition. They are of opinion that reforms so
fundamental can only be brought about by the gradual progress
of civilization, and in consequence of a real change in the con-
dition of society. They must follow events, and conform to
them ; they cannot, by any contrivance of man, be made to pre-
cede and control them. AH attempts, in such matters, except by
bloody revolutions or conquests, to anticipate the natural course
of things, are entirely unavailing.

The scheme of the memorialists is, as we have seen, to refer
all international disputes to a congress of deputies, and to au-
thorize that congress to digest a code of public law that shall be
binding only on such powers as should voluntarily adopt it.

The first objection to this plan lies upon the surface, and is

ARBITRAMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES. 359

entirely fatal. The unanimous consent of nations, in the actual
state of the world, to such a proposal, is — as any one will he con-
vinced who reflects a moment upon their political relations, or
will but cast his eye over a map of Europe — entirely out of the
question ; and the refusal of a single great power to acquiesce in
it would alone render it abortive. This is not matter of specu-
lation ; it is what has actually occurred in one of the most im-
portant departments of international law. The House is aware
that Great-Britain maintains doctrines in reference to the mari-
time rights of belligerents, which were formally disavowed and
denounced, during the war of our Revolution, by almost all the
leading powers of Europe, banded together to resist the enforce-
ment of them in practice. On some of the points involved in
the declaration of the armed neutrality, our own prize courts
have followed, perhaps too implicitly, those of England ; but on
others — for example, the rule, as it is called, of '56 — they have
adhered to the law, as explained by that famous league. And
yet, against the concurring opinions of all the rest of the civi-
lized world, and in spite of the bloody wars to which the exer-
cise of her pretended rights have led, and may yet lead, Great-
Britain maintains her principles, irreconcileable as they are with
the practice of nations in analogous cases on land, and indeed
with all modern ideas of civilized warfare ; and even interposes
her overruling influence to prevent any of the minor states of
Europe from adopting, for their own convenience, provisions in-
consistent with those principles, in treaties professedly confined
to the parties making them. What declaration of a congress
constituted as the one in question would be, can be expected to
have, by the mere weight of its authority, more effect on the
opinions and the conduct of mankind, than that of such a for-
midable coalition as the armed neutrality?

Had England not engrossed the empire of the seas for about
a century past, it is scarcely possible to doubt but that the law of
maritime captures would have been made to correspond more
strictly with the analogies of war on land, and private property
been held as sacred in the one case as in the other. It is worthy
of notice that, at the congress of Utrecht, before her ascendant
was established, that power was an advocate of the rights of
neutrals. She is now their worst enemy ; and her resistance pre-
sents an obstacle, for the present at least, quite insuperable to
any reform in this particular ; just as the refusal of either France,
or Austria, or Russia, &c, would be fatal to the project of the
memorialists. Such is the preponderance of these powers in the
balance of Europe, so peculiar and so various their interests, so
many changes will be necessary in most of them to bring their
institutions into harmony with the levelling spirit of the age, and
so to make it all safe for them to submit to any arbiter but force,

360 ARBITRAMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES.

that it were chimerical to expect their co-operation in any plan
to dispense with it altogether. When Henry IV. conceived his
project of perpetual peace, he did not look for the countenance
or consent of the then predominant house of Austria. On the
contrary, his first object was to overcome the resistance which
he expected from that quarter. His grand scheme of pacifica-
tion was founded on as vast a one of preparatory war and
revolution. That house was to be reduced ; its power broken ;
its territories partitioned. This was evidently an indispensable
prerequisite, and his was too practical a mind not to perceive it.
The committee will add here, what will be found to illustrate
another proposition advanced in this report, that his project as-
sumed a still more important alteration in the interests and rela-
tions of mankind. It reconstituted Europe on an entirely new
basis. He would have built up a balance of power on some-
thing like an equality of territory. He would have dealt with
that continent as an ancient lawgiver — a Moses or Lycurgus —
would have dealt with the soil of a particular country, distribu-
ting it on agrarian principles, in order that his new constitution
of society should have something solid to rest upon in the na-
ture of things. In this respect, too, as the committee will pre-
sently endeavor to show, he evinced a practical wisdom far above
such a dream as that of a revolution in the whole conduct of
nations, to be effected by a mere declaration of abstract princi-
ciples on paper or parchment.

And this leads to the second objection, which is that, even if
the consent of all the great powers (supposing their present re-
lations towards one another to remain precisely as they are)
could be obtained to such an experiment, there seems to your
committee to be no reason for anticipating any good result from
either of the expedients recommended by the memorialists.

First : with regard to a code of international law. Nothing,
in the opinion of your committee, is more fallacious than the
idea that mere positive legislation, when not preceded or accom-
panied by conquest or revolution, has ever had a very important
agency in human affairs. This proposition, they are aware, may
seem paradoxical at a period when so much is said about writ-
ten codes and constitutions ; but it is fully established by expe-
rience, even were it not, as it is, sufficiently clear a priori. The
most renowned systems of legislation have been the slow work
of time, modified in some degree, and improved by an enlight-
ened, experimental wisdom, taking advantage of circumstances,
rather than aspiring to control them. Even when reduced to
the form of codes, they have done a little more, when they have
done any good at all. than record with precision and clothe in
solemn form the opinions, usages, and manners of a people, with
such limited modifications of them as have been just alluded to.

ARBITREMENT OP NATIONAL DISPUTES. 361

The committee will not trouble the House with the elaborate
development to which the importance of this great and funda-
mental truth would, on a proper occasion, so fully entitle it ; nor
by citing examples which it would be easy to multiply, to con-
firm and illustrate it. But there is one of these too often men-
tioned to be overlooked, too striking to be slighted, and yet in
general so little understood as to require a statement of the pre-
cise truth in regard to it ; they mean the Justinian collection,
which is habitually cited as an instance of written law, properly
so called, that is, of law arbitrarily prescribed by the supreme
power in the state; yet every civilian knows that the great bulk
and body of the corpus juris civilis is strictly common law, the
law, namely, of opinion, of interpretation, and of practice. The
Pandects are, from beginning to end, nothing but a repository of
the wisdom of the great jurisconsults of a better age, delivered
to the public in the shape of treatises, institutes, and maxims, or
in that of consultations or opinions solving questions of practi-
cal jurisprudence.

But if this be true even of the law of property and contract,
{meum and ftrnm,) it is obviously still more applicable to public
law, in both its great branches, the constitutional and the inter-
national, but especially the latter. As to constitutions, the expe-
rience of the last half century supersedes the necessity of saying
a word about their total inefficacy where a people is not ripe for
them ; or, in other words, where they are arbitrarily made for a
people. Such an instrument is a mere deception, not worth the
parchment on which it is engrossed. None but the most vision-
ary minds can now have any faith in the mysteries — once held
in such reverence — of written forms. Our own government
has been absurdly cited as an example of the kind. It is, as the
House is aware, a remarkable instance of the very reverse. Its
two prominent, characteristics, its two vital principles as a Fede-
ral republic — the popular representation in one branch of the
Legislature, the equality of voices in the other — are founded on
facts, of which the existence is quite independent of all consti-
tutions, and which may be considered as primordial in this coun-
try. The States were as free, even as republican, before the Re-
volution, as they are now ; they were, at the same time, inde-
pendent communities, connected, indeed, by many ties, especially
by geographical position and by their common relation to the
mother country, but still distinct and independent of each other.
It might have been predicted with confidence that no government
could be formed which should not reconcile, as far as possible,
both these facts. Washington, for example, as is very apparent
from his correspondence, as well as from his conduct, had, with
that sound good sense, and large, comprehensive, and practical
wisdom so characteristic of him, a clear perception of this truth.
vol. i. — 46

362 ARBITREMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES.

The form of the legislative risscmbly, composed of two Houses,
was the established one of the country — a part of its common
law and hereditary liberties, and those of the whole English
race : but how were those Houses to be constituted ? Here was
a new question, and the only new question ; and yet the solu-
tion of it, in the very manner in which it was solved, was inevi-
table. No one can imagine that on any merely theoretical prin-
ciples the State of Virginia could have been brought then, or the
State of New- York could be brought now, for the first time, to
consent that her immense numerical superiority should be neu-
tralized in the equal vote of the Senate. So far, however, from
being the strange anomaly which a foreigner might imagine it,
it is the most natural thing in the world ; so far from being an
arbitrary institution, it is, so to express it, a corollary flowing
out of our whole history ; instead of being the creature of the
constitution, it was its necessary, indispensable condition. Nor
is it merely because it is recognized in that constitution, and
clothed by it with a peculiar sanctity, that it maintains its place
there ; it rests on more solid ground — on public opinion. The
spirit which produced it is still in all its pristine vigor; the facjt
of which it was the expression still exists ; the States, one and
all of them, have a deep interest in maintaining their indepen-
dence as States, and would unite in resisting a change which
would arm the strong against the weak, to the common ruin.
The Senate is thus fully a counterpoise to the other House ; be-
cause, like that House it is the sign of a living power — the rep-
resentative of an actual interest : because, like it, it is founded
upon a state of opinion, and of things which cannot be changed
without war — to maintain which men would be willing to lay
down their lives, and to sacrifice even the government itself. It
is this that gives to the Senate of the United States more weight
and efficiency than belong to any similar body — any House of
Lords, or Chamber of Peers — in the world. But this unques-
tionable truth at the same time sufficiently evinces that of all
chimeras it is the wildest to expect to see similar institutions es-
tablished, to any practical good purpose, in countries where there
are no facts that answer to them.

But if codes of municipal and constitutional law, to be effec-
tive, must mainly form themselves in the silent progress of
events, we find in international law a body of jurisprudence
which is, and of necessity must be, exclusively the growth of
opinion. There is here no legislative power, no common arbiter,
nothing but an occasional convention or established usage to give
sanction to its precepts. And yet whoever, fresh from the histo-
ry of mankind in more remote ages, shall open the great work
of Grotius, will be struck with the immense progress of society,
revealed in every page of it. This justly celebrated, and still,

ARBITREMENT OP NATIONAL DISPUTES. 363

in its kind, unrivalled collection of the maxims of international
justice, standing, as it does, on the very threshold of what is
properly called modern history, ought to be considered, perhaps,
as the grandest monument which human hands have yet erected
to the influence of Christianity. Before the sixteenth century,
the conventional law of nations hardly deserves notice ; treaties
are but few and meagre : but Europe was a family of nations
bound together in the unity of a common faith and the law of
enlightened reason and of good will among men, proclaimed
from the pulpit and at the altar, established itself, gradually and
by tacit consent, in the practice of mankind. It is thus that
most of the usages which give such a hideous and barbarous
aspect to war, even in the most civilized periods of antiquity,
have been effaced. Certainly some additional reforms might be
made in international law, as, for example, in the matter of ma-
ritime captures, to which allusion has already been had. These
reforms, to the honor of our country be it said, have been inces-
santly aimed at and perseveringly pursued, in her negotiations,
from the very first into which she entered as an independent na-
tion down to the present time. Your committee trust that no
administration will ever lose sight of them ; they are confident
of ultimate success ; they have unlimited faith in the truth, jus-
tice, and wisdom of the maxims involved in those reforms ; but
it is only from the gradual progress of social improvement that
such a consummation is to be hoped for. It is not a code or col-
lection of these maxims that is wanted : it is the power to en-
force or the spirit to practice them, which no code can give.

With regard to the proposed international board of arbitration,
the objections of the committee are still stronger. A code, di-
gested and promulged as the memorialists desire, would do no
good, but it could scarcely do any harm. Not so with a tribunal
of any sort. The probability, to be sure, is, that the decrees of
such a one as is here contemplated, would be merely nugatory ;
but, if it had any influence at all, it might, in the actual relations
of the great powers, easily be perverted to the worst ends. It
might be made especially to impede the progress of the very
improvements it would have been instituted to promote, and, in-
stead of disarming the mighty, become in. their hands an engine
of usurpation and tyranny. He is but superficially versed in
the history of nations who does not know that some of the
greatest revolutions in society have been brought about through
the instrumentality of judicial tribunals. The committee will
cite but one example : they refer to the gradual subversion of
the feudal confederacy of France, by the crown exercising, as it
did, a paramount influence over a nominal court of peers. The
authority of law, once established and acknowledged among
men, is second only to that of religion. Judges do much more

364 ARBITREMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES.

than pronounce and enforce judgment in particular cases ; they
shape the opinions of mankind in analogous ones ; and those
opinions, as we have seen, are the basis of government and le-
gislation.

It will immediately occur to the House that the only republic
in the world should be veiy careful not to commit its destinies,
in any serious degree, to institutions which might and would be
controlled by influences hostile to its principles ; and the more
especially, as the natural tendency of things is more favorable to
those principles than any policy shaped or controlled by the ex-
isting governments of Europe can possibly be expected to prove.
In the nature of things, every organ, however constituted, of
such governments, must speak the language of what is called
"resistance" to the spirit of the age ; and if any thing could en-
able them to resist that spirit, it would be a permanent congress
of Laybach or Verona, laying down the law of war and peace
for all nations. This was, indeed, the very scheme of the holy
alliance to which this country was formally invited to accede.

The example of the Amphictyonic Council of Greece, which
lias been cited with confidence by the petitioners, is, in the opin-
ion of the committee, as unfavorable to their purpose as any that
could be selected from the records of the past. Without going
into a critical examination of its history, for which this is not a
suitable occasion, it is sufficient to refer to indisputable general
results, to what every one who will cast his eye, however, care-
lessly, over the annals of those commonwealths will at once
perceive — that it had no effect whatever in healing their fatal
dissensions ; that so long as there was any thing like a balance
of power among the principal states, they continued to mnke war
upon each other, without the least regard to the imaginary juris-
diction of that assembly ; that, although by its constitution, the
twelve peoples composing it had each an equal voice in it, what-
ever might be their inequality of weight and importance, yet its
decisions were continually and openly swayed by the influence
of the power or powers in the ascendant for the time being ; and
finally, that it was by availing himself of his absolute control
over it, and by taking advantage of a favorable juncture in af-
fairs, brought about by its policy, that Philip of Macedon found
a plausible pretext, and a show of legitimate authority, to sanc-
tify the machinations which he had been long contriving, and
the war which he ultimately waged with success against the li-
berties of Greece.

Every other mere confederation, both in ancient and modern
times, except under circumstances so peculiar as to make them
unfit to be considered as precedents, has been attended with the
same results. Either the leading members of them, at the head
of standing, systematic parties, have been at perpetual war with

ARBITRAMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES. 365

each other, or the overruling ascendant of some one of them has
enabled it to invade the rights of all the rest, in every form of
violence and artifice. The late German empire, for example,
affords us instances of both these tendencies. Some of the long-
est and most desolating wars that have scourged Europe have
grown out of the conflicting interests of the members of that
league of peace, and had for their avowed object the adjustment
of those interests according to the true theory of its public law.
This was as much the case after as before the treaty of West-
phalia, although one capital object of that memorable negotiation
was to reform the constitution or the administration of the Impe-
rial Chamber and the Aulic Council — in which jurisdiction in
federal and feudal causes had been vested, without any effect,
however, in deciding them to the satisfaction of the weaker par-
ty. Neither ought it to be forgotten that by that treaty a major-
ity of suffrages in the diet was no longer to give the law in any
matters that related to religion, or in which the two great parties
as such, should vote differently, or, in general, in any case,
wherein all the states could not be considered as forming a sin-
gle consolidated nation. In all such cases the questions submit-
ted to them were to be treated as those arising between foreign
nations, and to be arranged by compromise, with no appeal but
to the sword. So difficult is it to accomplish what the memo-
rialists propose — the peaceful decision of controversies between
states whose interests are materially different — that even where
tribunals have been instituted for that purpose, the abuses to
which they have been made to lend their authority have seldom
failed, in the end, to aggravate and multiply the very evils they
were intended to prevent. Experience shows, that of all wars,
the most obstinate and terrible are those which grow out of such
abuses. They partake of the nature of revolution and civil war,
the color of authority on the one side, the sense of injustice on
the other, inflame the usual bitterness of hostility ; and battles
are more sanguinary and victory less merciful where the contest
is waged by parties standing towards each other in the supposed
relation of rebel and tyrant. Such institutions, therefore, unless
where the circumstances of a country are very peculiar, have
inevitably one of two effects : they either strengthen the hands
of the oppressor, or they lead to dreadful and desolating wars to
overthrow him ; sometimes, as in the case of the Germanic em-
pire and the house of Austria, in the seventeenth century, to
both.

Upon the whole, your committee are of opinion that time is
the best reformer in such things, and that any attempt to antici-
pate the natural progress of events, by institutions arbitrarily
adopted, would either be vain or something worse than vain.
They have endeavored to show that the cause of peace is visibly

366 ARBITREMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES.

gaining ground ; that mankind are already become, and will
daily become more and more disposed to sacrifice their comforts
and their business to the ambition of Governments ; nay, that
Governments themselves, partaking of the spirit of the times,
or dreading its effects, avoid, as much as possible, those ruinous
contests by which nations are rendered discontented, and rulers
more dependent on them, just when sufFering and poverty most
dispose them to revolt. Instead of congresses to put an end to
war, generally on the foot of the status quo aute helium, there
are congresses to prevent a rupture, and piles of protocols attest
that power, as was said of the Spartans after a memorable defeat,
lias lost much of its insolent and peremptory brevity of speech.
The truth is that every war, hereafter, will, by the social disor-
ders that are likely to accompany or to follow such an event,
throw additional obstacles in the way of future ones. The
sword will thus prove the best guaranty of peace.

Your Committee, therefore, do not think the establishment of
a permanent international tribunal, under the present circum-
stances of the world, at all desirable ; but they heartily concur
with the memorialists in recommending a reference to a third
power of all such controversies as can safely be confided to any
tribunal unknown to the constitution of our own country. Such
a practice will be followed by other powers, already inclined,
as we have seen, to avoid war, and will soon grow up into the
customary law of civilized nations. They conclude, therefore,
by recommending to the memorialists to persevere in exerting
whatever influence they may possess over public opinion, to
dispose it habitually to the accommodation of national differences
without bloodshed ; and to the House the adoption of the follow-
ing resolution :

Resolved, That the committee be discharged from the further
consideration of the subject referred to them.

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

1. The Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, with reference to their political in-

stitutions. By William Wachsmuth, Professor of History in the Universi-
ty of Leipzig. Translated from the German, by Edmund Woolrych, Esq,
Oxford. 1837. D. A. Talboys.

2. A Manual of the Political Antiquities of Greece, historically considered ; from

the German of Charles Frederick Hermann, Professor of the University
of Heidelberg. Oxford. 1836. D. A. Talboys.

The remarks which we had occasion to make in a recent pa-
per,* on the great superiority, over all others, of the German
philologists of the present day, especially in matters of histori-
cal criticism, are most strikingly exemplified in the two works
at the head of this article. We take it upon us to assure such of
our readers as have a taste for this department of study, that
they will be amply repaid for any pains they may be put to in
possessing themselves of their contents. The translation of
them into English is but one more proof of the homage now
universally done to those great masters of an erudition almost
without bounds, informed and elevated by the spirit of a philo-
sophy every way worthy of it. These are acquisitions to our
language that deserve, in point of usefulness, to be placed by
the side of the versions of Bockh's "Public Economy of Athens,"
and of Muller's "Dorians," both of which have been given to the
English world within the last ten or twelve years. The works
under review are, indeed, a necessary supplement to those admi-
rable disquisitions, and can be studied with perfect advantage
only in connection with them. We do not think we hazard
much in saying, that whoever is not thoroughly familiar with
Bockh's masterly view (so far as it goes) of the principles of
Athenian government and administration, has yet to learn his
elements as a student of history in one of its most interesting
branches. It is a work deserving, in our opinion, to be adopted
as a text-book in our public schools and colleges, instead of those
handed down from an age far less accurately informed in such

* On the Origin, History, and Influence of Roman Legislation. New-York
Review, No. 10.

368 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

tilings than the present. Muller's Dorians, though entitled to
high praise, is not, certainly, a monument of such patient and
profound research, nor so full of new matter upon an old subject
as the masterpiece just mentioned of his learned master. But
those two works, combined with the "Historical Antiquities" of
Professor Wachsmuth, and the invaluable manual of Mr. Her-
mann, will be found, by a philosophic reader, to throw more
light upon the genius, constitutions, and history of the two ru-
ling Greek races, than all that has ever been written about them
in the English language, from the invention of the art of print-
ing up to the present moment. Nor is it only that they give us
more, but that they give us better light upon these subjects— it
is not merely that we are enabled to see farther into them, but
that Ave are enabled to see more clearly than we ever did before.
Objects hitherto surrounded with a false glare, or distorted by a
troubled medium, are now exhibited in their natural shape and
color, not to puzzle the curious as anomalies and non-descripts,
but to instruct our reason, and to guide our conduct, by con-
firming the experience of statesmen, and completing the induc-
tions of philosophers. Whatever, for example, may be in some
respects the merit of Barthelemy, they whose ideas of Greek
history and government have been formed upon the views pre-
sented in the "Travels of Anacharsis,"' have much to i/wlearn,
before they can begin to profit by the lessons of better teachers,
and perhaps the first step towards real improvements in such stu-
dies, would be the purging of our libraries with the salutary
sternness of the curate and master Nicholas.

The two volumes, of which a translation is now offered to the
public, form (we are told in the translator's preface) the first part
of Professor Wachsmuth's treatise on Grecian Antiquities, of
which we are promised the second in two additional volumes as
soon as the translation is completed. This work has, it seems,
already attained to the dignity of a classic in Germany. Profes-
sor Hermann, in his preface, speaks of it in that light, and thus
explains the relation which his own labors bear to it:

"Hence naturally follows the relation this attempt bears to the great
classical work on the same subject, the "Hellenic Antiquities" of Wachs-
muth. The present treatise so far entirely agrees with that work, in the
main design of combining, in one regularly connected series, all the results
of previous antiquarian research, thought it would be presumptuous to in-
stitute any further comparison between the two works. 11' considered
merely as a clue through those researches, this work may escape the
charge oi" being superfluous, but must also, in that case, disclaim the merit
of the original disquisitions and reflections by which the above mentioned
highly gifted and deeply learned inquirer has rendered his work so pecu-
liarly valuable, and of the high finish he has also imparted to its details.
Only a few points have been treated more at length than by Wachsmuth,
the author's object having, in general, been to furnish an introduction to
that author's elaborate work. The careful examiner, however, will not

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 369

fail to observe that he is no where dependent upon Wachsmuth, and that
his materials and manner of treating them are derived from a diligent stu-
dy of the original ; still his thanks are due to those who have gone before
him, without whose previous labors an undertaking like the present would
have been naturally impossible. The author's object has been two-fold :
to give the philological public a comprehensive survey of the political in-
stitutions and internal history of the leading nations of ancient Greece, so
far as existing antiquarian remains and the most approved modern inves-
tigations have rendered our knowledge of them certain ; and, at the same
time, to supply the want of a satisfactory abstract of a study so generally
interesting to the scientific spirit of the age." — pp. vii., viii.

He then proceeds to speak more particularly of his plan. It
is to frame a compendium or text-book of the science, compre-
hending, at once, all the results which have been obtained in
what he well describes as the "gigantic progress it has made
within the last twenty or thirty years," and the leading authori-
ties that support or illustrate them. The work, accordingly,
consists of three separate parts — the text — the authorities — and
the bibliographical information contained in the notes. He goes
on to say, that

"He has endeavored so to frame the text, as the heart and kernel of the
subject, that it may form of itself a connected whole, and be read at plea-
sure, without the notes; whether the reader, etc. He hopes that the labor
he has bestowed on the attainmnet of clearness and pregnant brevity will
not pass entirely unnoticed ; though he is conscious of having rarely satis-
fied himself in this particular. However this may be, he has treated the
whole subject in a compendious manner, and has himself throughout re-
garded the text, and wishes it to be regarded and judged of by others, as
the principal part to which the notes are merely supplemental ....
From the absurd affectation of making a display of extensive reading, he
is as i"ree, as from the anxiety to quote nothing unless from actual perusal
and will confidently leave the discerning critic to determine how much he
has read and to what purpose. Had Wachsmuth decidedly followed up
from the first such a plan of reference as he appears to have conceived in
the course of his work, the author would perhaps have modestly kept back
his mite ; though he believes that the correct bibliographical information
this work contains, may of itself prove serviceable to many. For its gene-
ral accuracy he thinks he may vouch, as well as for that of the quotations
as far as it is possible in a work of such endless labor. He might indeed
have spared himself a part of this labor by curtailing the extracts, but it
may be doubted whether this would have been to the advantage of a ma-
jority of his readers. For the introduction of confirmatory passages from
the original texts, he reckons on the thanks of all who, feeling with himself
the necessity of actual perusal, together with personal and connected ex-
amination of the sources of information, cannot obtain access to the most
important of them." — pp. ix. x.

This is, so far as regards Professor Hermann himself, all very
proper and all very true. We happen, by having repeatedly
within a few years past travelled over the same ground, to have
placed ourselves in a situation to pronounce with some confi-
dence upon his diligence and discrimination, in the search after
the original authorities on which he has had occasion to rely.
vol. i.— 47

370 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

His inquiries have been thorough, and his examination of the
texts is as critical, as his application of them to the elucidation
of the various points of his subject is, almost without exception,
apposite and satisfactory. To a scholar, who may not have ac-
cess to a very good library, this manual will be above all price
for that reason alone; although, as these quotations are none of
them translated, the use of them is, of course, denied to the
mere general reader. For him, however, the author has prepared
in his text a body of doctrine and history, so clearly and syste-
matically, and yet so succinctly brought out, that he will find
himself compensated in it for the privation just mentioned, by a
most ample and valuable store of materials and suggestions for
original speculation. That this work is not a mere abridgment
of YVachsmuth's, nor, indeed, in any very material degree in-
debted to or dependent upon it, will be obvious to whoever will
be at the pains of comparing them. To say nothing of the notes,
which are a clear accession to the facilities hitherto furnished to
scholars on this interesting subject, his text breathes a free and
original spirit, and Mr. Hermann, if he really thinks as humbly
of himself and his work as he professes to do, will be surprised
to hear our deliberate declaration, that were we asked whether
of the two we would more willingly have dispensed with, wc
should hesitate long before we named his. The use he has
made of Aristotle's Politics, so indispensable to any thing like a
comprehensive insight into these matters, or a correct judgment
upon them, would alone have recommended him to our most fa-
vorable consideration.

Not that we mean, or would wish to disparage the great work
of Professor Wachsmuth, for which it is surely an honor above
the reach of detraction that it has obtained so high a place in
the opinions of the learned in Germany. Yet we shall be per-
mitted to say, in all candor, that, for our humble selves, we have
not been so much struck with the absolute novelty of the views
presented in this first part of the "Historical Antiquities," as by
their general correctness, the learning equally exact and exten-
sive with which they are enforced and illustrated, and, above all,
the lucid and instructive order in which they are arranged.
That the author is one who thinks for himself, that his research
is indefatigable, and his criticism acute and distinguishing to a
fault, cannot be disputed ; but we think we discover in him an
overweening ambition of originality, even in matters where it
can be displayed only in paradox or error,* and that he is not

* We think an instance of this straining after novelty is to be found in the stress
lie lays on certain figurative usee of the word sdvocr, v. I. p. 344. While on
the subject of words, the sense ascribed to sraipst'a (v. II. p. 563, Append.) of
an "anti-democratic" combination is of course meant to be confined to the popular
use of that day at Athens. Else it would not bear examination. It means a po-

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 371

sufficiently sensible of the obligations he owes his predecessors,
by whose labors he has not the less profited because he occasion-
ally disputes their conclusions, and always refuses to bow to
their authority.* Yet there are several points on which, if he
has not been the first to utter, he has at least expressed, with
greater distinctness and precision than any other writer, what
seem to us important truths. Under this head we may cite, in
general, his manner of treating the subject of the Attic tribes
and other divisions of the people, and his clear perception of the
influence of the aristocracy of race in all the earlier periods of
their history — though even he has not seen, or at least said, all
that must be adverted to and weighed, before the example of
Greek democracy can be used to any practical purpose, either by
the enemies or the partizans of that sort of polity. So, his charac-
ter of Aristophanes deserves to be mentioned, as the nearest ap-
proximation we have as yet been so fortunate as to meet with (we
have not seen Suvern) to a just estimate of that great man, most
injuriously represented, even by his professed admirers, as a vast-
ly witty but somewhat extravagant buffoon.t His work em-
braces both the Doric and Ionic races, tracing succinctly, though
with great clearness, and epoch by epoch, the history of the prin-
cipal peoples of those races, whose constitutions he at the same
time examines and developes. Some of these historical summa-
ries (e. g. in regard to the character and effects of the Pelopon-
nesian war, v. II. pp. 189, 190, and pp. 344. sq.t) are admirable
for condensation and comprehensiveness. In this first part, they
begin with the heroic age, of which a very instructive account is
given, and end with the overthrow of the (so called) liberties of
Greece by Philip and Alexander. But, as it is our purpose to
confine our remarks in this paper principally to the character and
history of the Athenian democracy, we shall barely refer our
readers to what is said, in the first volume, at much length, of
the Pelasgi, of the emigrations, the genius, and the institutions of
the Dorian and Ionian families, and of the early constitution of
Greek society in general — all entirely worthy of their profound
attention. The rest of this volume is taken up with the legisla-
tion of Solon and Clisthenes. The second contains the internal
history of all the Greek states, (including an analysis of their

Sitical club or union of any sort, and was, under oligarchies or despotisms, odious
as a badge or means of democratic purposes. They were resorted to against the
Decemvirs at Rome. Dionys. XI. 22. Augustus suppressed them, as Louis
Philippe has done. Dio Cass. 1. 52. e. 3G. and see Aristot. Pol. cited infra. Iso-
orat. ad Demon.

* Schlosser Geschichte der Alten Welt. II Th. 1. Abth. 254., reminds Wachs-
muth that, as to Roman History, he stands upon Niebuhr's shoulders.

t Mitchell and even Schlegel are in some degree obnoxious to this censure.

[X Also his account of Philip, vol. II. 234. 238.]

372 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

constitutions,) from the time of the Persian war until the Mace-
donian conquest was completed by Antipater.

Were we to find any fault with the manner in which the subject
of these excellent works has been treated in them, we should
object to the dogmatical tone of their dissent from the opinions
and statements of the great writers of antiquity, in reference,
especially, to matters of contemporary history, and of a strictly
practical character. Thus, for instance, speaking of the internal
decay and fall of Sparta, Professor Hermann says, "it is so far
from being true that this decay was owing, as Aristotle and
others have stated, to the loss of her foreign influence, that it
was rather at once, the secret attendant on the growth of her
greatness, and the prime cause of its decline." Now, even had
Aristotle affirmed what is thus so roundly imputed to him, it
would be, in the last degree, hazardous for a modern writer,
especially a mere scholastic one, to set up his own speculative
opinions, or those of any body else, against the judgment of one
of the deepest, if not the deepest, political thinker of any age,
living almost in midst of the events and the persons of which
he speaks. In point of fact, however, Aristotle, so far as we
have been able to discover, says no such thing. The passage,
vouched by our author,* has nothing to do with the matter ; but,
in a subsequent chapter,! which contains a most masterly view
of the whole legislation of Lycurgus, as well as in other parts
of his work, he exposes, in the clearest manner, the vices and
defects, inherent in the constitution of Sparta, that necessarily
produced, in the lapse of ages, the evil consequences then visible
to all. Similar instances might be cited from the "Historical
Antiquities" of Mr. Wachsmuth. Now, we by no means object
to the largest freedom of criticism in things as to which we
have very nearly the same means of coming to a safe conclusion
as the writers of antiquity. Many of these writers, besides, are
contradicted by others, or are worthy of no great confidence in
themselves. But nothing is so hard to learn from books as what
is, in practice, the real character of a government, or what secret
causes modify or disturb its action and influence. It is the
spirit, not the letter, that is to be discerned here, and must be
spiritually discerned. It is matter of tact, sagacity, or what is
called, emphatically, judgment. The opinion of one such writer
as Aristotle is worth, on such a subject, a whole library of soph-
isters and rhetoricians, or pedants and compilers, of any, but
especially of a later age. Indeed, we have here touched upon
the only weak point of the German writers of the class in ques-
tion, and the one in which they appear to the greatest disadvan-
tage, in comparison with those of the classical times of antiquity.
* Arist. Pol. Tl. G. t Ibid, e. 9.

THE DEMOCRACY OP ATHENS. 373

These latter had, almost universally, a practical knowledge of
human affairs, acquired in the camp, in the forum, by foreign
travel, and diversified experience, superadded to their accom-
plishments as scholars and philosophers. The former, on the
contrary, are, with a few rare exceptions, mere professors, and,
of all professors, perhaps the least versed, by any personal ob-
servation, in the affairs of war and peace, as they are conducted
by captains and politicians. With all the disadvantages, however,
of such a position, every competent critic must, in general, be
struck with surprise at the sagacity and soundness of their
judgments in political history, not less than at their unrivalled
industry in collecting, and skill in sifting and preparing, the
evidence. We do not, therefore, by any means, wish to be un-
derstood, in the remarks we have just made, as entertaining, in
regard to these admirable writers, the opinion which a brilliant
and eloquent but "presumptuous and superficial" writer* has
not scrupled to pronounce on all such undertakings of philolo-
gists, whose pretensions to write, or even to understand the
history of nations, he treats with scorn and ridicule. This sneer,
unbecoming, as applied to Bentley, for whom it was probably
meant, were sheer impertinence, addressed to the author of the
"Letter on the Study of History," to that class of writers in the
Germany of the present day. But it is no injurious detraction
from their unquestionable merits to affirm that, however admira-
ble the use they have made of the wisdom of antiquity, there
are some of the phenomena of society, in the various shapes
and phases it has passed through, which the ancient writers have
dealt with in a manner hitherto unrivalled by the moderns —
Burke, himself, not excepted, much lessMachiavelli and Montes-
quieu— and which it is difficult even to appreciate without a
considerable experience in public affairs.

This remark leads us, naturally, to speak of the attention
which has of late years been awakened in Europe to such in-
quiries as those contained in the works at the head of this article.
The history, and especially the political history of antiquity, is
become a subject of universal and deep interest among educated
people. Undoubtedly the wonderful ability — so very far superior
to any thing of the kind known in modern literature till toward
the close of the last century — with which such subjects have
been treated by some of our contemporaries, has contributed not
a little to diffuse a taste for these studies. But that is by no
means the only, nor, in our opinion, even the principal cause.
The true explanation of the fact is to be sought for in the spirit
of the age, and the character of the eventful period in which we
live. The first French revolution (if it can be spoken of in the
perfect tense as something past and gone) formed a new and

• Bolingbroke ; the epithets in inverted commas we adopt from Burke.

374 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

mighty era in political science, if science it deserves to be called.
For the first time in the history of the modern world, perhaps
of the world modern or ancient, the Past was formally renounced
in the legislation of a whole people, and a government attempted
to be built up on purely speculative principles. This is the
great peculiarity of that event, and what makes it so very import-
ant in the study Of civil society. Both the English revolution
and our own had been, in fact, like all previous ones, circum-
scribed within the strictest limits of historical and hereditary
right. A few general phrases in the Declaration of Independ-
ence to the contrary notwithstanding, the whole controversy,
from 1765 to 1776, was diplomatic, as German critics term it, —
it turned, that is to say, on the muniments and monuments of
the past. We claimed, and earnestly insisted that we claimed,
nothing new — we asked only for what we were ready to prove
was ours by a title of record, confirmed by a possession of at
least five hundred years. What we resisted we stigmatized as
change ; and the pretensions of the throne were doubly odious
as innovation and as tyranny. Nolumus mutare leges hucusqne
usitatus was our war-cry, as it had been the watch- word of those
sturdy barons of old at Merton. We fought for our "birth-right,"
as it was proudly called,* the peculiar and undoubted privileges
of our race — that family inheritance secured and settled upon
it at Runnymede — and, when we came to write our constitution,
we had nothing to do, and did nothing, but transcribe magna
charta, with the petition of right, and the bill of rights.t But
far other were the views of the constituent assembly in 1789.
They were not for doing their work by halves — nothing less
seemed required at the hands of such master architects than to
pull down the whole polity of France, and build it up again on
the principles of Montesquieu. They never once thought of
the materials or the ground ; they had brick for stone, and slime
for mortar, and they were to rear up a city and a tower whose
top should reach up to heaven, and whose foundations should
be as immoveable as the earth. Their ill-contrived and incon-
gruous fabric, which, as every body knows, led only to confusion,
not of tongues, but of ideas and principles, tumbled about their
ears as soon as it was put up, and a convention was called to
reconstruct a dilapidated society. This they proceeded to do
with as much confidence as their predecessors, but, of course,
according to their own system, or, rather, that of their master,
Jean Jacques. The rest is too well known to need mentioning ;
but what may be worth a remark is that, up to that moment,

* Jus eximium nostrae civitatis. — Cic.

[t I find this substantially stated by Mr. Jefferson — Works, vol. 4, 28G — in the
important letter to Kercheval, which reveals Mr. J's whole system.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 375

modern Europe had little or no experience in the matter of gov-
ernment. Let us dwell a few moments upon this topic.

The feudal constitution, which was established under the suc-
cessors of Charlemagne, and soon spread over almost all Christ-
endom, bound up the universal body-politic in the complex and
artificial relations of a mere territorial dependence. Civil society-
became an aggregate of fiefs or estates in land, and the law of
tenures was its only public law. With this singular external
structure were complicated the consequences of a conquest, the
relation of a superior and an inferior race, of lord and villein.
All the mighty elements of popular commotion were completely
smothered up — they lay, with the people themselves, more deep-
ly buried than the giant in the fable on whom Jove threw
iEtna — where his throes might still sometimes shake the earth,
and his rage find a vent in the fires of the volcano. There was,
in truth, no people — there were villeins regardant, and villeins
in gross — serfs attached to the soil of the manor, and burghers
broken up into guilds, and entrenched behind the walls of towns.
But the masses, every where divided, inert and enslaved, counted
for nothing. , There was no social union, no country to serve,
no government to obey. Instead of a sovereign, there was a
suzerain; instead of laws, there were pacts and treaties; instead
of constitutions, there were charters; instead of courts of justice,
there were peers in armor, and wager of battle.

The condition of the Netherlands, for example, illustrates most
strikingly the tendency of the feudal spirit to pervade every in-
terest and institution, and to keep them all separate and in con-
flict. The States General, controlled by the provincial states,
the provincial states "cabined, cribbed, confined" by the munici-
pal governments of the great towns, the towns themselves full of
inferior corporations or guilds, animated by an esprit de corps of
their own, submitting with reluctance to any general authority,
and combining with difficulty in the pursuit of any common ob-
ject. In short, the centralization, complained of now-a-days in
France, is a blessing of later times.

When, after centuries of anarchy, the kings contrived to re-
duce so many independent and refractory authorities to obedience
to the law, and to establish something like the order and the
unity of a well- constituted society, the vestiges of this original
state of things continued, for a long time, plainly impressed upon
all governments, and the spirit of the fend survived even the
despotic policy of Richelieu. The political history of Europe,
for eight centuries together, is, accordingly, most remarkable for
its uniformity. The same ideas, the same maxims, the same
conduct, every where ; and nothing that deserves to be called
either popular or revolutionary any where. An occasional Jac-
querie, the perpetual hostilities between the cities and the neigh-

376 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

boring barons, disputed successions, the crusades of all sorts
against Mahometan or Christian 7iiiscreants, and even the civil
and religious wars that grew out of the Reformation, constitute,
really, no exception to the truth of our remark. They all had
reference to existing institutions, and were addressed only to
modify and improve them — none of them attacked the principle
of prescription, or proclaimed original, inalienable, unalterable
rights. The anabaptists in Germany, and the levellers in Eng-
land, if they were not too contemptible in numbers and character
to deserve notice in a general view of the progress of mankind,
were, indeed, a sort of exception ; but, surely, an exception that
proves the rule, for all parties agreed, at least, in disavowing and
detesting them and their ravings, as inconsistent alike with
sound principles and with social order ; not to mention that these
maniacs can scarcely be said to have given the dignity of a me-
taphysical system to their coarse fanaticism.

When French society had at length completely outgrown this
artificial and forced system, and some, and even a very conside-
rable change was become unavoidable, it so happened, from a
great variety of causes, that all the mighty agents of convulsion
and decomposition were let loose at once, and swept in a moment
every thing ancient or established from the face of the earth.
Then, for the first time, the philosophers of modern Europe had
an opportunity of witnessing one of those experiments in politi-
cal chemistry which were continually occurring in the last days
of Greece, as in a laboratory set apart for them. They saw so-
ciety resolved into its elements, and these elements, like atoms
in the void of Epicurus, disengaged, seeking, according to their
affinities, new combinations, or too refractory to be reduced into
any. They had opened the gates of Chaos, which, to shut, ex-
celled their power, and,

Before their eyes in sudden view appeared

The secrets ol the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable ocean without bound,

Without dimension ; where length, breadth, and height,

And time, and place, were lost.

None of the Lycurguses of 17S9 had the least idea of what
was to ensue, and even when they dispersed in 1791, after so
many signs in the heavens, and on the earth, of some great trou-
ble at hand, and, when the wisest of them had been brought to
doubt the absolute perfection of their own work, they did not yet
dream of the scenes of 1792, and still less of the reign of terror.
To the genius of Burke alone, of then living men, the impending
horrors were, from the first, revealed in all their gigantic shapes
and dimensions of wo and wickedness, and nothing is better cal-
culated to impress us with an idea of his immense superiority as
a profound political thinker over all his contemporaries, than the

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 37?

familiarity with which he treats, in anticipation, an event so en-
tirely new and anomalous in the history of modern nations.
Where was he to seek in that history for the archetype of the
Jacobin? What was there in the doings of Tell or Rienzi or of
Artevelt and Massaniello, of Pym and Vane, to suggest the most
distant idea of that exterminating fanaticism which possessed
the minds of the conceited and reckless sophisters, the Robes-
pierres and the St. Justs, who undertook to reconstitute French
society upon metaphysical principles, and to regenerate the na-
tions by a baptism of blood ?

But what was then new and anomalous in Europe is now be-
coming apace its settled opinion and its fundamental law.
Every body that has eyes to see and ears to hear must admit
that democracy is the inevitable condition of modern nations.
M. de Tocqueville is no discoverer — he has only uttered what
all have long felt and thought. Paris is the capital of the demo-
cratic, no less than of the polite world ; as much so as, and more
than Athens ever was. The forms of royalty are, to a certain
extent, kept up, but there is no reverence left for them. The
little pageantry that still adorns the court, the hierarchy of the
state, the magnificent equipage of its powers civil and military,
are only what French taste requires as decorous and befitting
the circumstances. Absolute equality before the law and the
spirit of equality in every thing are the prominent characteris-
tics of the times ; and a theory of human rights and social pow-
ers, far more levelling than was ever known in Greece, has es-
tablished itself in the laws of the state and in the opinions of
the people. The same causes are producing the same tendencies
every where, and whatever shape the universal democracy that
is approaching may ultimately take, whether the republican or
the monarchical, (for that is the great problem of society, and
our recent experience is far from encouraging,) nothing seems to
us surer, than that all institutions, bottomed upon distinctions of
race or caste, will sooner or later, peaceably or by violence, fall
before the progress of commerce and opinion.

It is quite natural, therefore, that with this conviction impres-
sed upon their minds, people should look with more curiosity
than formerly, into the history of states which grew up under
circumstances, and assumed forms so totally different, from those
of feudal Europe. It so happens, too, that the language in which
the so-called democracy of Athens has perpetuated its principles
and its glory, is by far the most perfect instrument of human
thought ever vouchsafed to a people, and has been embalmed in
eloquence and poetry entirely worthy of its own perfections.
But these attractions, great as they undoubtedly are, are but sub-
ordinate to others more immediately connected with the subject
vol. i. — 48

378 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

we are discussing. Heeren, after Heyne, has more than once
adverted to the vast and diversified political experience of the
Greeks. Syracuse, for instance, presents, in its history alone, a
complete compendium of governments, having passed through a
greater number of revolutions, from one form of polity to an-
other, through almost every combination of the social elements,
than occurs in the annals of modern Europe. So every part of
Greece proper, with the exception of some Dorian states, was in
perpetual commotion, and that country is fully entitled to be
called, as it is by the writer just mentioned, a "sample-paper of
free commonwealths."* It was, therefore, quite a matter of
course not only that a wonderful degree of practical ability
should be acquired by those who were called upon to act in such
eventful and rapidly shifting scenes, ullt tna* the class of philo-
sophers who, in later times, withdrew as much as possible from
politics, to devote themselves to a life of contemplation, could not
witness them without being led to reflect much and deeply upon
the principles of civil society. Accordingly, this was universally
the case. There is no feature in the intellectual history of the
Greeks more remarkable, than the depth and comprehensiveness
ot their political speculations. Not Plato alone, but almost every
philosopher of the many sects that sprang up out of the school
of Socrates, published his thoughts upon the existing govern-
ments of his country, or built one of those castles in the air,
called an "idea of a perfect commonwealth." It is, indeed, from
such things, even more than from the events of Grecian story, or
the conduct and the language of practical statesmen, that the
political opinions of the better classes of society may be gathered.
These dreams embody their desires, and show what would have
been the shape of Greek legislation, had circumstances and the
will of the mass of the people not been, as they every where are,
too refractory to be controlled by speculative notions and artifi-
cial systems.

Mr. Hermann remarks that "the treatises of the ancients them-
selves, on their manners, institutions, and governments, are with
the exception of a few fragments, wholly lost ; but, independent-
ly of the historians and orators, who form in their absence our
chief authority, there is scarcely a writer of the better period of
Greek literature, but contains numerous allusions to the public
life of his times." That we have lost many treasures of infor-
mation on these interesting subjects, is undeniable. The great
work of Aristotle,t in which he analysed and censured the con-

* In dieser Griechischen Welt die gleichsam eine Muster-Charte freyer Staa-
ten war. Ideen, etc. 3 Th. Europaische Vol leer, p. 327. cf. his Staaten des
Alterthums III. Abschn.2. period.

I \oa«<j.a, or HokirsTai IIoXsuv.

THE DEMOCRACY OP ATHENS. 379

stitutions of the then civilized world in their endless variety,
amounting, it is said, by some, to no less than two hundred and
fifty, is no doubt, in some respects, though we must think rather
subordinate ones, quite irreparable. The same thing may be
said of Heraclides Ponticus, and others among his successors.
Yet it is probable that the historian has lost more than the philo-
sopher, and the curious philosopher more than the statesman, or
the man of the world, in those works. The resources left us for
any practically useful purpose are, at any rate, most abundant.
If we have lost Aristotle's collection or analysis of Polities, we
have the ripe fruit of a life of profound thought and extensive
observation, in his Philosophy of Politics.* Heraclides Ponticus,
from the age in which he lived, and still more from a passage in
Cicero,t we take to have been a writer of inferior value, inas-
much as a mere speculative and scholastic one, who flourished
in a period when Greek genius and spirit were already on the
decline. If, before that period, authors who treated of politics in
a theoretical or systematic form, were but few, this deficiency is
amply made up, not only by the historians and orators, as Mr.
Hermann has, it, but by all the writers of all sorts, who are come
down to us from the most brilliant era of those immortal com-
monwealths ; the interval between the Persian and the Pelopon-
nesian, and thence down to the Lamian war. The truth is, that
the literature, like the life (of which it was the faithful mirror)
of Greece, was thoroughly political. Its great predominant pe-
culiarity is its strictly historical complexion, even in things
where it might be suspected of being, or might be expected to
be, most fictitious and fanciful. Their tragedies, for instance,
were full of politics, those of Euripides especially.^: The Old
Comedy is a part, and by no means an unimportant one, of the
constitutional history of Athens, and Timanthes§ did not paint the
Demus more to the life than Aristophanes. Pindar is vouched
by Miiller and others, to prove that Lycurgus did no more than
reform the hereditary institutions of the Dorians, and we bow to
the authority of a poet, distinguished not less by deep wisdom
and grave morality, than by the qualties for which his name has
furnished an epithet.ll One of the remarkable things in Herodo-
tus, and one of the most remarkable things of the kind in any
author, is the debate he puts into the mouth of the Magophoni,
as to the constitution they ought to adopt for Persia, after the
overthrow of the usurpers. It is a discussion of the relative me-

* TLoXirixa.

t Ad Q.uint. Fratr. III. 5.
X Orest. 696, 772. Suppl. 400, sqq.

[§ Parrhasius Plin. H. N. 30. c. 5.] Parrhasius should perhaps be substituted fur
Timanthes in the text. — Publishers.
II The passage cited is Pyth. I. 61, with Bockh's Explic.

380 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

rits of the three simple forms of government, concluding with a
deliberate preference of the monarchical, the one in which, it is
alleged, mankind have universally sought and found a refuge
from the evils of all others. *Mitford, an able, certainly, but pre-
judiced and not very learned writer, considers this as an expres-
sion of the opinion of Herodotus, veiled in the specious guise of
a dramatic propriety of discourse. This we do not think re-
concilable with another very remarkable passage of the old his-
torian, to which we shall hereafter refer, nor indeed with proba-
bility, considering what was the date of his testimony. But, if
the disputation referred to does not prove Herodotus to have been
a monarchist, it shows him to have been deep in political spe-
culation, and is a striking confirmation of our previous remarks,
as to the pervading influence, as well as the profound and com-
prehensive spirit, of political philosophy among the Greeks.

But whatever may be the extent and variety of the sources on
which we have to draw for our knowledge of the political opin-
ions and institutions of Greece, it is impossible not to join in
Heynes lamentations! over the historians, Ephorus and Theo-
pompus, two famous disciples of Isocrates.t The latter, especi-
ally recommended to us by the very censures passed upon him
by the ancients. He is represented as a fault-finder by complex-
ion, and as more to be relied on when he praised, than when he
blamed. § As to his censoriousness, Professor Wachsmuth well
remarks that, considering the corruptions, almost beyond all cre-
dibility, of the times in which he lived and wrote, it is not in the
least to be wondered at, and was most probably any thing but
excessive. His master, Isocrates, "that old man eloquent" him-
self, whom

-That dishonest victory

At Cheronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed by report —

the panegyrist, par excellence, of Athens, the professed champion
of the constitution of Solon and Clisthenes, or rather, as he
affirms in one of his orations, II of that constitution of a thousand
years, which the two lawgivers only accommodated in some

[* Schlosser, speaking of 4 and 5 of Mitford's History not having been as yet
translated into German, says, "was uns sehr wohlgethan scheint, da die Parthey-
lichkeit ins Lacherliche und die Breite ins unaustehliche geht. g. d. alt Welt 1.
th. 2 abth. 216 cf. 227-218.]

[t But see Schlosser 1 Th. 2. abth. 277. 8 (n.).]

X Opusc. II. 280, sqq., an excellent dissertation on the extent of our losses in
the political writings of the ancients, and bearing on more than one of the points
discussed in the text.

§ Plut. Lysander, c. 30. But see Niebuhr, R. G. v. 1. p. 150.

II Panathenaic. Theseus, according to him, was the founder of democracy ;
and, in a certain sense, we have no doubt he was.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 381

particulars to a new condition of things — who makes it his boast
that he had omitted no opportunity of extolling the democracy,
and who, even in that most instructive parallel, or rather contrast,
between that democracy in its pristine estate, and as it then was,
debauched and deformed by demagogues, and become the stain
and scandal of Greece, still prefers it to an oligarchy, and glories,
as well he might, in the victories of Conon, and the merciful
and moderate policy of Thrasybulus and his compeers* — even
he seems to have lived long enough to survive all faith in popular
governments, and to wish, like Abbe Sieyes in 1799, for, "one
head and one sword" to think and to fight for confederated
Greece.f His celebrated pupil, who was born more than half a
century later, saw under the despotism of Macedon, the consum-
mation of all the evils of which the Areopagitic oration is so
lively a portraiture. Cheronea was indeed an era of downfall,
but what shall we say of Cranon and Antipater 7 and then the
degradation, beyond all power of language to characterize, for
which the people of Athens were thus prepared, and which it
exhibited in such glaring and disgusting forms under Demetrius
the Phalereau, and Demetrius Poliorcetes. What wonder is it
that a man of ardent and elevated genius, like Theopompus,
living in scenes of such baseness and profligacy, and that amidst
the ruins of so much glory, should find every thing amiss, and,
if he wrote as he felt, should leave behind him a dark picture of
his degenerate and worthless contemporaries ? He was a witness,
for instance, to the administration of that great "friend of the
people," Eubulus of Anaphlystus, the whole drift of whose pol-
icy was to render the mob he misled as dissolute and as brutish as
the herd of Comus, and who caused them to devote to theatrical
amusements, by a solemn act of legislation, and under pain of
death denounced against any patriotic attempt to repeal it, the
funds necessary to the public defence — he saw this pestilent
demagogue, vehemently suspected, too, (as from the tendency
of his measures he well might be,) of being all the while in the
pay of Philip of Macedon, reduce Athens to a condition as bad
in point of effeminacy and debauchery as that of Tarentum, and
honored for doing so, both during his life and after his death,
beyond the wisest and best of her statesmen ; how should he
record the doings or draw the character of such a man, without
seeming to write history with the pen of satire? In the tenth
book of his history of Philip, this celebrated writer treated of
the demagogues of Athens in detail, those cup-bearers of the
democracy, as Plato expresses it, who drenched it with liberty
until it was drunk, and to whose profligate sycophancy the most
popular of the tragic poets imputes all the errors and vices of

* Areopagitic. f Tlgog <$i\irfrfov.

382 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

the otherwise unerring people.* There is not to be found in the
catalogues of laborious compilers, like Fabricius, the trace of
any work of antiquity, of which we more sensibly regret the
loss, than of this.t

Theopompus, like Xenophon, was a continuator of Thucy-
dides. It is, indeed, a subject of congratulation, that the works
of this great man did not share the fate of his successors. An-
tiquity has left us three witnesses of the three common forms
of government in their excess or corruption, in three historians,
hitherto, perhaps, unrivalled by the moderns — Thucydides. Sal-
lust, and Tacitus. Of these, the first in order is, in our opinion,
the first in merit. Sallust is flattered by the comparison, but we
well know and fully appreciate the transcendant power of him
who painted the despotism of the first Caesars, the Dante of
history, whose deep thought, revealed rather than expressed
in sentences of a pregnant, and sometimes obscure brevity,
seems in harmony with his dark and terrible subject, like the
famous words upon the gate of hell —

Queste parole di colore oscuro.

But the mighty annalist of Tiberius, and Caligula, and Clau-
dius, and Nero, deplores the dismal monotony of the crimes he
records, and envies the historians of an earlier age the more
brilliant and various subjects presented to them by the achiev-
ments of '-'The Roman People." And it is principally in this
respect, that we consider the two great works of Tacitus as on
the whole less precious as monuments of the past, as requiring
for their execution, if possible, a less commanding order of ability,
than that of Thucydides. With all his profound knowledge of
human nature, in which no one ever surpassed him, the Roman
historian found his theme not only cloying for sameness, but to
present fewer objects of high interest, and to teach fewer lessons
of practical importance for succeeding times, than he desired to
transmit to them. Monarchical despotism, especially in that
rude form, is a comparatively simple thing. Even the military
democracy into which the monarchy of the Caesars soon degen-
erated, and which furnished, in bloody contests for the crown,
scenes of a more stirring and diversified dramatic character,
will bear no comparison with the tumultuary popular govern-
ments, always in a state of war and commotion, that figure in
Greek story. Such governments, it cannot be too often repeated,

* Euripides.

Asivov hi croXXoi xaxo'jgyovg oVav I'^wtfi tpotfrarag.

AXX' orav ^r^-jg Xa/owCi, x^cra /SouXsuoucr' dsi. — Orest. 772-3.
[Cf. Aristoph. Eq. 1350.]
[t Theo. Soph.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 383

are the true school of politics.* Accordingly, never was subject
so fortunately, or, we should rather say, wisely chosen, as that
of Thucydides; for the choice itself is the best evidence of his
pre-eminent ability to do it justice. He foresaw, he tells us,
from his knowledge of Greek affairs, that the war was destined
to be, as it proved, the most eventful and most obstinate that
had ever been waged among men. He began at once to take
all the measures necessary for obtaining the best information.
He deliberately records and ratifies as a historian what had thus
been revealed to the prophetic eye of the statesman, and, in a
solemn proem, worthy of the heroic poem it precedes,t he has
sketched in a few words the outline of this grand historical
picture.

There can be no better illustration of the remarks we made,
when speaking just now of the freedom which the authors be-
fore us, like so many other Germans of the present time, use in
questioning the opinions of such men as Aristotle, than the
absurd judgment passed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus — a gen-
erally excellent critic — upon Thucydides, in regard to the choice
of his subject: It is the language of a finical and fantastical
pedant, who would have history written so as to give no offence
"to ears polite," and who thought it a "dreadful thing" to remind
a people of the stern but instructive lessons of its experience,
as Nick Bottom thought it, "to bring in, God shield us ! a lion
among ladies." The flagrant folly of Dionysius in this respect,
is the more remarkable, because in the same breath he praises,
and justly, we have no doubt, Theopompus for that very severity
in exposing the corruptions of his age and country, for which
others censured him, and for an approach to which the critic
himself finds so much fault with Thucydides. According to
him, the former of these two historians excelled all others by
his deep insight into motives, his sagacity in detecting hypocrisy,
and the power with which he tore off the masks of a specious
but dishonest conduct. Like Tacitus, he looked rather to the
dark side of human nature, and for the benefit of his patient,
used the knife and the cautery without mercy. Yet it is this
very eulogist of such a writer, who thinks the most important
period of Greek affairs should have been suffered to sink into
oblivion, because it was not such a one as that people might
dwell on with particular complacency !

The Peloponnesian war has been aptly called the "thirty years
war" of Greece ; though with a view to distant consequences, it
was far worse than that memorable struggle. It not only pro-
duced but perpetuated the scenes painted by Schiller in "Wal-
lenstein's Lager." It was a great era, not of revolution merely,

* Plato called ultra democracy the #avTwwX»ov of governments. — Plat. Dio,
t Marcellinus.

384 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

but of downfall and ruin. We have already spoken of the light
in which it was regarded by Thucydides,* and we may here
add that its moral and political effects of all sorts have been
very forcibly summed up. perhaps even somewhat exaggerated,
by Professor Wachsmuth.f That is to say, at least, we think
all the seeds of decay and corruption had been sown broad cast
before that war, and were only "brought up a little sooner, and
made preternaturally fruitful and teeming by its baneful in-
fluences of all sorts ; while he appears to regard it not only as
the occasion, but to a greater extent than we are ready to admit,
the prime cause of much that ensued upon it. At any rate, how-
ever, it was an epoch in the history of those commonwealths that
of all others most deserved to be treated by the hand of a master,
and of just such a master. It was, as was said of a great event
of our times, le commencement de la fin, if not the end itself.
It found Athens mistress of the greater part of Greece, it left her
at its mercy. The proud city narrowly escaped being razed to
the ground, and seeing her whole people, gifted then as none
other ever has been, sold into slavery. t After the mighty events
of the Persian invasion, of which the story sounds like mytho-
logy, and in which her conduct — nothing short of the sublime
heroism — deserved and won for her the title and the influence of
liberatress of Greece, § she became, partly by the eminent abili-
ties of her own statesmen, partly by the backwardness of Sparta,
and her want of a navy, or her aversion to distant enterprises
and foreign dominion, partly and perhaps more than all the rest,
fron the extreme and deserved odiousness of Pausanias, the
head of a confederacy of maritime states, embracing almost all
the islands and shores of the iEgean Sea. The object of it was
defence against the common enemy, the Great King, and each
state was to furnish, for that purpose, its quota of troops and
money. It was the equitable assessment of this tax that obtain-
ed for Aristides his envied but not disputed title of "the just."
But this system, projected by the deep policy of Themistocles,
and completed by the victories of Cimon, was perverted by Pe-
ricles, as he did every thing, to the purposes of demagogy, and
the federal contributions were squandered, under his adminis-
tration, in fostering the arts, and pandering to the pleasures of a
voluptuous city. The natural consequence of this injustice,
and of the lawless and insolent spirit that led to it, was that
her dependencies became impatient of the yoke, and her great

* L.l. c. 22, 23,

t v. II. pp. 181. sqq., and 393, 4. The former passage is only a paraphrase of
Thucydides.

t See Herder's Gesch. der Mensch. III., 163—166, as to the narrowness of the
escape, Isocratcs, Areopagit. [Demosth. irugairgeagEiag xS'.J

§ The language of Herodotus is express, emphatic, and conclusive. VII. 139.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 385

rival was roused up from her drowsy apathy, and, about half a
century after the last Persian army was withdrawn, these dis-
contents broke out against the "tyrant state" in a war of twenty-
seven years. In the course of that war, Athens discovered an
extent and variety of resources, a capacity for affairs both civil
and military, a patience and constancy under misfortune, and
an elastic buoyancy of character, which must strike every one
with astonishment. But, coupled with the display of these high
qualities, was the progress, every day more rapid, of dissolute-
ness and misrule, under the miserable demagogues, the Cleons
and Hyperboluses, who divided among them the influence which
Pericles had exercised without a rival over the popular mind.
The bitter fruits of his policy, which his extraordinary abilities,
helped by most favorable circumstances, had enabled him to
retard or to disguise, now shot forth, on all sides, in the rankest
luxuriance.

It is just that period of the history of Athens that the great
contemporary writer in question has recorded, as he assures us
with an impressive seriousness, not for the purpose of a mere
occasional display, or to excite curiosity by a brilliant tale, but as
a lesson of the deepest import, and "an acquisition for all time,"
xtyi^u sis as/.* He was about forty years of age at the breaking
out of the war, and survived it some time. In the seventh year
of it, he was a general in the Athenian service, but, having failed
to save Amphipolis, where he arrived the day after it fell into
the hands of Brasidas, he was, on Cleon's motion, punished for
his mishap with banishment, and thereupon retired to his estates
(which were very considerable) in Thrace. It was in this tran-
quil solitude ("under a platane," says one of his biographerst)
that he composed his immortal work, which he opens with a
masterly view of Greek history from the earliest time, but espe-
cially from the Persian to the Peloponnesian war. This latter
period, however important, had, he informs us, been neglected
by all his predecessors, with the single exception of Hellanicus,
who had touched upon it with extreme brevity, however, and
without any regard to chronological order. Unfortunately, his
narrative reaches only to the twenty-first year of the war. No
man ever took greater pains to learn the truth, or was, in every
respect, more perfectly master of his subject. i His greatness of
mind is sufficiently evinced by the stern impartiality and the
austere tone of his narrative, in no part of which — unless his
portraiture of the worthless Cleon be considered as an exception,
is there to be discovered the slightest tincture of resentment for
the wrongs he had su ffered at the hands of the tyrannical De-

* L. i. c: 24.

t Marcellinns, ed. Bekker, p. 5.

i Id. 4.

vol. i.— 49

386 CONSTITUTIONAL HIS10RY OP GREECE.

mus.* With every advantage of illustrious birth, ample fortune
and finished education, acquired after the fashion of the day, in
the school of Anaxagoras the philosopher, and Antiphon the
rhetorician — a man who subsequently played a conspicuous part
in politics, and of whom he speaks in the highest terms, both as
a statesman and an oratort — he found himself surrounded, in
his contemporaries, with the greatest minds that ever adorned
the annals of his country. Herodotus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, "the Olympian" Pericles, Socrates, the chief of
thinkers, Phidias, the prince of statuaries — these are names
which, if we except Plato, Aristotle,! and Demosthenes, can
scarcely be said to have been equalled in a later, or, indeed, any
age of Grecian history. Thucydides belonged to the same class
of minds, cast in the grandest mould. With habits of compre-
hensive generalization, and the deep thought nursed in solitude,
he combined the sober experience and the practical sagacity of
the statesman and soldier, and there is scarcely a page of his
work but bears witness to his profound political wisdom, and his
power of teaching philosophy by a bare recital of facts. The
speeches, which he was the first to introduce, and to make an es-
sential ingredient in ancient history, and which serve, like the
chorus in their tragedies, to express public opinion and the spirit
of the times, as well as to convey, in a condensed form, statisti-
cal details and general views of the character and condition of
nations, are signally distinguished by all these rare qualities. In
one of these, ascribed by him to Pericles, he gives a full expose
of the ways and means of the republic at the breaking out of the
war. In another, supposed to be delivered by the same great per-
sonage, as a funeral oration over the brave men who fell in the
first encounter with the enemy, we have a truly captivating pic-
ture of the democracy, as it had been up to that time, that is to
say, in its best and highest estate, and we are thus enabled to
measure the extent of its fall, during the fatal period intended to
be embraced by his history. Nothing can be more strikingly il-
lustrative of the great object of the work, than the contrast thus
presented ; but every part of this breviary of statesmen is replete
with instruction, for minds capable of discerning, amidst circum-
stances apparently the most diversified, the great general causes
that affect the destinies of nations. He has sketched, in a few
chapters, relative to the bloody scenes in Corcyra, a mighty revo-
lution that had taken place in the manners of the country a little
before the date of his narrative, and this moral change sufficient-
ly accounts for all the political evils that are to follow. § In an-

* Marcellinus contrasts him, in this respect, with Herodotus, c. 5; and see the
instance given c. 4. Compare Diony. Halic. Judic. de Thucyd. Hist. c. 8.
t L. 8. c. 64. [x Diod. Sic xv. 76.]

§ L. 3. c. 82.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 387

other passage, the whole philosophy of a "reign of terror," the
mystery of constructive majorities, by which a few bold and
crafty spirits dictate their own opinions to the multitudes they
affect to obey, and measures opposed by almost every individual
of a great mass are seemingly adopted with perfect unanimity, is
revealed in a few words, as exactly descriptive of certain recent
events, as if they had been expressly intended as a history of
them.* It is curious to see what is called, by the political wire-
drawers of the day, "party discipline," or in plain English, the
art of thinking for the people, as familiar to the demagogues of
antiquity as to those even of this privileged age.

As to the style and economy of this great work, it does not
fall within the scope of the present article to expatiate upon
them. One thing, however, is too remarkable to be omitted in
this connection, and that is that the author's claim to be regard-
ed as the father of historical criticism is admitted to be just even
by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. We have already adverted to
what this rhetorician has to say in one of his works, of the his-
torian's selecting the Peloponnesian war for his subject : he has
written another very long and elaborate diatribe,t expressly to
show that Thucydides was scarcely more fortunate in his man-
ner of treating that subject than in his choice of it.} We shall
not enter here into a detailed examination of his objections.
They go to form as well as substance, to arrangement and exe-
cution, to words and things. He considers the whole plan of
the author as bad ; finds him bringing out into disproportionate
relief some parts of his matter, while others, in the opinion of the
critic just as important, are slurred over with a bare passing no-
tice, and wonders why Pericles was brought in delivering the
famous speech we have just mentioned with honor. He even
ventures on an attempt to show, by examples, how much the
work would have been improved had his judgment been con-
sulted in the composition of it. Then the syle and diction are
very faulty, full of poetical locutions, long and obscure sentences
and hyperbolical exaggeration. It is not for us to imitate the
example of Dionysius, by affecting to refute his objections in
points of merely verbal criticism. We shall not dispute with a
Greek about c^^ara and p^ara. It is enough for us that, in
this attack upon the reputation of "the first of historians," as he
admits he is considered, he feels himself constrained to do, hom-
age to public opinion, by a formal apology for the boldness of
his strictures; that he fully admits the excellencies that consti-
tute, in our judgment, the superiority of Thucydides over all his
rivals ; and that, especially, he ascribes to him the honor of hav-

* L. viii. 64-5.

t Judicium de Thucyd. Hist.

[tCf. Lueian quonmdosit conscribenda historia.J

388 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

ing first, with the single exception of Herodotus, and to a much
higher degree even than that writer, infused into Greek prose
that vigor, earnestness, and elevation, which are described by the
familiar and expressive, but untranslatable word, dewr^.* It
was to acquire this lofty and powerful style that Demosthenes
himself, the only rival of his great model, copied out with his
own hand, according to the tradition, this whole history eight
different times; and Marcellinus well remarks, in regard to the
cavils of Dionysius, that to find fault with Thucydides, because
his mode of expression is not altogether popular and simple, is
to forget that commanding powers, and a strongly marked indi-
viduality, never fail to manifest themselves in the form of speech
as ill every thing else. Le style c'est Phomme. The critic in
question does not affect to dispute, nay, he highly extols, the his-
torian's pre-eminent abilities as a painter of the passions, and of
the tragical events best fitted to excite them ; and we will take
it upon us to affirm that some of his descriptions have never
been surpassed, if (depth of pathos, as well as picturesque effect,
being taken into the account) they have ever been equalled in
literature — Livy himself not excepted. It will be enough to
mention the famous account of the plague, so often imitated
since — and that of the departure of the great armament for the
invasion of Sicily: and the cruel catastrophe of the expedition in
the capture and destruction of the whole army. Indeed, the se-
venth book is, throughout, one deep and tragical romance, of an
absorbing and agitating interest, which fiction (in prose at least)
has yet to rival.

Our special admiration for the greatest of historians, has led
us to dwell longer upon Thucydides than it was our purpose to
have done, but the extent of our remarks is any thing but dis-
proportionate to the importance of his work to the student of the
constitutional history of Greece. Yet, as we have already ob-
served, we have many other and most copious sources to draw
from for the same purpose, and the philosophers, especially those
more familiarly known among the moderns, abound in informa-
tion of the most valuable kind in relation to the politics, practical
and speculative, of their country. What with the progress of
literary tastes and pursuits, and what with the daily increasing
troubles and disorders of all sorts, that made public life more and
more insupportable to people of sensitive tempers and quiet hab-
its, a class was gradually formed that had not, hitherto, had a se-
parate existence in the first of those commonwealths. Persons
of the highest intelligence withdrew almost entirely from politics
to devote themselves to a life of ease and contemplation. But in

* Ibid. c. 23. — ojSs to sppwjxsvov xa» svayuvw irvs\j\).a sg wv r\ xaXoujmevy)
tfeivo<r»j£, rfXriv kvog 4H^o«5oVou.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 389

retiring as far as possible from the reach and the roar of that
"savage wild beast," (such is the very language of Plato,) the ty-
rannical and passionate Demus, to dream of a more perfect social
state, and to feed their minds with visions of the good and the
beautiful in their ideal purity, these gifted spirits became, per-
haps, only the better observers, for being spectators rather than
actors in the scenes of corruption and uproar that followed one
another almost without intermission, until the last sparks of lib-
erty were quenched by Antipater in the blood of Demosthenes,
and by the populace in that of Phocion. They never were far
enough removed from the theatre of these events to lose all per-
sonal interest in them, as, indeed, who could be that was, in any
manner, member of a community formed on such principles as
were universally received in antiquity ? Accordingly, we find
that Socrates professedly strove to act on public opinion, and gave
his whole philosophy a practical turn. It was his boast, that he
had brought down the thoughts of the contemplative, from the
stars and the elements, from cosmogony and meteorology, to man
and his morals. The individual, the family, the state, and the
relations they -mutually bore to one another, now attracted their
attention to the disparagement of the inquiries which had ren-
dered the old school so famous, not to speak of the perpetual war
they waged with the logical subtleties of the later sophists.

Now, it is a most remarkable fact, that, among these philoso-
phers, not one (so far as we know) is to be found but holds the
democracy of Athens as it existed, in a degenerate state, at that
time, and democracy in general, in its unlimited or extreme
form,* in utter horror and detestation. This is true, indeed, of
all Greek writers of every class, with scarcely an exception, as
we saw just now in reference to its panegyrist, Isocrates. But,
of course, the opinion is more apt to be pronounced by those who
had leisure to speculate upon the causes of the evils they wit-
nessed and experienced, and upon the remedies by which they
might be corrected.

Many English writers of the last century have cited with
complacency, as a high compliment to their own constitution, a
well known passage of Tacitus, in regard to mixed governments,
and others from Polybius to the same effect, as if it were very
strange that such things should creep into the books where they
are found. The truth is, however, that so far from being at all
singular, they are only the expression of an opinion universal
among the educated people of antiquity .t One's reading in

**j TsXsvraia o^jxox^arja. — Aristot. Polit. passim.

f Plato calls all the simple forms fcufiureicu — Leg. VIII. 832, and Polybius
treats the governments of Athens and Thebes as no governments at all. — 1. VI. 8
— 11. As to Aristotle, see his Politics, passim. There is a passage about a mix-
ed constitution in Cic. de Rep. 1. III., XIV., which is, in our opinion, the very

390 -CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

their philosophy must be extremely limited not to know this.
It is impossible, for instance, to open Plutarch's voluminous
works without seeing it. It is only in professed panegyrics,
composed for occasions of mere parade and festivity, and expres-
sing nobody's convictions,* that we hear of any thing like ap-
probation, much less praise, of the actual constitution of Athens.
Of that constitution, as it was instituted by Solon, and re-es-
tablished after the fall of the Peisistratides, with some alterations
by Cleisthenes, some of them do, indeed, speak with a melan-
choly satisfaction. But, democratic as it was thought, at first,
the demagogues of later times found it a sheer aristocracy, and
none could do it homage in those times, without passing for an
oligarchist and a "Philo-Lacon," or partisan of Sparta. Nor,
indeed, are we to wonder at this, for, besides the important func-
tions and authority of the Areopagust under it,+ the spirit of an
earlier age breathed in every part of it, and imparted to it much
too high a tone for those whose policy it was to degrade and
sink the popular mind to the level of their own low profligacy,
and base envy of whatever deserved to be held in honor and
reverence. Professor Wachsmuth has clearly perceived and re-
peatedly states this important truth. He affirms, (v. I, p. 272, 3,)
that the ancient aristocracy of the noble order was a firmly
established form of constitution, and that the Grecian Dermis of
the early times never clearly conceived, or consequentially devel-
oped, the principle, that the supreme power was the indefeasible
right of the bulk of the people. He remarks, in another place,
(v. II. p. 56, 7,) that, though "the constitution which Solon had
begun to render democratic, had been divested of various still
remaining and not unimportant aristocratic ingredients, it was
not yet entitled to the appellation of pure democracy."^ He goes
on to say, "the recognition of the mob, and the insolence of a
seditious populace, were alike foreign to the character of the Athe-
nian State, which, until the beginning of the Peloponnesian war,
when the plague swept away a number of its best citizens, and
Pericles amongst the number, may be compared to a body direct-
ed by its noblest members, to whose guidance the remainder
yielded ready obedience."

The same aristocratic spirit, therefore, would very naturally
display itself in the earliest speculations of the philosophers,

best account we have ever seen of its genesis. Gluum alius, alium timet, et homo
hominem et ordo ordinem; turn quia nemo sibi confidit, quasi pactio fit inter pop-
ulum et potentes, etc., with which compare Thucyd. V. 89. and III. 11. — <ro ih
dvriVaXov bsog

* Plato, Menexen, throughout, for the contempt of Socrates for such things.

[f Demosth. Kara A^tfro^ar.]

: Arist. Pol. V. 6.

§ He quotes Plut. Cimon. 15., who speaks of the "aristocracy under Cleis-
thenes."

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 391

even had there been nothing (as there was much however) in
their peculiar tenets and way of thinking to predispose them to
the same conclusions. Accordingly, Pythagoras and his school
were as much celebrated for their oligarchical spirit and doctrines,
as for their mysticism and symbols, or their faith in numbers and
music. Their legislation and their fortunes in Magna Grecia
are among the most curious passages in ancient history.* They
treated society as a thing of measured harmony and mathematical
relations, which none but the initiated could comprehend.! They
regarded anarchy as the greatest of all moral evils. Plato derived
from them his mysterious reverence for order and subordination,
and his ideas of distributive justice, which he has wrought up
into the scheme of his perfect commonwealth. They looked
upon every approach to arithmetical equality, or what we call
the "democracy of numbers," as a violation of the eternal order
of the universe, and aimed by all their legislation, to substitute
for it the "proportioned equality" of Milton, in which every one
should obtain that to which he was fairly entitled —

And if not equal all, yet free,
Equally free ; for orders and degrees,
Jar not with liberty, but well consist. — P. L. V.

• Socrates, and all his disciples, held the same heretical tenets.
He lost his own life on a charge of atheism, but that was a cry
raised against every one whom the sycophants found it conve-
nient to discredit with the mob. We have it, on excellent author-
ity^ that what really led the people to perpetrate that most wan-
ton and atrocious murder§ was his political connections, and the
part he had had in the education of Critias and Alcibiades, two
of his most prominent pupils, into whom he was supposed to
have instilled that contempt of the multitude, which the one
displayed in the most cruel excesses as chief of the XXX Ty-
rants, and the other in the whole course of his heartless, profli-
gate, and detestable career, and then most when he gulled the
Dermis with the loudest professions of love for it, and the
broadest hypocritical grimace as its courtier and parasite. The
writer of the dialogues, ascribed to the Socratic iEschines, has
not overlooked this characteristic of the school. II If the dis-
courses put into the mouth of Socrates, by his two most celebra-
ted disciples, Plato and Xenophon, are to be taken either as true

[* Plutarch de Geuio. Socrat. 13.]

t See Jamblich. Vit Pythagor. c. 27. (130) of the unintelligible Stfirgirov,
borrowed, as he says, from Pythagorus by Plato. And, on the whole subject,
compare with Jamblichus, Porphyry Vit. Pythagoras, and the Anonymous Biog-
rapher in Photius— printed together, Amstelodami, 1707

X iEschines. Athenasus says (L. XIII. c. 92.) it was for making an impertinent
discourse about justice before a bench of judges who were arrant thieves.

[$ .Esch. C. Tim. X6'.]

II See the 3d Dialogue de Morte, c. c. 12, 13.

392 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

reports or as probable fictions, the sovereign people had the best
reason in the world to regard him as their enemy, although
preaching all his life, and practising in his death, the most un-
limited obedience to their declared will.* It is impossible to
paint a more terrific picture of a lawless, reckless, — despotic de-
mocracy, than the former has left us in his political dialogues,
such as the Republic and the Laws. His most vivid imagery,
his most eloquent invective, are exhausted upon it ; and his
own ideal commonwealth is cut out altogether, as we have seen
on the Pythagorean system, or, what seems to have been very
much the same thing, the old Dorian plan of a permanent dis-
tinction of classes, approaching to castes, and a rigid discipline
extending to all the interests and pursuits, private as well as pub-
lic, of life.

Xenophon, the rival of Plato, and usually very little inclined
to agree with him. goes, in his hostility to the then existing
constitution of Athens, to still greater lengths. His works are
very various, and show him to have been equally versed in the
most sublime speculations, and in the smallest minutiae of prac-
tical life. Among other things of the kind, he has left a treatise
de Re Equestri. in which he gives precepts for the keeping and
training of horses, that Paul Louis Courier, in every respect a
most competent judge, has thought fit to translate, for the bene-
fit of modern grooms and jockeys. His diversified experience,
added to his theoretical studies, the truly attic simplicity and
clearness of his style, and his entire freedom from all approach
to exaggeration either in thought or expression, should seem to
recommend his judgment (whatever we may think of the vigor
and originality of his genius) to our special respect. His politi-
cal opinions are not to be sought for in his Greek history, a con-
tinuation, as we have seen, of Thucydides, which has always
appeared to us, in spite of its reputation among the ancients, a
most superficial and unsatisfactory book, and in regard to which
we are glad to be kept in countenance by Professor Wachsmuth's
very decided opinion to the same effect.! But his numerous
philosophical treatises abound in discussions of political interests
and principles. They leave no room for doubt as to his creed
or his party, and we find him, accordingly, out-heroding Herod,
that is, as we have said, exceeding Plato himself in decrying the
democracy of his day. It may be, that his habits as a soldier of
fortune, disposed him to prefer the most simple form of author-
ity, and to look upon the total want of discipline that appeared
in the wild impulses and disorderly conduct of the mass as mere
anarchy. It may be that his Lacedaemonian connections, and
his admiration for Agesilaus, confirmed him in his anti-democra-
tic inclinations. Certainly, to a true Spartan of the old school, a

* See the Crito. f Vol. II. p. 265.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS, 393

visit to Athens at that epoch, must have been like a peep into
Chaos, and Xenophon probably thought and felt like such a
Spartan.

Whatever was the cause, certain is it, that the Demus, at
whose hands (like almost every man of any distinction) he suf-
fered banishment at least, received no quarter at his. Professor
Wachsmuth is disposed, on this account, to consider him as a
prejudiced witness. Yet, judging him by what so many other
writers have said upon the same subject, and allowing him the
benefit of the indulgence extended, as we have seen, by that
learned person to the fault-finding Theopompus, Xenophon may
claim to have spoken no more than the truth, of what he actual-
ly saw and suffered in the daily course of things at Athens. We
shall presently refer to the testimony of the orator Lysias, whose
prepossessions (if he had any) lay all the other way. His ora-
tions afford us a living picture, as it were, of what passed in the
ordinary administration of justice, if that sacred name may,
without profaning it, be applied to a tyranny as unscrupulous
and violent as any thing recorded of the revolutionary tribunals
of France, and, if possible, more shameless still. In the midst of
the familiar occurrence of such things, for example, as the popu-
lar phrenzy about the mutilation of the Hermae, and the whole-
sale massacres to which it led — of the barbarous murder* of the
generals who conquered at Arginusee, and who were rewarded
for one of the greatest naval victories of antiquity with a sentence
without a trial, and an ignominious deatht — of the sacrifice of
Socrates, in mere wantonness of arbitrary power, or to appease
some vulgar clamor for his blood — how is it to be wondered at
that these writers should look with envy, as so many of them do,
at the order and peace enjoyed at Sparta, under the reign of the
law, and should infer that there was something radically wrong
in the constitution of a society exposed, apparently without all
hope of remedy, to a sort of perpetual reign of terror ?

Yet Xenophon's feelings upon this subject, however strong,
have infused, at least, no rancor or acerbity into his expression
of them. He betrays, rather than declares them, in his prefer-
ence for Doric manners and Spartan character — in the evident
complacency with which he paints his (imaginary ?) Cyrus, the
beau-ideal of an absolute monarch — and, in the various passages
of his dialogues, in which he speaks of the evils of the existing
democracy as of things of course, and unquestionable matters of

pin consequence of this Chabrias stepped the pursuit at Naxos. Diod. Sic. xv.]
t iEschines (the pseudo-Socratic) says they had only two voices out of thirty
thousand: De Morte, c. 12. For the heroic conduct of Socrates, on that occa-
sion, see Xenoph. Hellenic. 1. 7. But a better account than Xenophon's of that
most revolting judicial murder, is to be found (where one might hardly expect it)
in Diod. Siculus, 1. XIII. c. 104. There is nothing, in all history, more sublime
than the conduct, on that occasion, of Diomedon, one of the accused,
vol. i. — 50

394 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

fact. In one of his works — a treatise professedly dedicated to a
defence of the Demus against some of the more specious objec-
tions of its enemies— he does indulge, it must be owned, in a
vein of mischevous irony worthy of Swift. This work has been
denied by some, perhaps, most recent critics, to be Xenophon's —
but there is nothing but conjectural evidence to show the con-
trary, and Bockh declares for himself that he considers the argu-
ment on that side as inconclusive.* Certainly the author's hos-
tility to the existing democracy is no proof of its spuriousness,
for passages may be cited from the Economics, or (if that too is
questioned) from the Convivium, as bad as any thing in this es-
say, and if a more minute criticism should incline us to think it
the production of a later hand, we shall be obliged to confess it
is a very probable figment, and in spirit and opinions, if not in
style, bears a strong family likeness to the genuine offspring of
Xenophon's pen. It is. as we have said, a piece of ultra-Socra-
tic irony. It enumerates, one by one, the principal abuses of the
system of demagogy, which, at that time, rendered the very
name of popular government odious, as we have seen, to people
of sense and education. He admits them to exist, and in the
worst form, but affects to justify them as essential to the very be-
ing of democracy itself. If he is told that such things are in-
consistent with every idea of good government and social order,
he answers, that nothing is more possible — he does not pretend
to dispute it — he is not discoursing about forms of polity in the
abstract, and their relative virtues and advantages, neither does
he profess to find realized, in that, his own idea of a perfect com-
monwealth. What he undertakes to show is that the imperfec-
tions imputed to the democracy are inherent in its nature, and
inseparable from it — that they who desire it as an end, must
consent to the use of the necessary means — that the Athenian
Demus is not what it is, the most detestable and licentious of all
perversions of society, by any accident or disturbing causes, but
by design and on system, with a perfect consciousness of its own
objects, and a policy profoundly calculated to attain them.

In reading this piece, one is continually reminded of Machia-
velli's P?incipe, except that the mob of Athens take the place
of his heroes and models, such as Borgia and Castruccio — and
except, too, the irony. The Italian had a taste for what he
recommends as medicine — Xenophon sickens while he prescribes,
and desires and means that his patient should reject the loath-
some potion. Some passages of the treatiset are quite curious

• Pub. Econ. of Athens, v. I. p. G2. n. (transl.) Wachsmuth, also, quotes with-
out questioning it. [But see Hist. Antiq. &c. v. 2. p. 201. lb. p. 344. § 77.]

[f vaucr on xa'hsXxsiv <r<? icivr\ri usv doxel'

rolg KXootf'mg, Ss xai ysupvoig ou 8oxh. Aristoph. Ecclesia. 197.
Cf. Pax. 610—503.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 395

enough to be worth extracting for the benefit of our readers, if
we had the space necessary to do them justice. As it is, we
must content ourselves with remarking that the general drift of
the author is to show that the demagogues of the day taught a
people intoxicated with arbitrary power, and impatient of all
restraint, as careless of every obligation, to live like a nest of
Barbary pirates on the plunder of every thing around them —
that, like other spoilers, they regarded the commonwealth itself
as "lawful prize" — that, instead of governing their foreign de-
pendencies with a view to their own benefit and that of the state,
which would naturally flourish by their prosperity, and strength-
en with their strength, they were laid waste by oppressive exac-
tions to supply the cravings of a worthless .populace — that the
rich at home were fleeced in the same manner by a system of
unequal taxation, and through a corrupt administration of justice,
while their estates in the country were given up, without defence,
to be devastated by the enemy in wars, provoked by the abuse
of their maritime power in the hands of the same lawless multi-
tude— in short, that, instead of a government of laws extending
its protection to all, it was one scene of violence and brigandage,
in which the physical force of the many usurped all the functions,
only to violate all the ends of civil society, and the revenues of
the commonwealth and the property of individuals, were alike
treated as a mere fund for the support of the vicious, the profligate,
and the idle. In other works of Xenophon, as we have said,
we find substantially the same things charged to the people of
Athens. In his Banquet (c. 4. 29.) he represents one of the
interlocutors of the dialogue as expatiating upon the advantages
of poverty, the chief of which was its perfect independence.*
Instead of trembling for its own safety, it bullied others; instead
of living in slavery, it was free; instead of paying court, it was
itself flattered and caressed ; instead of being suspected by the
country, it enjoyed its sympathy and confidence. When I was
rich, he adds, I fawned upon the sycophants,t in whose power
I continually was. I was fain to be forever spending money for
the public; I was not allowed to go abroad ; if I was seen with
Socrates, I was reprimanded for it — whereas now I do as I like,
keep what company I choose, I am courted by the rich, in favor
with the government, a tyrant, not a slave; and instead of "pay-
ing tribute to the state, the state pays tribute to me, and makes
me a sharer in its revenues.* In another of his works,§ Socrates

[* Cf. facetos versus Antiphanis, apud Athenae VI. p. 103.]

t We need scarcely say this word meant, at that time, a common informer,
that is, a courtier of the democracy, whose service was public delation and prose-
cution.

\ Dionys. Halicarn. — Deinarch. /3'. — Aristoph. Vesp. G16. seqq. and indeed
passim. I'll have you enrolled among the rich. Id. Equit. 920 seqq. (says Cleon.)

§ Econom. c. 2.

396 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

boasts that with a fortune, his house and all counted, of some
five minae, (about twenty pounds sterling,) he looked upon him-
self as a much richer man than Critobulus with at least a hun-
dred times as much. The larger estate was accompanied with
disproportionate outgoings in lavish expenditures for sacrifices ,
without which he would be tolerated by neither gods nor men —
and in magnificent hospitality, in feasting, and in charity. But
besides these, he enumerates the various taxes imposed upon the
rich, who were required to incur immense expenses in what were
called the Liturgies — that is, in furnishing the funds for public
festivals and entertainments, choruses, and processions in time of
peace, and in keeping horses, equipping ships, and paying extra-
ordinary contributions in time of war. And the worst of it is,
adds he, that if you fall short of what is expected of you in any
of these things, the Athenians punish you just as if you had rob-
bed them of what was theirs. We will remark, by the way, that
this subject of Liturgies and taxation, is so important to a proper
understanding of the Public Economy of Athens, that Bockh's
admirable illustrations of it cannot be too often recommended to
the attention of the curious reader.*

It is manifest, from the tone of their works, that both Plato
and Xeuophon write in the spirit of what is called a reaction.
The abuses of popular government which they daily witnessed,
had disgusted them with popular government itself. This is the
peculiar evil of misrule in that shape, and what makes the de-
magogue, whose accursed mission it is to seduce and debauch a
free people, and to fit it, by vice, for bondage, a greater scourge
than an Attila or a Gengis Khan. He is the worst enemy of the
species, because he destroys the foundation of its best hopes — its
faith in itself. — The usurper may be dethroned, the conqueror
may be overthrown, but to what purpose, when his successor
must be as bad as he ?t Men who have seen the most cultivated
and enlightened nations led or driven into the worst crimes by
wretches like Oleon or Robespierre — who have seen polished
capitals, like Athens or Paris, the glory of the earth, seats of the
highest civilization, and filled with the trophies of genius, be-
come theatres of horrors worthy only of the most savage hordes,
drenched in gore by a banditti of Septembriseurs, doing murder
in broad daylight, or delivered up to the hellish orgies of mobs,
made cruel by suspicion, or drunk with blood — who have wit-
nessed judicial massacre solemnly perpetrated in the name of the
law, and decrees of flagrant iniquity, and revolting for their bar-

[* F. A. Wolf, prolegomen or ieg. Asirnv. Belli Peloponnesii tempore Trie-
rarchos naves accepisse de publico cedificatas, nihilque aliud ab ipsis exactum
esse nisi ut naves remigio et armamentis instruerent turenturque. Ne victum
quid aut stipendium Classiariis dare videtur Trierarchus debuisse. &c. Sed
saepius postea mutatus est mos. Vide loc. cit. 381,2. Adde quod de Antidosi
docet. lb. [t Aristoph. Eq. 943—5.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 397

barity, sanctioned by the votes of majorities, made up of mild
and merciful, but timid and feeble men — who have heard shouts
of liberty uttered by multitudes, subjugated by terror, and cring-
ing before the idols of their own creation, and seen (what is the
infallible consequence of such excesses) the reptile demagogue a
moment before "squat like a toad" at the ear of his victim, "start
up in his own shape the fiend," and stand confessed the tyrant —
such men must not be too sternly judged, and may even be pi-
tied and pardoned, if they despair of the fortunes of humanity.
"Wo to the world because of such offences, but wo to the man
by whom the offence cometh." Plutarch, in his life of Timo-
leon, relates, that the people of Syracuse, after long years of a
most disastrous experience of this connection between the dema-
gogue and the tyrant, hated at last the very sight of the Bema
and the Agora — the stage on which their popular leaders had
been accustomed to play off their impostures, and from which
so many of them (that sterling democrat, the elder Dionysius, for
example,) had been raised to despotic power. It was this sort of
discouragement that possessed the minds even of the wisest men
of Greece at the period referred to. The language they uttered
was akin to the affecting apostrophe of Brutus at Philippi, and
their last hope was in a sort of political millennium, when phi-
losophy should be seated upon the throne. Thus it was, that
while Xenophon idealized monarchical despotism in the Cyrope-
dia, Plato, on the contrary, sought to realize his dreams of a per-
fect social state, by educating the younger Dionysius to exercise
power according to the principles of the academy — a sad failure,
compensated by his brilliant success with the great republican
hero, the avenger Dio.

After the overthrow of the democracy at Cheronea, the great-
est thinker of antiquity addressed his comprehensive mind, in
the full maturity of his experience, to the subject of government,
and although, as we have stated, one of his two political works
is perished, we still possess, in the other, a treasure of which it
is impossible to overrate the value.

Aristotle is not obnoxious to the remark we have just made in
reference to Plato and Xenophon as having written recentibus
odiis. He treats that in a spirit as severely philosophical as any
other of the multifarious subjects of his all-searching inquiries.
There is no more reason to suspect him of passion or partiality,
in regard to democracy or oligarchy, than in his Metaphysics or
his Analytics, his Topics or his Rhetoric. He gives us the na-
tural history of governments, as he does that of plants or ani-
mals, and seems equally above his matter in both. A thorough
acquaintance with this important work, we hold to be indispen-
sable to any correct knowledge of the political institutions of an-
tiquity. It must not be read only, but made, book by book, and

398 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

chapter by chapter, the subject of deep study and meditation.
There is nothing superfluous or superficial in it ; not a sentence
but is full of thought and meaning, expressed always concisely,
sometimes perhaps abruptly, never, we think, obscurely. We
detect, clearly, the want of this critical knowledge of the work
in Mitford and other writers of that time, and on the other hand,
it is just as evident, that the great German philologists of the
present day, have used the Politics as a key to the whole civil
history of Greece, and as a fixed point of reference in all their
inquiries. Niebuhr, for instance, has found in it a lamp to light
his path in the darkness of Roman antiquity, which he has so
successfully explored, and some of his most instructive and satis-
factory views are but generalizations of hints and principles de-
rived from Aristotle. We would point, for examples of this, to
the use he has made in regard to the legislation of Servius Tul-
ilus, of what the Greek philosopher has said of the changes effec-
ted by Cleisthenes in the constitution of the Attic tribes.* So as
to the comparative inefficiency of the j)lebs in the co??iitia of
Rome, because residing on their farms at a distance, their atten-
dance in those assemblies was inconvenient and irregular. Both
the authors at the head of this article (as we have already had
occasion to remark of Mr. Hermann,) have drawn continually,
and. with the greatest advantage, upon the same copious fund.
What is most remarkable, however, in this great work, is its
spirit, and the general conclusion to which, when fairly interpre-
ted, it clearly leads. We have said that Aristotle is exempt from
all passion or prejudice, on the subject of popular government.
He had studied, for twenty years together, under Plato, in the
academy, and left Athens a mature man of thirty-seven. But a
part of his life had been passed in a very different station. He
was employed, as every body knows, by the victor of Cheronea,
to "teach great Alexander to subdue the world." He was, for
many years, therefore, an inmate of a court, such as it was, and
if we are to receive the description, Demosthenes has left us, of
Philip's manner of living, as any thing but the grossest carica-
ture, there was, surely, nothing in that court to captivate or daz-
zle any body, and least of all, such a mind as the Stagirite's.t
He might have learned there the truth he teaches, that "despo-
tism is apt to love low company." He had seen at once the frail
and feverish being of the democracy, with its odious demagogi-
cal tyranny, and its wild delirious transports, extinguished with
ease, by a coarse but compact military power, and "young Am-
nion" turned loose to scourge mankind and to forget himself, and
his philosophy, and his native land, in the vice and debauchery,

* Arist. Pol. VI. 4. cf. VII. 9. So as to the remark that confiscations and for-
feitures ought to be consecrated to the gods.

[tSee the story of Pausanias. Diod. Sic. xvi. 93.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 399

the swilled insolence and barbaric haughtiness of oriental despo-
tism. There can be no doubt, we should think, that this oppor-
tunity of comparing what he saw with his own eyes, of democ-
racy under the lead of such men as Demades, with an autocracy
of that kind, this view of society, passing through revolution and
conquest from one extreme to another, was eminently well fitted
not only to inform his mind, but to temper it, and to make his
judgment as cool as his philosophy was profound, penetrating,
and comprehensive. It was just such a discipline as public opi-
nion in France has undergone from the delirium of their first
enthusiasm for liberty, and their scarcely less mad lust of domi-
nion under a military despot, to an inglorious subjection to a yoke
fastened upon them by foreigners, until, sleeping off in this forced
repose the fumes of their double intoxication, they have been
brought at length to think seriously of the necessity and the ad-
vantages of a juste milieu.

But whatever effect this instructive experience may have had
in counteracting or correcting the disgust naturally inspired by
the vices and excesses of the degenerate democracy of Athens, no
unprejudiced -man, it appears to us, can read, with proper atten-
tion, the whole context of Aristotle's Politics, without coming to
the conclusion that the best form of government, in his opinion,
is a well tempered popular constitution, or at least, a constitution
in which the popular element was very strong and active. He
does not, like Plato and Xenophon, when he speaks of a perfect
commonwealth, imagine the reign of a patriot king. Neither
does he entertain that extravagant admiration for the Doric
model, especially the institutions of Lycurgus, for which they
are distinguished. One of the most striking parts of his work,
is his examination of the ideal republic of Plato, which, in many
points, such as the community* of wives and the education of
women, was a copy of those institutions. He seems to have had
some faith in the people, so far as that word was applicable at
all to the condition of ancient society, that is, in communities
made up of some distinguished race — in the calm judgment of
masses — in the common sense of mankind deliberately expressed
and fairly collected under forms calculated to check power, to
repress passion, and to give time for discussion and reflection.
A government so well ordered as to deserve the name of a polity
par excellence, (lioX{<rsja,) was distinguished from an aristocracy
(and this latter word implies in his use of it nothing narrow or
oligarchical,) by leaning more to the side of the many than of
the nobles.f Nay, it was even a more popular form than the

[* Not precisely sub-modo,']

t L. V. c. 7. So where all are eligible to office, but the best elected. lb. c. 8.
Comp. 1. IV. 15, where he contrasts a government oflaws with one of men; and
the very definition of polity. III. c. 7.

400 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

constitution of Solon and Cleisthenes. He says expressly, that
what he called (in conformity, no doubt, to general usage) by that
complimentary name, would have passed iu those earlier times (so
aristocratic were they) for a government of the many. So, he
considers a system in which the people delegate their high pow-
ers to others, as an aristocracy, so that all representative govern-
ment would fall within that category. Another fundamental
principle, on which he repeatedly insists, is, that no government
not founded on justice, can be durable. But, then, this justice
is relative, and not absolute, in its nature, and to be determined,
by the actual condition of society, and the opinion of mankind,
one age requiring that a greater number should be admitted to
take part in public affairs than another, and it being iu all cases
important to interest as many as possible in the preservation of
the existing order of things — a combination, be it remarked by
the way, of the historical and the rational, the prescriptive and
the positive, worthy, on every account, of particular attention.
Accordingly, he considers, as the state of society most favorable
for free governments, that in which the whole population is ho-
mogeneous, all, as nearly as may be, on a footing of equality, all
in comfortable and independent circumstances in regard to estate
and the majority engaged in agricultural and other rural pursuits.
Had he written with a view to our actual condition in this coun-
try, he could not have described more perfectly the advantages
we enjoy for maintaining social order and equal rights. He de-
nounces all inequality as a never failing source of strife and sedi-
tion. It is true, this equality, like the justice which is its con-
vertible term, is relative. Mere "arithmetical equality" he re-
gards as a violation of all "distributive justice," the great end of
civil society. A system by which the voice of the wise, the ex-
perienced, and the good, is always drowned in the clamors of a
majority, composed of ignorant and violent men, he thought the
very worst sort of inequality, and thisj as we shall see in the se-
quel, was the common voice of antiquity.* This would be, in
fact, only an oligarchy turned upside down. Tf, says he, the ma-
jority, being possessed of estates above a certain amount, should
exclude those who were less fortunate from any share in public
affairs, though the few were shut out and the many governed,
nobody would call that democracy. So, where the majority, be-
ing without fortune, drive the better sort of people from the public
service, or deprive them of the weight and the influence to which
they are fairly entitled, the evil is precisely the same, but in a
more aggravated degree. It is unjust, and cannot last. The
government he considers as the best is such a one as might be
variously characterized by observers according to their systems,

* See Plut. Conviv. VIII. a. II. § 2, 3. Id de Frater. Amore XII. Arist. VII. 3.
14. V. 9. and III. 7j the definition of a polity is express.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 401

as a democracy or an aristocracy — that is to say, a well-balanced
republic. This observation was afterwards applied by Polybius
to the constitution of Rome, in the age of the Scipios.

This leads us to remark that another fundamental truth, which
lie clearly developes, is that none of the simple forms of govern-
ment could be good* — that unlimited power, under every name
and every shape, is equally tyrannical, and produces exactly the
same effects on society, or effects so nearly the same, that the
difference is scarcely worth the trouble of a choice between
them. This morbid anatomy of governments is treated with an
ability as impartial as it is masterly. Tacitus himself has not
painted despotic monarchy more fearfully after nature. Niebuhr
speaks of the devilish spirit of the ancient oligarchy, and cites
a passage of the Politics to prove it.t Aristotle shows that all
governments perish by pushing to excess their peculiar princi-
ples— as the sin that most easily besets them. Thus, in demo-
cracies, instead of leaning to the side (the weaker side) of law
and order, the profligate men who made politics a trade, and the
commonwealth a spoil, never ceased to stir up the envy of the
multitude against the rich, until, by their attacks upon property,
or by other wrongs, the upper classes, driven to desperation flew
to arms, and civil wars and military despotism followed of course.
He asks, how it is that a well balanced constitution was so rarely
to be met with, and answers, that is it because most governments
have sprung up out of revolutions, and breathed the spirit of
the revengeful and exterminating passions that produced them.
They were "reactions," the offspring of hate, not the work of
reason, and presented the image of a city taken by storm, rather
than of a polity adopted with mature deliberations, by the com-
mon counsels for the common good of a community.

Yet sound and masculine as is the tone of Aristotle's political
philosophy, he paints the degenerate democracy, of which he
had so many opportunities to witness the excesses both when a
student in the academy and as a professor or teacher in the Ly-
ceum on his return to Athens, in colors not at all less sombre,
though less highly charged^ than those used by Plato and Xeno-
phon. Indeed, without the experience of the French Revolution,
as Mitford remarks, it would be difficult for a modern to believe
or even to conceive, the possibility of such horrors as appear,
from his account, to have occurred, in what may be called the
daily experience, and to have flowed naturally from the very con-
stitution of those turbulent commonwealths. And, on the con-
trary, the Jacobins might have learned the principles of their ter-
rific despotism in his book. We do not think we can convey

* The better tempered the government the better. Pol. IV. 12. — V. i.
t Romisch. Geschichte, v. 11. 337, 8. Der namliche Geist der Holle, etc. He
quotes Arist. Pdl. v. 9. of the oath, etc., a passage often cited since.
VOL. I. — 51

402 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

to our readers a better idea, either of the democracy of Athens,
or of Aristotle's manner of handling the subject, than by trans-
lating, as closely as possible, according to our understanding of
them, some passages from his work.

The first of these is one wherein he speaks of a democracy,
in which the only law is the will of the majority for the time be-
ing— a government of decrees of the popular assembly (^rj<p»0>a<ru).
This, he adds, is generally brought about by the demagogues,
who flourish most where there is no respect for the laws, since
the Demus becomes, to all intents and purposes, an absolute
monarch, one compounded of many, the multitude governing
in their aggregate or corporate capacity. Such a Demus, then,
being a monarch, will rule like one, will be controlled by no law,
will play the despot, and surround itself with flatterers. Such
a democracy is precisely the counterpart of tyranny in mon-
archies. Their character and spirit are the same ; they both
oppress the better sort of people ; votes of the assembly (pse-
phismata) are in the one case what edicts are in the other, and
the demagogue and the courtier are identical — both of them ex-
ercising a pernicious influence over their sovereigns, the latter
over his king or tyrant, the former over his democracy. These
demagogues, by referring every thing to the people, and causing
them to interfere with every department of public affairs, super-
sede entirely the fundamental laws and constitutions. They
find their own importance, of course, greatly enhanced by a sys-
tem which makes the capricious will of the sovereign for the
time being the only law, for controlling, as they do, the majori-
ty, they are the masters of that will. "He cannot be said to pro-
nounce too harsh a judgment who affirms that a democracy, of
this sort, is no regularly constituted government (<7roXi<ma), and,
if democracy, properly so called, is such a government, then
this is no democracy." — (1. IV. c. 3.)

It is plain that the demagogue, under such a system, is the
most absolute of all masters, and may say with Jack Cade, in
the chronicle, that "all the laws of the realme shall come foorthe
of his mouthe."

In a subsequent passage, speaking of the supreme judicial pow-
er as being exercised, in all cases, by the people, he says, it is the
system of the then actual democracy, which he pronounces to
be exactly analogous to a "dynastic oligarchy, and a tyrannical
monarchy." (lb. 14.) This coincidence between monarchical
and democratic tyranny he illustrates more than once, and
shows how exactly the maxims taught by Periander of Corinth,
who was as great a doctor in the schools of arbitrary power as
Machiavelli himself, apply to the policy of such a corrupt and
monstrous form of popular government. Divide et impera, is
the maxim of both — to awaken jealousies and hatreds between

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 403

classes and individuals, so as to destroy all possibility of concert
or even communications between them* — to break the commu-
nity in two by a permanent division, and perpetual war between
the rich and the poor, the town and the country — to surround
every one with spies, to arm friend against friend, to watch the
most secret movements, to disturb household peace, poison the
dearest relations of life, and destroy all the sweet carelessness of
social intercourse — to discourage and depress every thing dis-
tinguished in talent, or elevated in sentiment, and to admit to
the administration of public affairs only the weakest, the most
worthless, and the most wicked of mankind — in a word, syste-
matically to debase, to darken, and to pervert the human mind.
Phocion stood towards the democracy of his day in precisely the
same relation as Thrasea to Nero, and Camille Desmoulins, in
the Vieux Cordelier, wrote the history of Robespierre in the texts
of Tacitus.

"We see, in extreme democracy, every thing as it is in tyran-
nies, wives ruling their husbands, whom they keep in perpetual
fear of denunciation, and no discipline over slaves for the same
reason — for neither slaves nor women plot against tyrants, and,
having every reason to be contented with their lot, they are par-
tizans or tyrannies and democracies. For Demus loves to play
the monarch, and accordingly each has his favorite and courtiers,
the democracy its demagogue, and the tyrant all the most abject
in fawning and adulation, which is the business of a courtier. It
is for this reason that tyranny loves the base and the unprinci-
pled, for such alone will flatter — the good love without adula-
tion— and so all tyrants hate every thing noble or free in spirit
and manners," etc. (1. v. c. 11.)

In another place, after showing, by numerous examples, how
democracies were subverted in consequence of those schemes of
confiscation and robbery which the demagogues were perpetually
setting on foot against the rich, he proceeds to observe that, in
earlier times, tyrannies (in the Greek sense) were more frequent
than they had been of late, and he explains it by the fact, that
in those times the demagogue was always, at the same time, a
general. "Whereas, now-a-days, oratory being grown into an
art or profession, public speakers play the demagogue, but, having
no skill in war, they meddle, except in some very rare and tri-
fling occasions, hardly at all with military matters. Tyrannies
sprang up formerly more frequently than in these times, both
because more important commands were confided to generals,
and because, etc. Their leaders easily usurped the tyranny.
All did this who had the confidence of the Demus, and this
confidence was gained merely by professing hostility to the

* Let there be no syssitia, no iraigsia, etc. v. 11. Vide supr&, note.

404 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

rich. As at Athens, Pisistratus opposing the people of the plain,
and Dionysius, by his invectives against Daphnseus and the rich
was invested with the tyranny, being considered as a good de-
mocrat for no reason but because he hated them. And thus it is
that they change their democracies from the form in which they
were handed down to them from their fathers to the present
fashion."

Pisistratus and Dionysius the Tyrant ! In this passage we
have the testimony of Aristotle to a truth established by the
whole tenor of ancient history,* and which modern, limited as it
is in this respect, has confirmed and will forever confirm. The
demagogue is the tyrant in embryo. To say that he is in de-
mocracies what the courtier is to the despot, the cringing, hypo-
critical, parasitical worshipper of power, is indeed substantially
saying the same thing. The best slave is almost always the
worst master.

We shall close these abstracts from Aristotle with a literal
translation of some important remarks, which throw great light
upon the internal constitution and the daily practices of the de-
mocracies of Greece. (1. VI. c. 6.)

The true friend of democracy or oligarchy will show it not in
contriving that his institutions shall be as democratic or as oli-
garchical as possible, but that they shall endure the longest pos-
sible time. Thus the demagogues, now-a-days, humoring the
caprices of the Demus, deal in wholesale confiscation, through
the decrees of courts of justice. Therefore, the friends of that
sort of polity ought to counteract them by passing laws prohibit-
ing the confiscation to public use of property forfeited by a sen-
tence of a court, and making it sacred to the gods. For by such
a provision, criminals will not be less deterred, (since they will
be equally punished,) but the multitude, (who compose the judi-
catories or juries.) will be less inclined to convict, when they are
to get nothing by the judgment. So care ought to be taken to
diminish public prosecutions as much as possible, prohibiting,
under heavy penalties, the instituting them without probable
cause, for they are wont to attack in this way, not the humbler
sort, but people of the upper classes, and it is essential that all
the citizens of a commonwealth should be interested in its pre-
servation, orat any rate, that the rulers, whoever they are, should
not be looked upon as enemies. So degenerate democracies
(al rsXsvraTai) are very populous, and it is hard they should assist
at the public assembly without compensation, and this, where
the revenues are scanty, falls upon the rich, (for a fund must be
raised for the purpose, by extraordinary contributions, (ei<r<po£a,t)
confiscations, and judicial plunder, which have subverted many

* See Dionys. Halicaraass. Rom. Antiquit. I. VI. and VII. passim,
t A property tax. See Bockh, P. E, of Athens, II. 224.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 405

a democracy,) therefore where the revenue of the state is inade-
quate, there ought to be but lew assemblies held, and the tribu-
nals composed of many judges should sit but a few days. It
would also conduce to reconcile the rich to the expense, if peo-
ple of any property were allowed no compensation for jury ser-
vice, (&xavixov) but only the poor, and at the same time, it would
cause justice to be better administered. Where there is a good
revenue, demagogues should not be allowed to do as they now
do ; for they distribute any surplus immediately in small quanti-
ties. The consequence is, that the people are always receiving
and always in want of more, for such assistance to the poor is
merely pouring into a cask with a hole in the bottom of it. The
truly democratic statesman will take care, beforehand, that the
body of the people (irX^hg) should not be in a destitute condition,
for this is the great source of trouble and abuse in democracies ;
but he will take care that permanent provision be made for them.
Since this is a matter of concernment to the rich as well as the
poor, distributions of surplus revenue ought to be made in consi-
derable quantities at once, and it were especially desirable, if
enough could be raked together to buy small farms, or, if not, for
providing a little stock for commercial or agricultural industry ;
and if it be impracticable to give to all, to make the distribution
by tribes, or in some such way, collectively. Meanwhile, for all
necessary meetings of the people, compensation should be raised
by a property tax on the rich, releasing them from vain and use-
less liturgies. It is by such a system that the Carthaginians
keep the Demus contented Under their well balanced polity, for
they are continually sending some of the poorer sort to their
neighboring dependencies, where they are made comfortable and
prosperous.

The same testimony as to the character and conduct, of the
democracy of Greece, is given by all the other authorities on
whom any reliance is to be had. We shall say nothing of the
comedies of Aristophanes in this connection — not that we think
him either an unimportant or an exceptionable witness. We
hold them, on the contrary, to be an essential part of the politi-
cal history of Athens, and cheerfully acknowledge the service
rendered to science by M. Wachsmuth, in his just and exalted
estimate of their value in that sense. But Aristophanes is too
great a man to be treated as he deserves in the narrow space al-
lotted to us here. We shall take a future opportunity of expa-
tiating at large upon this mighty painter of men in masses, and
on some of the principal groupes and figures in his richly fur-
nished gallery. Another writer, of whom we should have to say
too much if we said as much as we ought, is Plutarch. His
Lives abound in matter for the student of the constitutional his-
tory of Greece. We need only mention the names of Themisto-

406 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

cles, Aristides, Cimon, Phocion, Demosthenes, Dion, Demetrius,
Timoleon, Aratus, to remind the reader that he has recorded the
services of most of the great men whose lives were an era in his-
tory, and whose achievements, civil and military, have identified
them forever with their times and their country. His Nicias, for
instance, is, with a view to the spirit of the Demus, a perfect stu-
dy. The principal materials, used by Plutarch in his portraiture
of that unfortunate general, are indeed drawn from Thucydides,
whose account of the Sicilian expedition we have already men-
tioned as an unrivalled narrative, hut, the biographer, in the ex-
ercise of his peculiar privileges, has added touches of character,
and little expressive circumstances, not to be expected in a gene-
ral history. You are made familiar with that poor victim of
demagogy and superstition, passing his whole life between the
dread of the mob and the fear of the gods, and wasting the pro-
duce of his large fortune in perpetual sacrifices to both — whose
timidity, in Plutarch's language, was as sure a resource to the
bad, as his benevolence was to the good — so anxious about the
future as to keep a prophet of his own, with a view especially to
the preservation of that great estate, which was the source of all
his troubles, and by the most lavish use of which, in popular
largesses and princely magnificence, he sought to propitiate envy
and only invited aggression — grave, domestic, sober, regular, la-
borious, retiring, yet continually overwhelmed with public affairs
to that degree, as to leave himself not a moment for serving, or
even for seeing, his most intimate friends — as successful in the
outset as he was unfortunate in the close of his career ; yet seek-
ing to avoid odium, (his evil genius,) by ascribing all the honor
of those successes to the gods, and suffering the demagogue
Cleon, to reap the well-earned fruits of his ability and perseve-
rance at Pylus, by yielding to him the command in the very mo-
ment of victory — all his life, the slave of his own power, a sha-
dow of greatness, "an unreal mockery" of state* — at Syracuse
refusing to withdraw from an expedition he never approved, and
then become utterly hopeless, because he feared the people more
than the enemy, and preferred dying by the hands of the latter,
"with his harness on his back," to being judicially murdered by
the former ; and when he had at length resolved to seek safety in
retreat, prevented from effecting his purpose, and detained for
certain destruction, by an eclipse of the moon.

But this Life is not merely instructive as showing the charac-
ter of a man, whose very weaknesses, especially in his abject
superstition, were perfectly Athenian ; the biographer has been

* He applied to himself, says Plutarch, that of Agamemnon :

"tfpogasruv tit tou (3iou
Tov oyxov t'pcojxev, tCj <Y o^Xoj o>ou\sllo(asv.,, c. 5.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 407

oven more than usually communicative on the subject of the
Demus itself. He speaks of all those characteristics that made
it such a constant object of dread to Nicias, and, in general, to
the rich and the educated. He mentions the ostracism, with its
origin and objects ; he tells us of the aversion of the people for
great talent, which it used, but always suspected, hated, and
persecuted — and of its especial horror of philosophers, and their
blasphemous and atheistical babble about second causes — as
witness the fate of Anaxagoras. We have there, too, a portrait
of Cleon, with his brazen front and iron lungs, the first of the
demagogues, who, forgetting the dignity and decorum of Pericles
and the older orators, ranted furiously and moved about upon
the Bema — at once the butt, the bully, and the bubbler (to use an
expressive old word) of the populace. Neither has he forgotten
the profligate, policy of Alcibiades and Hyperbolus — nor the arts
by which they and other demagogues controlled public opinion,
and created constructive majorities, by operating upon the selfish
hopes and fears of men, and by artfully turning to account the
silence of the timid and the scruples of the wise, and speaking
and acting for, all who were not bold, or ready, or able, or know-
ing enough to speak or act for themselves.

The orator, or rather, rhetorician Lysias,* who was born of
Syracusan parents, at Athens, about the third year of the eighti-
eth Olymp. (A. C. 459,) and lived to be eighty, is a most precious
witness to the daily practices and the true spirit of the democra-
cy, in which he was one of the confessors in the time of the
XXX Tyrants, and one of the most faithful champions always.
Of his innumerable orations, written in a style which has ever
been celebrated as a model of the purest Attic, we still possess
(supposing them to be all genuine) thirty-four. Most of these
were composed to be spoken by others in their own defence,
according to the practice of the Athenian courts. They are,
therefore, the very words addressed to the popular tribunals by
an experienced, able, and most successful advocate, whose politi-
cal orthodoxy is above suspicion, not in the heat of extempora-
neous discussion, but with the art and the forecast of deliberate
composition, and reveal, as perfectly as any thing can, the spirit
and character of their judicature. They present, accordingly,
a frightful picture of judicial tyranny. Were they not unques-
tionably what they profess to be, they might easily be taken for
irony, far more pungent even than Xenophon's in the treatise
referred to eibove. The topics dwelt upon in them are just such
as, from Aristotle's account of the structure and composition of
the courts, as well as from all the other testimonies cited, might
be expected to be urged. We see that even Aristophanes has

[* He was an \dors\y\g. Wolf ad Leptin. 363. n.]

dOS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF OREECE.

exaggerated in nothing — but the masks and the costume. A
people to whom such language could be addressed, we do not
say with success, but without exciting the deepest indignation,
were no better than a horde of Usbecks or Algerines. To call
such a system of open plunder, and arbitrary, iniquitous, inquis-
itorial despotism, the administration of justice, were blasphemy.
They had lost all sense of justice, all moral sense. These ora-
tions are an everlasting monument of their dishonor ; every
topic in them is a stain, every compliment an outrage, every
prayer* a curse. Fouquier Tinville himself would not have
tolerated such language, for after all, your high Jacobin was a
sentimentalist, and had a sort of decency in crime. What the
orator makes his client say in one of these pleadings is true to
the letter. The demagogues and sycophants, he affirmed, had
led the democracy into a course of conduct identical witli that
of the XXX Tyrants, one of whose plans for raising the wind
had been to seize some twenty or thirty of the rich metics, (or
resident foreigners.) and murder them judicially, with a view to
the forfeiture of their estates.t Lysias and his brother were
among the victims marked out by these — the latter perished, but
the orator fled to the patriot standard under Thrasybulus, and
returned with the exiles in triumph.

In these pleadings, the court is always addressed as those who
were personally interested (as they indeed were) in the event of
the cause, and had the largest discretion to dispose of it as they
should judge best for their own advantage.:}: The solemnity of
the oath prescribed to them, the supremacy of the law, so indis-
pensable to what ought to have been a government of laws, the
responsibility of their high function, the vital importance to
society of the administration of justice, which Hume affirms to
the only end of all its other institutions, however complicated
and imposing — these are considerations beneath the dignity of
a sovereign, that would bear no restraint, and was bound by no
obligation and no duty. The Heliasts, it is evident, regarded
themselves, and were regarded by others, not as a court, but as
a commission — they were armed with all the powers of the
assembly, whom, in a corrupt practice,^ though not in the true
theory of the constitution, they represented, and their judgment,
like a vote in the Ecclesia. was quod postrermim jussit popuhis)
and the supreme law. Their decrees were without appeal, and
a former acquittal was no bar to another action or indictment.
Accordingly, one of the considerations, most frequently addressed

f* Persuasive — Danton "aussi nous ne le jugcrons pas nous le tuerons.J
[i Aristopb. Eq. 770. seq.]

|; Here Demosthenes in general superior, tho' some topics bad and base. Sec
Kara Mcjo. v£', seqq.]
[§ See Aristoph. Vesp. COO seq.]

1TIE DEMOCRACY OE ATHENS. 409

to their favor,* is that the accused, or those he represents, have
lavished their fortunes, hy the Various Liturgies, upon the public,
and this is a topic continually occurring, not only in these
speeches, but in those of Isgeus also.t Another akin to it, is
that the judges would be more benefitted by the property of the
defendant, if left to be managed by him in trust for the people,}:
(for that really was the true description of the case of every man
of substance, he was compnlsorily the steward of the poor,) than
if confiscated and wasted at once. This happened to be really
the fact, and was no doubt some protection to the more opulent
classes, so long, at least, as by magnificence in their style of liv-
ing^ and the performance not only of the liturgies imposed upon
them by law, but of many more voluntarily incurred, they made
it quite evident, to their jealous cestui/ que trust, that he proba-
bly had the full benefit of the fund. The consequence of this
strange tenure of property, however, was that the rich lived un-
der perpetual surveillance in regard to the use of their fortunes,
and, when the day of confiscation, or heavy contributions in the
shape of discretionary fines, came, they were called to account,
as rigidly as a fraudulent bankrupt, threatened with the galleys^
for the manner in which they had got rid of their supposed
assets. |1

A very curious instance of this, and one highly illustrative of
this part of the subject, is the case of the estate of one Aristo-
phanes.^l The property of this man, who was supposed to be
rich, was confiscated, but, as it turned out to be far less than was
expected, the Dermis, suspecting some foul play, called the next
of kin of the deceased to account for this unlooked for deficien-
cy. The defendant ventures to complain of it as a very hard
case, that one, who had nothing to do with the affairs of another
and knew nothing of them, should be held to explain them at
his peril. How was it possible for him to answer, item by item,
on an account of the sort ? On such a day, your relative re-
ceived so much from such a banker, or ship-owner ; what is be-
come of it ? He was reported at such a time to have in his
possession a large fund ; where is it 1 Was he his brother's
keeper, or even his book-keeper ? It was evident no man could
meet such a responsibility ; and we are not surprised to find him
adding that the sycophants (prosecutors) had been the ruin of
many an honest man in that way. He reminds his judges, that
they have always been disposed to overrate people's fortunes on

{* Plut. Demosth.]

t Isseus. IIs£i tou 3>iXox<ry)|xovo£ xXtj^ou. 13. Lys. [Demos'th. xa<ra Msj&J

[J At)jxoo'&. xara AcpoSov expressly.]
1% See the plan of reform Ecclesiaz. 412-25.]
{II Aristoph. Eq. 921. seq.]

IT vtfsg tCjv Agigocpav. Xprjjuoar,

vol. i. — 52

410 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

mere report, and illustrates it by the case of Alcibiades, who, after
being in command of the army for four or five years, and having
received from the allies twice as much as any body else, so that
many thought he had at least one hundred talents, left, after all,
less to his children than he had received from his guardians
when he came to his estates. So, he adds, should yon confiscate
the property of Timotheus," "though God forbid it should be
done unless for some great benefit to the state," and get less by
it than you have from Aristophanes, would you call on his next
of kin to make up the deficiency I Certainly not. Why ? Be-
cause Conon's will, made at Cyprus, shows clearly he owned
but a very small part of what you imagined him to possess. All
this would seem quite conclusive enough, but the defendant
knows the law and its interpreters too well to confide in the jus-
tice of his cause. He, accordingly, reminds them how little
they ever received from confiscated estates, which were instantly
plundered and dilapidated as by a foreign enemy, the very doors
being torn from their hinges — and yet no poor man got a decent
dividend out of the fund, while, in that particular case, by taking
care of the property, no less a sum than a thousand drachmas
had been actually paid into the treasury ! He farther insists
upon the merits of his own father in the use of his fortunes, of
which, reserving for himself and family barely wherewithal to
furnish them with the necessaries of life, he had constantly spent
the income on all sorts of liturgies to oblige the people, and that
without any selfish object whatever. He had not, like so many
others, laid out his own money in order to indemnify himself by
offices obtained through the popularity he should thus acquire —
he had sought no reward for his magnificence in keeping so
many horses, and for his triumphs at the Isthmian and Nemean
games, but the honor of the state.

We will just stop to remark here, that if M. de Tocqueville
finds the social freedom of the people of the United States so
inconveniently restrained by what he alleges to be the censure
exercised here by all over all, what would he have said of the
system of prying, inquisitorial surveillance, revealed in this
pleading of Lysias? Nay, what would he have said of the
whole constitution and being of an ancient commonwealth,
which, as we shall presently show, allowed of no social liberty
or personal independence at all ? But this by the way.

In other orations, Lysias harps upon the same string. In his
defence of some one, accused of briberyt — an admirable plead-
ing— his client is made to repel the charge by reviewing the

* 8 ^ yivoiro si fxrj <n [xsWst \iiya ctyadov stferfQcct tyj #oXp». '£. Tinio-
theus was their great general of that name, son of Cimon.

| AtroXoyKt AugoSoxiag a,^a^oL(fYi(xog,

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 411

whole tenor of his past conduct, and showing how devoted he
had been to the public service. He begins, as usual, with a list
of the liturgies he had performed, three fourths of them entirely
voluntary.* His galley sailed so much better than any other,
that Alcibiades would have her as his flag-ship, which, he takes
care to add, he could not prevent his doing. He then reminds
the court, that the public revenues were so fallen off, through
mismanagement and peculation, that voluntary liturgies were
almost the only resource left to fill up the deficit, therefore, if
they were well advised, they would not care less for the fortunes
of the defendant, than for their own, knowing that they would
always, as heretofore, have the use of them to any extent. And
for the management of the estate, he adds, none of you can doubt
that I shall make a better steward (radios) than they who ad-
minister your finances. If you deprive me of my property, you
will not enrich yourselves ; you will only give up this fund to
be squandered and dissipated like every other.f You had much
better give me yours than take mine. I have lived with the
strictest economy that I might have the more to spend on you,
and hold my fortune only to your use — that very fortune which
exposes me to the persecutions of sycophants.

We should be giving to this part of the subject a dispropor-
tionate extent, were we to make abstracts of all the pleadings
which throw any light upon it ; but there are two or three
others to which we feel bound to call the attention of our readers.
One of these is the speech against the corn-dealers. Athens de-
pended on foreign importations for no less than a third of the
bread she consumed. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at,
considering the tendency of ancient legislation to regulate all
the concerns of society, and their comparative ignorance of poli-
tical economv, that their corn laws were a very important part
of their police. Accordingly, very severe penalties were de-
nounced against every thing calculated to diminish the supply
of so necessary an article. Engrossing (beyond a very mode-
rate and defined quantity) was punished with death ; and since
the persons engaged in the trade were usually metics and
foreigners,^: (the Jews and Lombards of that day), we may be
sure that the public informers would not be excessively indulgent
with regard to them. The pleading in question is a curious
and instructive proof of this. The prosecutor begins by for-
mally excusing himself for having seemingly taken part with
the corn dealers, because, when some of the senators proposed
that they should be immediately and without a hearing deliver-
ed over to the executioner, he, thinking such a procedure rather

[* Isseus irs^i <rou N»xocV£a<rou xXtj^ou.]
[+ Aristoph. Vesp. 1100.]
[t Aristoph. Eq. 347.]

412 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

harsh, moved that the usual course of trial iu the courts should
be pursued. He was determined, however, not to lie under such
an imputation as that of being a patron of forestallers and regis-
ters, and so, to show his zeal, undertook to play public accuser
on the occasion. The defendant pleaded an express order from
the Archons, sed non allocatur. The authority of those magis-
trates to dispense with the law was denied, and many precedents
referred to, in which the courts had displayed the greatest seve-
rity against all suspected of even winking at that nefarious traf-
fic, and had condemned the accused to death, in spite of all his
evidence to establish his innocence.

In the short speech against Epicrates and his colleagues, for
malversation in an embassy, we find the accuser urging the peo-
ple to make an example of the defendants, because they had in-
fluence and ability in public affairs. What signifies your seve-
rity against the feeble and the obscure, when the orators, who
are continually shocking us with the display of large fortunes
suddenly amassed by plunder, secure to themselves by their elo-
quence or their intrigues a perfect impunity. It was, it seems,
come to such a pass, that, instead of being punished for their
notorious robberies, the Demus was grateful to them for being
let in for ever so small a share of the spoils.* Here, too, we find
a violation of all sound principles of judicature, and all the guar-
antees of the rights of the individual, openly pressed upon the
people. To be sure, it seemed to be excused in that case by the
lex talionis. These sycophants, says the orator, are in the habit
of telling you, when they prosecute any unfortunate man un-
justly, "If you do not convict, you will have no fees." Even
a topic so flagitious, however, scarcely justifies his urging the
assembly, as he does, to allow the offender no trial, which he
alleges to be superfluous, where the court is already convinced,
and the crimes are notorious !t

The only other oration of Lysias, which we will especially
recommend to the attention of our readers, is the fine defence of
some one who, having remained at Athens during the reign of
the XXX Tyrants, was accused, in spite of the amnesty, as one
of their accomplices.^ It deals in the usual topics, but, besides
these, it presents a very lively, and we have no doubt, perfectly
true picture of the infamous courses of the demagogues and sy-
cophants, both towards the allies and the citizens of Athens.
He might well affirm that, had the XXX Tyrants confined them-
selves to the punishment of those wretches, the country would
have had cause to rejoice in their severity. They played, indeed,
under the authority, and in the name of the people whom they

[* Aristoph. Vesp. 655 seq. in point especially, G71 682-5.]

[t Aristoph. Eq. 1355. and see lb. 1354-69 Vesp. 655. seq. and 921.]

JA>5(Xou KaraXutfewj AiroXoyta.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 413

misled, exactly the part of those tyrants. Oligarchy had twice
been established in hatred of them, whose misrule was so intol-
erable that people sought a refuge from it in any form of govern-
ment. Nor are they so much to be blamed for their tyrannical
outrages as you who permit them, and who call that democracy
which is the arbitrary power of a few making war, through your
judgments and decrees, upon all who will not lie down quietly
and be fleeced by them. "The true democrat, is he that obeys
the laws and reverences an oath." In short, this exposure of the
attempts pf the demagogues to re-establish their former odious
supremacy, and to plunge the city once more into the guilt and
folly which she had scarcely expiated by so many years of suf-
fering and adversity, is one of the most instructive lessons of
Greek history.

So much for Lysias. His contemporary, Isocrates, whom we
have had more than once occasion to mention, and whose ora-
tory was principally of the panegyrical kind, is, of course, upon
the whole, far less important to us as an authority on the subject
of constitutional history. Yet there are several of his produc-
tions that deserve particular attention. The two most instruc-
tive for our present purpose are undoubtedly the Areopagitic
and the Panathenaic orations. We have been ourselves very
much indebted to these elaborate compositions, in forming our
own views of the government of Athens. The latter especially
is the more remarkable, as having been begun in the ninety-
fourth and finished in the ninety-seventh year of his age. But
our limits do not permit us to do more here than observe that
the decay of morals, and, of course, of law and liberty, was
constantly progressive during that whole period, and that, when
he contrasts the end with the beginning of the century, he
speaks with the authority of an eye witness, whose whole life
had been devoted to the study of wisdom and the observation of
life.

The most superficial glance at the works of these and other
Greek writers will satisfy every one, accustomed to consider
such subjects, that the citizens of Athens, and those generally of
the democratic commonwealths of Greece, had none of the guar-
antees secured to us by our American constitutions. They were
particularly unprotected in the two points in which the action of
government is most sensibly felt, both by society and by indivi-
duals, taxation and judicature. These were both, in practice,*
(we speak of later times,) almost entirely arbitrary. As to the
former, Solon had subjected the higher classes to proportionably
heavier burthens than the lower ; but this inequality was com-
pensated by a corresponding superiority in political power and
influence. As the democratic, or rather demagogical interest,

[* Bockh.]

414 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

became more preponderating, this, like every other balance, was
overturned, and the burthens of the rich were increased, while
their weight was less and less felt in the administration of affairs
until they seemed to exist, as we have seen, only for the use of
the many. It was not before the fourth year of the Peloponne-
sian war, that extraordinary contributions — afterwards such a
source of vexatious oppression to the wealthy — were resorted to
by the State. It soon grew into a system, in comparison with
which, ship-money and stamp- acts were mere trifles.

Their administration of justice was quite as bad ;* they had no
idea, or at least a most imperfect one, of the necessity of separa-
ting the three great departments of the government, upon which
the school of Locke, and the English and American Revolutions
has, not without reason, laid so much stress. Aristotle, indeed,
saw this truth, and distinctly treats of it ; but even he does not
draw the line between the different functions with sufficient pre-
cision.! He would have the popular assembly, for instance, to
act as a court of justice in some cases of the greatest importance,
the very ones in which it would be most liable to be misled by
passion. And although the books, not only of the philosophers,
but of the historians, the orators, and the poets,t are full of al-
lusions to the empire of the law, and to the liberty that bows
only to it, yet the idea of a judge, independent of the legislative
and executive powers, by a permanent office and a fixed salary —
a principle now become almost universal in Christendom^ —
never entered into their heads. Not only so, but the Roman in-
stitution, attended with such admirable effects, both in the ad-
ministration of the law, and in the cultivation of it as a science,
of a single praetor expounding the rule to a jury charged with
the application of it to the facts of the case, was unknown at
Athens. Their tribunals were mere mobs, II composed of hundreds
sometimes of thousands of judges, where all sense of individual
responsibility was completely lost. The general assembly, (ec-
clesia) was not regularly a court, but it exercised judicial powers
in extraordinary cases, such as the trial, or rather murder of the
generals, already referred to, and those exceptions were too fre-
quently occurring. Its conduct on such occasions was, of course,
perfectly arbitrary. Bills of attainder, ex post facto, and laws
violating the obligations of contracts, were passed in the shape
of judgments or special decrees, without the least hesitation.

[* See a most instructive passage, Demosth. xara T»fJU)X£a<rov£, \g'.]

t Pol. IV. 14. The popular assembly to be charged with war and peace, capi-
tal cases, suduvai, etc.

[t See the elegy of Solon in Demosth. iregi YlagairgztfQziac, o§'. and the
same orat. xara Msi<5, g/3' et passim.]

§ Nay, it exists even in Turkey for the Osinanlis. Thierry. Dix ans d'&udes
Ilistoriques, 241-3.

[|| Dem. xowa Mgi<J, g/3'.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 415

It is true that, in Solon's plan, or as Isocrates affirms, in the
old constitution, transmitted from the age of Theseus, and only
burnished up and modified by the great lawgiver, there were
some restraints attempted to be put upon the sovereign power,
in its various functions.* The Areopagus, for instance, was
clothed in a very high censorial authority, and had a controlling
influence, if not an extensive jurisdiction. None could be a
member of this senate without having been an archon, and, until
the time of Aristides, none could be an archon but a member of
the first class of the timocracy of Solon. So that law-giver pro-
vided for amendments in his institutions, but the initiative in
these reforms was given to certain select and sworn nomothetce^
on whose motion alone the assembly was allowed to make any
fundamental change. So that the law was to be paramount to
its decrees. In like manner, so far as we may rely on our know-
ledge of their very complicated judicature, the " Helioea, out of
which their various tribunals were formed, was destined to per-
form in some degree the functions of our courts, by maintaining
the supremacy of the same fundamental laws over the decrees of
the assembly. This was a body of six thousand jurors, drawn
from the whole mass of the citizens, and divided into ten differ-
ent colleges or courts, who were all to be above thirty years of
age, and charged under oath with the trial of causes. A dema-
gogue might thus occasionally, like a minister of the crown in
constitutional monarchies, be made liable before this select body
for measures adopted, on his motion, by the whole people in the
general assembly. We have examples of a threat of prosecution
held out to deter the making of such motions, and a famous in-
stance of it occurs in the law of Eubulus of Anaphlystus, against
the repeal of the theorikon, to which Demosthenes, in his phi-
lippics, alludes with so much dissatisfaction, and which he suc-
ceeded in causing to be abolished, only after the defeat at Chero-
nea had rendered the repeal of it entirely unavailing to any good
purpose. In these and other provisions of Solon, we see that
reverence for law as a fixed and sacred rule of action, both for
the government and for individuals, without which there can be
neither liberty nor order, and which the genius of Plato has so
beautifully illustrated in the last conversations and death of
Socrates.t But these ideas were in later times confined to the
few — they gradually ceased to influence the conduct of the peo-
ple, whose will came to be regarded as the only law— and it is
plain from the authorities we have vouched that no Turkish
bashaw ever exercised over the rajahs, abandoned to his barba-
rous despotism, a tyranny more petulant and arbitrary, than that
of the Athenian Demus.J

[* For Solon's legislation, see Oral, contra Androt. from 10 to 19.] tCrito.
\ See Demosth. xara Msib. v<5' v/?;.

416 CONSTITUTIONAL HtSlORV OF GREECE*

The restraints which modern society has imposed upon itself,
in the exercise of its sovereignty, are only an acknowledgment
of the fallibility of man. In our own republican institutions,
this self-denial has always struck us as something sublime. All
absolute power, if allowed to act on sudden impulses, will and
must be tyrannical ; nor does it in the least signify by what name
it is called, except perhaps that the galling severity of the bond-
age is in proportion to the number of the masters. Republican
government is ex vi termini, a government of laws, not of men —
that is the old Roman definition, and it is the only description of
rational liberty, or indeed of civilized society. It is a government
of reason, not of passion — of rule, not of will, and of duty, not
of caprice ; in short, it is limited and legal, not arbitrary power.
Accordingly, all the checks which our constitutions impose upon
the legislative department, all the securities by which they guard
the liberty, the lives, and the property of the people, in the mak-
ing or the administration of the law, are designed to prevent
hasty conclusions, and the prejudging of important questions — to
insure in all things an examination, as far as possible, without
fear, favor, or affection. In the true spirit of Christian humility,
the most sublime of all virtues — the people have taken care that
they shall not be led into temptation by that omnipotence which
God alone may not abase, and reserving to themselves ultimately
an absolute control over their own destinies, have practically
restrained the exercise of their sovereignty, by withholding from
their agents some of its highest attributes. But the democracy
of Athens, whatever was its original constitution, became, after
the death of Pericles, the lawless, furious despot, depicted by
Aristotle. It became impatient of every restraint or delay in
executing its purposes. It was surrounded by swarms of flat*
terers and parasites^ who spoke to it of nothing but its perfec-
tions and its infallibility, its power to dispense with all laws, and
its "divine right' to do any wrong. The base sophist, who,
when consulted by Alexander on the justice of a measure, an-
swered, that it was just, because he willed it, would unquestion-
ably have held precisely the same language to the mob at Athens.
Demades is a case in point — Antipater had about him no flatter-
er so abject and unscrupulous as that prince of democrats under
the popular regime — just as the fiercest Brutuses of the directo-
ry became the vainest counts of the empire.*

What should we think of being compelled to reside in a small
community, deciding in the weightiest matters upon the spur of
the occasion, incessantly excited by unprincipled agitators, living
by forfeiture, and confiscation, and plunder, without a press,
without a constitutional barrier or guarantee — without a magna

* Somebody had a favor to ask of Merlin of Douay, then in exile under the
Restoration— "Be sure, said a friend to him, to address him as M. Ic. Comtc"

THE DEMOCRACY OP ATHENS. 417

chafta or habeas corpus act — without a grand jury or a petit
jury, subject to challenges to the array and to the polls — without
any definition of high treason, and therefore with multitudes of
constructive treasons — where there was no safety for persons or
papers — where no man's house was his castle — where there was
no appeal, no plea of autrefois acquit or convict — no prohibition
of exorbitant fines, and cruel and unusual punishments — where
not only there was no provision for equality in taxation, but
inequality was a principle and a system*— where slaves were
continually tortured to give evidence against their masters, and
masters themselves were not always exempt from the torture of
the slave — where instead of judges there were commissioners —
where private property might not only be taken for public use
without compensation, but was habitually treated as if it were
public property, unduly appropriated by the private holder —
where no bills were required to be read three times in two houses,
and where the departments of government were all confounded
in one tremendous mass of arbitrary power — where exceptional
legislation, bills of attainder and privilegia of all sorts were of
every day's ' occurrence— where, in short, there was no time for
reflection, no locus penitential, but the decrees of a passionate
and tumultuary mob, misinformed, misguided, superseding all
laws and constitutions, were carried into instant execution ? The
terrible effects of this blind precipitancy are seen in many famous
passages of Athenian history — as, for instance, in the case of
Socrates, and in that of Mitylene, condemned on the motion of
the bloody Cleon to massacre and slavery, and saved by a hair's
breadth 'scape, on the second thought of the multitude. t As to
constructive treasons, Tacitus gives a fearful account of them
in the use made of the lex majestatis under the dark and jealous
despotism of Tiberius, and Montesquieu well remarks that un-
certainty on that single point is enough to make a tyranny of
any government.^

The restraints, we have just enumerated, were long the pecu-
liar privileges of the English race ; and yet, strange to say, most

{* Pollux VIII. 6. Harpocrat. sitfayysXia — Stricto jure there was — res
judicata, locus classicus Demosth. w^otf Asirriv X(3'. Id. in Timocrat. p. 717.
R. ed. Terence Phormio III. 2. 58.]

t Thucyd. III. 36. So Euripides generalizes :

'Orav yag rjfScl §7}^og Sig ogyrjv itstfuv
o/x'ojov w£S tfug 'xoLTOidfisdax \af3gov,
6i 8' r)(fu-)(oc; <r»£ avrog svrsivovn julsv
^aXwv vrfswoi, etc. — Orest. 696, sqq.

What a dupe for a demagogue, what a terror to the desolate and oppressed — a
sovereign multitude, so passionate and impetuous.

[i As to torture, which Demosthenes says is the best evidence, see a loc. class.
(Andocid. 22.) in his speech against Onetor.-^—But see JSsch. x. Ila^atf.
vol. i. — 53

418 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

of them were of Norman, not of Saxon origin. Magna Charta,
which embodies the greater part of them, was merely a feudal
charter.* Chancellor Kent, in his valuable Commentaries, cites
an analogous example from Danish history, on the election of
one of their kings in 1319.t There is nothing surprising in the
coincidence, since the great charta, as Lord Coke affirms, was
simply declaratory, and we will add, declaratory of the common
law of feuds. There is, with the exception, perhaps, of the
provisions made for the protection of commerce, and sonic mi-
nor provisions, nothing in it but what every vassal had an un-
doubted right to exact of his suzerain. The great peculiarity
of it was the commission of twenty-five barons, charged with
seeing it executed, and authorized to levy war on the king for a
breach of it. Even this was no new thing in principle, for every
vassal, in case of violation of the feudal pact, might right him-
self, if he could, by force. But the peculiarity, just mentioned,
consisted in the concerted action, the community of interest,
ascribed to the whole body of the king's tenantry, including the
church, under its Kentish chief, and the city of London as a
corporation. This was the foundation of a public, a nation ;
and it was what existed no where among the feudatories of the
continent. It was in derogation of the solitary, self-dependent,
exclusive spirit of the Feud, and produced effects of the most
salutary kind in England, as her constitution developed itself.
But in the provisions and guarantees of Magna Charta, the people
at large, the many, the vast majority of the nation, in short, the
conquered Anglo-Saxon race, had no interest, with the exception
of the few holdings left in the hands of the original proprietors
at the conquest, and with the farther exception of their interest
in the church, and in the city of London. We say the church,
because it was the sanctuary and the refuge of the oppressed
races every where, and was, in fact, the democratic element of
society in the middle ages. We say the city of London, because
it was as a body politic and an artificial person of great political
power, that it took part in those proceedings. With these excep-
tions, magna charta was, originally, the work and the bulwark
of the Conquerors only. The Norman barons were like all other
barons, a peerage, and the king, as their lord paramount, only
primus inter pares. It was the great cardinal principle of the
system that the vassal was bound to no service or aid, not ex-
pressed or necessarily implied in his compact. When applied
to for help by his lord. Shylock himself never asked more grudg-
ingly, "is it so nominated in the bond." The usual incidents of
tenure were well defined, and of small account, unless abused —
but for all extraordinary aids and subsidies, the suzerain was

[• See Liber Dciidornm.}
t v. II. p. 8.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 419

absolutely dependent on the good will and pleasure of his feuda-
tories. They were not even bound by the vote of a majority
in the lord's court — the feudal system did not recognise, in strict-
ness, the rule of a majority governing* — each granted for himself,
and he appealed, if his lord demanded more of him, or were
guilty of any other encroachment, to his sword, or his peers.
There never was a fiercer spirit of liberty than animated this
military democracy among themselves, or in relation to their
territorial (for so alone they were) superiors. They were the
worst oppressors to the conquered races — Saxons or Gauls. The
former were forever crying out for the laws of Edward the Con-
fessor— long in vain — for since the days of the Dorians at Sparta,
and their Helots and perioeci. never was there such a frightful
scene of tyranny as that of the Normans in England for upwards
of a century after the conquest. But the same spirit of violence
and lawlessness, which made them such intolerable masters, made
them rebellious vassals. It was that race, who, holding all the
lands by the only noble tenures of knight service and the like,
were the liberi homines of the great charter ; a happy equivoque
that as the pomcerium of the city was enlarged, was easily in-
terpreted so as to take in all freemen of whatever origin or des-
cription. This is, indeed, a memorable instance of the manner
in which Providence often uses the worst things as instruments
to bring about the best ends.t

That this feudal charter, thus generalized, should be in process
of time the solid basis of the freest and best institutions the
world has ever seen — that this treaty, stipulating for the protec-
tion of the haughtiest privileges, and extorted by proud Norman
barons, in arms against their chief, should be found so compre-
hensive in its language and provisions as to include as well the
poor oppressed Saxon, as soon, that is, as he ceased to be poor,
and would no longer consent to be oppressed, is a striking fact,
and yet nothing is more certain — indeed nothing, when it comes
to be examined, will appear more natural. X England is the na-
tion of Europe whose laws, whose manners, whose whole con-
stitution of society, have been most thoroughly penetrated with
the spirit of the feudal system. Yet the same England has
built upon her feudal principles, and animated with her fierce
feudal spirit, a body of laws, to which a foreigner,^ author of a
work dedicated to a comparative analysis of the Judicial Institu-

[* Hist. Const et admimst. de France Ch. 4.]

t On this subject we refer generally to Thierry, Dix ans d'etudes, <fec.

[t Barrington's Stat: 2-5, at p. 48, one of the old Chroniclers says they carried
their point — evaserunt totidem tyranni.]

§ Meyer, Tnstitut. Judiciaires des principaux pays de PEurope, v. II. p. 298. He
is quite enthusiastic, and very naturally so, all his readers will confess, upon
les grands avantages qui assignent &. la legislation de la Grande Bretagne, le
premier rang entre celles de toutes les nations policies.

420 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

tions of Europe, has not scrupled to assign "the first rank among
those of all civilized states" — that glorious common law, which,
transplanted into a new world, has been allied to the only per-
fectly democratic constitutions that have ever existed, and has
for two hundred years given us that for which Sydney bled, sub
libcrtate quietem — which has protected person and property as
they never have been protected elsewhere, under which the
humblest cottage is, in the eye of the law, a tower of strength
and an inviolable sanctuary, which "the winds may whistle
through, and the rains of heaven may enter it, but the king of
England cannot."* We are fully aware how many causes of a
most peculiar kind conspired to produce that marvellous system
of liberty and justice, the common law, but beyond all doubt
the mighty spirit and the great outlines are in Magna Charta —
and that charter was the common law of the feudal aristocracy.
But it was an aristocracy only as compared with the conquered
races ; within itself it was a democracy, jealous to excess (the
more jealous for being a superior caste) of its privileges.! In
short, their situation was, in this respect, exceedingly analogous,
as we shall presently show, to what are called the republican
and democratic states of antiquity. In both cases it is from a
high and exclusive aristocracy that the precepts and maxims of
liberty have been derived, for the benefit of ages which know
how to maintain liberty without the help of aristocracy.

The application of these remarks to the subject before us,
will be made apparent in the sequel, and we will just add that
another characteristic of modern society, of which we shall have
more to say hereafter, may be traced up to the same institutions.
We mean the spirit of individuality that pervades it, the tenden-
cy to isolation and egoisme, the notion that governments are
made for the citizen, not the citizen for government. Uetat c'est
moi, is the language of modern civilization. We shall by and
by see that the Greeks thought differently ; but in the mean time
we will only observe, that all the establishments of the feudal
times were a nursery of this spirit of refractory independence.
The solitary castle, fortified against the law, as well as against
violence ; the gauntlet thrown down in defiance to the opposite
party, nay, to witnesses and judges — the right of private war
and wager of battle, with their fruits, the duel and the point of
honor. In these, as well as in other respects, modern society
has been thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the feudal aristo-
cracy, or. rather, of the military democracy formed by the Teu-
tonic conquerors of Europe.

When we read the accounts transmitted to us from so many
different sources of the highest authority, of what the Athenian

* Lord Chatham on the case of general warrants,
[f Demosth. of the Spartans, <x%% Astttiv xy'.]

THE DEMOCRACY OP ATHENS. 421

democracy became so soon after the Persian war as the death of
Pericles, and what it continued to be as long as it existed at all,
one is almost, as Mr. Hermann observes, at a loss to conceive
how it could have maintained its institutions, in their essentials,
at least for a period of two centuries, and have given to them the
consistency of a regularly organized and highly influential sys-
tem. Nay, we go a step farther, as we profess ourselves of that
school which has no great confidence in what is called the sci-
ence of politics theoretically considered, and are always disposed
in matters of government, to judge the tree by its fruits, our at-
tention is forcibly struck by the unquestionable fact, that not only
was the love of the Athenians for their democratic constitution
a deep rooted and ardent passion, but that the glory and prospe-
rity of the state under that constitution seemed fully to justify
their love.* The evils of popular government, as Machiavelli
remarks, appear worse than they really are. There is compen-
sation for them at least in the spirit and the energy it awakens.
The vis medicatrix of a robust nature enables it to overcome
diseases which would be fatal to the feeble, the inactive, or the
dejected. This vitality and vigor of republican government,
which triumphs over disorder, and resists, for a while, even cor-
ruption, has been remarked at every period of its history. Mod-
ern authors, Bettinelli, for instance, express the liveliest surprise
at the prosperity and progress of the disorderly little common-
wealths of Lombardy, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth,
centuries, amidst all the storms which they had to encounter
from within and from without.! It seems difficult to imagine
how, in a state of things so nearly verging upon the state of na-
ture or downright anarchy, civil society could flourish, industry
accumulate wealth, the face of the country be covered with im-
provements, and its resources of all sorts be multiplied exceed-
ingly. That this was the case in Attica, up to the period of the
Peloponnesian war, is universally admitted. We have to that
extent the express testimony, delivered, too, with emphasis and
admiration, of Herodotus. J We have that of Pausanias, in a
later age, more generally given, and rendered more remarkable
by his admitting the prosperity of Athens, while he affirms it to
be an exception to the usual effect of democratic rule,§ and the

[* See a remarkable passage in point, Demosth. tfgog As^tjvtjv. xK\]

t Risorgimento d'ltalia, 1 v. . 183. It is quite a dissertation. Mette orrore la
storia di quel tempo, che par quella delle tigri e degli orsi ; yet arts, commerce,
schools, population, industry, agriculture, nourished. 188.

| Herod. V. 78. drfkoT Ss ou xarJ sv p,ovvov dXka tfccvra;^, y\ fo/jyogi'v] w£ egi
X£Wa tftfoixSaibv. The expression Irfriyogiri is remarkable and characteristic
of the Greeks — like tfa^ritfia so often used as synonymous with liberty in
general.

§ Pausan. IV. 35, 3.

422 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

unrivalled intellectual glory of the "Demus of Erectheus" is there
to speak for itself. The former of those writers points to the
start in the career of wealth and power, which that people took
as soon as they had overthrown the tyranny of the Pisistratides
as a proof how excellent a thing equality is, for to that alone he
ascribes the change. What makes their brilliant history the
more striking is the singular contrast it presents to that of Spar-
ta, blessed, according to most of the philosophers, with a polity
approaching almost to ideal perfection. It is true, periods of
undisturbed order and happiness do not furnish the most inter-
esting annals. Yet a repose too deep and too long is a sort of
moral death ; and what do we know of Sparta, but through the
history of other states, and chiefly of her rival ? Until the time
of Brasidas, who figured for a brief moment in the Peloponnesian
war, she never produced even a celebrated general ; and Thucy-
dides strikingly remarks, that were she then to pass away, like
other empires, she would leave no monument to show what her
grandeur had been, while Athens was covered all over with the
trophies of genius and power.* And, in truth, what monument
of her art has been celebrated among men ? what mind, in after
times, has been elightened by her wisdom? what bosom awaken-
ed by her eloquence? what ear charmed by the harmony of her
song? A few laconic apophthegms is all we have to show how
the Greek nation, par excellence, the city acknowledged by all
contemporaries as the head of the Grecian world, thought, felt,
and spoke. While her rival, with her crazy constitution and
her perpetual disorders, was the seat of civilization, "native to
famous wits or hospitable" — those very wits by whom she is so
unanimously painted as the mother of anarchy and misrule, —
and from her mouth have issued forth

Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics, old and new.

Her superiority in this respect, which has been celebrated by
later times, in every form of eulogy, does not escape Pericles in
the panegyrical orations ascribed to him by the great historian,
and there is another praise which he justly claims for the capital
of democracy. Not only was she crowned, at home, with pros-
perity and glory, but, although continually guilty in her federal
relations of flagrant injustice, and often of most barbarous and
bloody cruelties, yet that city was, as he alleges, compared with
the rest of Greece, the school of humanity, and of fraternity
among nations. This spirit is, in its perfection, the peculiar cha-
racteristic and the great triumph of Christianity. The opening
to the whole earth of the doors of the temple, hitherto closed
upon all but the descendants of Abraham, was the work of the

*L. I. c. 10.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 423

"Son of Man," and the apostle of the gentiles was emphatically
the evangelist of a New Dispensation. All antiquity was influ-
enced by a bigotry of race, more or less intense and exclusive.
The Spartans were even more remarkable than the Jews, for their
aversion to foreigners, and their avoidance of all commerce with
them (fsv>jXa<ria.) Rome was only comparatively, not absolutely
free from this prejudice. But generally speaking, in the ancient
world, citizenship was an affair of race, and, in more senses than
one, the boundaries of the state and of the world were the same
spatium est urbis et orbis idem. Athens, too, admitted to the
privileges of the commonwealth only those born of parents
both of whom were citizens, and who had been united in lawful
marriage ; but the rule was not enforced with so much rigor as
elsewhere, and many special exceptions were made to it. Then
her maritime position and habits, as well as her necessities, ren-
dered her in some degree commercial. She encouraged the re-
sidence of foreigners of all classes, especially of merchants,
(metcBci). They were, it is true, (and this reveals the spirit we
have just alluded to,) in an inferior condition before the law —
they had no persona stomdi in judicio, and transacted their most
important business in the name and under the protection of a
guardian. They were, also, subjected to a poll-tax, the price of
their privileges, and, if they failed to pay it, or were found guilty
of voting as citizens, were liable to be sold, and were in fact not
unfrequently sold as slaves.* Still they were, on the whole, pro-
tected and favored by the manners, and so great were the attrac-
tions of the city for strangers, that, according to Bockh's calcula-
tions, they composed fully one-third of its free population. They
constituted, principally, the moneyed and mercantile classes.
In short, commerce proved there, as every where else, a mighty
humanizer, while, by the fortunes acquired in such pursuits, it
enabled obscure individuals to eclipse the old families, and be-
came at the same time, as usual, quite as mighty a leveller.
These effects were visible in every thing ; even their slaves were
better protected by the laws, and more indulgently treated, than
in any other city of Greece.t Besides the favor shown to foreign
merchants in the Athenian courts of judicature, numerous proxe-
noi abroad, performing functions analogous to those of modern
consuls, kept up in some degree the spirit of amity with foreign
nations, and the first foundations of public law were laid in trea-
ties of commerce (symbola) concluded with other states.

But, in making up an opinion upon the subject before us, we
must, in the first place, carefully distinguish the period that

[* Aristoph. Acharn. 48. ou)(y^a *"wv a&truv. — See a passage worth citing
Aristoph. Ran. 609. sqq. compared with v. 716. sqq.]

[f Demosth, xowu Mei<5., yet see the horrid story ^Esch. c. Tim.]

424 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OP GREECE.

precedes the Peloponnesian war, from that subsequent to the
breaking out of that demoralizing struggle. Then, the remark
already cited from Professor Wachsmuth, must be borne in mind.
The early opinions and legislation of Athens were considered
in later times as aristocratic, and they undoubtedly were so in
reference to the new standard. Not only the laws of Draco, so
famous for their stern and almost savage spirit, but the constitu-
tion of Solon and Cleisthenes, which was confessedly a compro-
mise between the noble families and the body of the people, still
restrained and repressed the latter exceedingly. So, the great
events of the Persian war, though they elevated the lower order,
whose share in the glory of the contest seemed fairly to entitle
them to a corresponding share in the administration of the com-
monwealth, still exercised, as great events always do, a most
salutary discipline over the public mind. The Areopagus, of
whose influence and authority we have already spoken, gave,
for some time, a high tone to the whole government. The spirit
of democracy, it is true, was continually gaining ground, but it
did so slowly. Aristides yielded to it when he caused the
Archonship to be made accessible to all. Pericles, throughout
his whole administration, studied to keep the people quiet by
exciting their ambition, flattering their pride, and indulging their
more reasonable desires, and he succeeded so effectually in his
purpose, that Thucydides pronounces the government under his
lead, substantially the reign of a single man. It must be re-
marked, (for the fact is a most important one, though we can do
no more here than point it out,) that he was all the while extend-
ing the empire of Athens, and purging the city of the description
of people most likely to create trouble, by establishing colo-
nies of them in the conquered territory, (Cleruchiae), at the
same time that he lavished upon the amusements of the resident
populace the treasures of the whole maritime confederacy. His
high birth, his imposing presence, his mighty eloquence, his
commanding abilities, his elevated character, his profound and
cautious policy, and above all, his uniform success, together with
the real prosperity of the country within — all conspired to pro-
duce that mitigated and rational democracy on which, as we
have seen, he has pronounced, in the pages of Thucydides, so
brilliant a panegyric. The appearance on the public stage of
such a creature as Cleon, immediately after the death of that
mighty man, was a new era. The very people whom he misled,
laughed at the swaggering folly of the upstart, (such is the tes-
timony of the historian,*) who did not shrink from a comparison
with his majestic predecessor. Now the glory of Athens, as its
power, was at its height under the administration of Pericles,
who reaped the harvest sown by the generations that preceded
* See the graphic description, Thucyd. IV. 28.

THE DEMOCRACY OP1 ATHENS. 425

him. They both decayed with the decay of morality and order;
and our only surprise henceforth is that the downfall was not
even more rapid than it really was. But we have already spoken
of the character of the age in which the mind of Thucydides,
and so many others of the same calibre, were formed. The
impulse, given to the people by the heroic spirit and marvellous
triumphs of the Persian war, and the abilities of Miltiades, The-
mistocles, and Cimon, continued to act upon their conduct and
opinions, even amidst the crimes and disasters of the Pelopon-
nesian struggle, and it was nearly a century after the death of
Pericles, before the nefarious demagogues that succeeded him
had completely destroyed the democracy.

It is not our purpose to pursue the subject any farther at pres-
ent. We refer our readers, if they are disposed to do so, to the
books at the head of this article. We cannot consent, however,
to close our observations, without adding some suggestions that
appear to us entitled to the gravest consideration of all who
would study, to any practical good purpose, the Constitutional
History of Greece.

I. Nothing' is so apt to mislead in these inquiries, as the abuse
of language. The application of familiar terms to objects ap-
parently the same, but really, in every essential particular, widely
different from those we are accustomed to designate by them,
has been the source of infinite error and confusion. There can
be no more striking example of what we mean, than the usual
classification of governments in three simple forms. We speak
familiarly of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as if they
were precisely defined and widely distinguished, instead of being
susceptible of endless modifications, and running continually
into one another. Nothing, for instance, is more inevitable, than
that a wild and turbulent democracy will take a monarchical or
an oligarchical shape ; we do not say that it will end, merely, in
such a shape, but that it will exist in it, as long as it exists at
all ; as, for example, in a committee of public safety, or a popular
dictator. Nothing is more sure, in like manner, than that a
savage despotism, naturally degenerates, as the Roman Empire
did, into a military democracy, or oligarchy, (as the case may
be,) of the army or the Praetorian guards. This is the very
law of their being. To call a government democratical, because
its organization is apparently popular, is to forget that both Caesar
and Pisistratus — acknowledged chiefs of the democratical parties
of their day — left every thing in the forms of the Roman and
Athenian constitutions, exactly as they found them ; and that
Bonaparte, at Marengo, was quite as much an autocrat, as Napo-
leon at Austerlitz or Friedland. And so, vice versa, Otho and
Vitellius. or the Gordians and the Maximins, were no more mas-
ters of their empire, than Clovis was of his Franks, or the Bas-
vol. i. — 54

426 CONSTITUTIONAL HISIORY OP GREECE.

tard and his sons of their Norman adventurers. It is in this
respect, chiefly, that political systems need to be recast, and
Herder is right in calling for a new classification and another
Montesquieu.

But, without expatiating upon a topic which needs and deserves
an elaborate exposition, we must remark that democracy, in the
sense now attached to the word, never existed at all in antiquity,
no more than in modem European history, for the revolutionary
governments of France cannot be treated as an exception. We
understand by democracy, as the term is now used, the enjoyment
of perfect numerical equality, both before the law and in the
spirit of society, and that equality, recognised as one of the
universal, inalienable rights of man. This democracy, carried
out to its logical consequences, is at war with every thing savor-
ing of a distinction of castes, races, and nations. The French
did carry it out logically, and they inscribed it upon their revo-
lutionary banner in three words, each of which is essential to
the definition of it — "liberty, equality, fraternity." It is the spirit
of primitive Christianity. Its apostles are tent-makers and fish-
ermen. It takes the weak things of the world to confound the
wise — its priests are often the lowest of the people who are not
Levites. and what was a scandal in Israel is our boast. We have
canonized in our calendar, we have enrolled forever in the capitol,
a printer and a shoemaker, (to name no more,) and we challenge
history for two names more worthy of a place in it than Franklin
and Sherman. So with regard to the foreigner, it breaks down
all barriers — Jew and Gentile, Tros, Tyriusve — all at the same
communion table. Now this was never the opinion of antiquity.
They all believed in race, and reverenced it, (as we have said).
As between nation and nation, their philosophers assume it as
one of their data that some are born to command, and others
to serve and obey ; and this idea was the very basis, not of their
speculations only, but of their whole social state. But, even
within the bounds of their own races, they admitted of family
distinction ; indeed, Muller affirms that the maintenance of fami-
lies was the great cardinal policy of the ancient Greek States.*
A striking proof of the strength of this feeling is found in the
necessity acknowledged by all their reformers, of abolishing old
tribes and establishing new ones,t or substituting for them other
divisions and classes. Thus Solon and Servius Tullius turned
the aristocracy of races into a timocracy, thus admitting into
the body-politic the richer part of the excluded castes. This
was a concession made by the old families to a power no longer
to be resisted, but it was at first, as we have seen Professor
Wachsmuth affirming, no more than a concession. Of course,

• Dorians, v. II. p. 107, (trans.)
t Ibid. G3, cf. Arist. Pol.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 427

in later times, the principle of equality among citizens gained
ground continually ; but yet at Athens, even in times of the most
licentious mob-rule, to be descended of a great house was an
advantage, with a view to public consideration, and even of
mere popular favor.* Not to speak of Pisistratus, Cleisthenes,
Miltiades, Cimon — it did much in that way both for Pericles
and Alcibiades.t The rise of Themistocles to such a height of
political influence had surprised many, notwithstanding his un-
rivalled abilities, because he was meanly born} on the mother's
side. The pride of the Dorian race in their descent from Her-
cules, and the exactness with which they preserved their pedigree,
are well known. But, even at Athens, there were at all periods
hereditary priesthoods in certain families, such as the Eumolpidae
and the Ceryces ; and the influence of superstition and priestcraft,
there, was exceedingly important.§

With this haughty spirit of race was combined another spirit
akin to it, perhaps originally derived from it, which made them
look down with contempt upon all mechanical trades and pur-
suits, and treat with no great respect (however they may have
otherwise eneouraged it) commercial and manufacturing indus-
try. Herodotus is one authority out of a thousand for this, and
he mentions Corinth as a singular exception to a universal rule.ll
Yet Solon in his legislation has enjoined industry as a duty on
his citizens, while Lycurgus interdicted to his every sort of oc-
cupation (agriculture itself included) but war, and the exercises
that prepare the body for it. Pericles, in the important discourse
so often referred to above, boasts of this respect for honorable
industry as one of the advantages of Athens, and claims, even for
the laboring classes in that city, not only an interest but a com-
petent degree of skill in public affairs.^ But the opinion which
consigned to the slave the labors of the peasant and the handi-
craftsman, and excluded from the administration of political af-
fairs those who had no time to devote to liberal pursuits, was
too deeply rooted in the constitution and the habits of society to
be controlled by positive legislation. They are systematically
shut out from all share of the commonwealth by Aristotle, and
the works of the other philosophers abound in precepts and sen-
tences of the same import. Herodotus hesitates whether he shall
trace up these notions to the castes of Egypt, seeing they pre-
vail every where, not only in Greece, but among the barbarians.
It is indeed a prevalent opinion among philologists, countenanced

[* Demosth. xara Msib. t8']
[t Plut. in Lycurgo. (Oratore.)]

[J fsvja, a common place reproach against such men. Aristoph. A-
charn 492. and 704. A v. 11. 764. 1627. 31. 762. 1296. Ran. 418. 681. 1533.]
§ Creuzer, Symbolik IV. c. 8, § 3. cf. Plut. Theseus.
II L. II. 166, 7.
IT L. II. c. 40.

42S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

by high authority among the ancients, that the original Attic
tribes did savor of a distinction, not only of race but of occupa-
tion. But, without having recourse to any historical explanation
of that sort, this aversion to manual labor marks, as we see in
Tacitus' account of the Germans, all warrior tribes among whom
the sword is a more honorable, as well as easy instrument of ac-
quisition, than the plough, and the spear than the pruning hook.
Piracy was in high repute among the older Greeks universally,
as Thucydides remarks, and there were, even in his days, some
parts of the country in which it had lost none of its attractions
or its respectability.

This discredit, thrown upon labor, produced important politi-
cal consequences. It prevented, for instance, the forming of that
great middle class, which is the surest basis of social order every
where.* On the other hand, it engendered necessarily an idle,
needy, rapacious, and profligate populace, haunting the courts of
law, and the general assembly for the sake of the miserable fees
paid for that sort of service, hungry after confiscation and forfei-
ture, living from hand to mouth on the alms, the bribes, or the
plunder of the rich, or on distributions of the public revenues
obtained for them by the demagogues, to whom the poverty of
the multitude was wealth and power.t Here, too. Christianity
introduced a new principle, or renewed a right spirit. It en-
joined and consecrated labor ; it made honest poverty honorable ;
it exalted the humble and lowly. "We beseech you, brethren,
that you study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to
work with your own hands, as we commanded you."£ The or-
der of St. Benedict, by establishing a system of free labor, on the
principles thus enjoined upon the primitive church, created, as
Herder remarks, a new era in Europe.

II. At once a cause and an effect of this contempt for the arts
of industry was the universal prevalence of domestic slavery,
and that not only as an actual institution, but as an essential ele-
ment of civilized society. We have referred to Aristotle's doc-
trine upon that subject, when we spoke of all labor being con-
signed to the bondman. § With him the relation of master and
slave is just as indispensable in every well ordered state, as that
of husband and wife, or the other domestic relations. He de-
velops, systematically, and without hinting the shadow of a
doubt, the utility of the institution, and its consonancy to right
reason. Different races of men had been created for the purposes

* Best government, where roXu to /jlso'cv. Arist. Pol. IV 11. So, at Rome
the same thing occurred. Minore indies plebe ingenua, says Tacitus. It was
the aim of the Gracchi to counteract this tendency of the system in Italy.

t So at Rome. Ilia concionalis hirudo aerarii, misera et jejuna plebecula. Cic .
Three hundred thousand received public corn in the time of Augustus.

j Thessalon. I, iv. 10, 11. lb. II. iii. 10. I. Cor. iii. 8.

[§ See a remarkable place, Aristoph. Ecclesias 651. 19.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 429

of a high social improvement, some to serve, others to command
some to provide a community with the means of subsistence by-
manual labor and the useful arts, others to think for it, to fight
for it, to embellish and enlighten it, by genius and philosophy.
The last could only be well done by those who had nothing else
to do. The exquisite organization of the Greek showed, he
thought, an aristocracy of nature, to which the barbarian should
do a willing homage and yield a cheerful obedience. Those
keen perceptions, those refined sensibilities, those organs so sus-
ceptible to the impressions of beauty and melody, those thoughts
so elevated and aspiring, that wonderful intelligence, combining
whatever was most abstract and most profound in metaphysical
speculation, and subtile and shadowy in the distinctions of logic
with whatever was most sublime, and most rapturous in poetical
inspiration, creating forms, in which all ages have recognised
and adored the image of ideal beauty — could these be expected
of men brought up to toil and sweat, immersed in grovelling
cares, condemned to hard labor for life? Their civilization
was so exquisite, that a change in their music was a revolution
in politics, and incredible as it may appear, no subject is more
gravely treated by their wisest men, than this connection be-
tween moods and measures of harmony, and the morals of a
people.* How could such refinement exist, but in a race not
only most happily constituted, but educated, consecrated, and
set apart, from earliest infancy, for the study of art and the con-
templation of the beautiful ? Accordingly, one of the soundest
thinkers, as well as best informed writers of later times, affirms
that, beyond all doubt, the unapproachable excellence of the
Greeks in art and literature was in some degree due to the exis-
tence of domestic slavery among them, and could not have exist-
ed without it.f

However that may be, those commonwealths, and even the
most democratical of them, were as close oligarchies as those form-
ed by the Franks in Gaul, or the Normans in England. Bockh
reckons the whole number of slaves in Attica at about 365,000,
to 95,000 citizens, and 45,000 resident foreigners. In Sparta the
disproportion was probably still greater, for besides the Helots,
the Periseci (or Lacedaemonians properly so called) were in a
state of inferiority and dependence not very far above the villen-
age of the middle ages. The Doric race was literally, as has
been said of their successors the Turks, encamped in the midst
of subjugated enemies. Indeed, Isocrates uses this very term in
regard to them.t All intimate union, as by marriage for instance,
nay, all social intercourse with the conquered, was forbidden to

* See a remarkable passage, Cic. de Legib. II. 15.
t Heeren Ideen Europaische Volker, 10 absch.

X Archidamas, p. 314.

430 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

the conquerors. Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam.
A more jealous, barbarous, grinding, inexorable despotism never
existed, than that exercised by the Spartans over their subjugated
brethren, (for so they were) — who, be it remarked, were slaves,
not of individuals, but of the whole community, by far the worst
form of bondage.* The domestic habitudes, the personal quali-
ties and affections that always mitigate that relation between
man and man, and rendered it at Athens proverbially light and
easy, even to insubordination, can have no effect on masses, gov-
erned only by fixed laws, and an inexorable state-necessity. But,
although the situation of Sparta was, in this respect, somewhat
peculiar, and the interdicting to him all business whatever, con-
demned the citizen to a life of faineantise, from which war was
the only refuge ; yet the same effects, though in a less degree,
were produced by the same cause in every Greek commonwealth.
A hundred thousand Athenian citizens lorded it over more than
four times their number of slaves and metics — not to speak of
their foreign or federal dominion, by which they were invested
with jurisdiction, civil and political, over the majority of the
Greeks. Was this democracy at all different from the feudal
peerage of which we have spoken ?

Another important reflection naturally occurs to us here. One
of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, of all social pro-
blems, is, how far, in a country fully peopled, as every part of
Europe now is, the laboring classes, those, in other words, who
subsist upon wages, and depend upon their daily labor for their
daily bread, can be admitted to a share in the commonwealth,
consistently with the preservation of order, under a limited gov-
ernment. Our situation is altogether anomalous ; we have no
poor, and centuries must elapse before we shall feel the evils of
an excess in that way — we have but the beginnings of a popula-
tion ; universal suffrage, therefore, and other institutions which
may be attended with benefit, or at any rate, with but little evil,
here, would infallibly lead to civil war and military despotism
in France, or even in England. Is this to be forever so ? Is
that "slavery of the whites," which the great prophet and apostle
of the poor, the Abbe de Lamennais, pronounces so much worse
than the bondage of the blacks, the unchangeable condition of
things? or when, how, how far, is it to be susceptible of correc-
tion? The masses in Europe are called free, yet they every
where receive the law, and their destinies and those of their
children are in the hands of their task-masters. They are, in
truth, with few exceptions, a permanently degraded caste ; and
are, like the Helots, slaves, not of individuals, but of whole
communities. On this subject the history of antiquity throws

* This is well developed by J. F. Reitemeir Sklaverey, u. s. w. in Griechenland,
p. 123.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 431

no light. Their philosophers solved the dreadful problem, we
have stated, against the majority of mankind, and doomed the
many to serve perpetually for the well-being and improvement
of the few.

III. Immediately connected with the foregoing remarks, is
another that must never be lost sight of in reading the history
of the ancient commonwealths. War was the permanent, and
so to speak, the natural and ordinary state of things among
them. In modern times peace is the rule, war the exception ;
among the ancients, it was just the contrary. The presumption
was against the foreigner, alien ne was alien enemy, and, unless
protected by express treaty, he was not protected at all. Kid-
napping was at all times a common and incorrigible evil of an-
tiquity, and piracy, as we have remarked, once held every where
in as much honor as war itself, never ceased to be the law of
some nations, and the occasional practice of all.* Revolutions
in government, and other social disorders, always filled the land
and the sea with banditti of this sort.

If we consider what were the laws of war in those times, we
shall not at all' wonder that such effects upon the opinions and
conduct of mankind ensued upon the perpetual repetition of it.
Those laws justified almost any violence upon an enemy. They
breathe the exterminating fury of savage life; it is Achilles
avenging the death of Patroclus. The Homeric poems, which
present, in many respects, a moral picture less disgusting than
Greek history, in what were called more civilized ages,t were
true to nature in this, as in every thing else, and no very impor-
tant change took place subsequently in the

xyjfk' oV av^wtfcitfj tfs'Xej, tgjv ag'v a\ur\.\ — 11. ix. 592.

The heroes of the Iliad pursue their enemy not only to death,
but beyond it. They butcher him in cold blood, cut off his head
and set it upon a pole, drag his body at their chariot wheels,
and cast it forth to be devoured by the dogs and the fowls of the
air. His wife, though a princess, becomes the slave of the vic-
tor— his children have their brains dashed out, or are reduced to
the same condition. Fields were laid waste, orchards and forests
cut down or burnt up, towns sacked and razed to the earth. In
short, on the principle of lawyers, that omne majus in se continet
minus, the man of blood who went forth to destroy^ forfeited,
with life, whatever was his to the object of his cruel hostility ;

[* See the hist. ( ; ) of Dionysius the Tyrant in Diod. Sic. 1. 15.]

t Athence. 1. V. 12. 15. 19. 20. Homer says the poor and the stranger are un-
der Jove's protection, a sentiment too refined for subsequent times.

[J See the Chor. JEschylus, Sept. adv. Thebas v. 323 seqq., otftfct xax'.
Arist. Rhet.]

[ § Sov'hsia quasi (SsiXsjcc. Plut. Gryl. IV.]

4.32 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

and no Grotius had yet taught mankind to make war only the
means of peace, and the discipline of knightly courage ancl
courtesy.*

The consequence of this important fact was that all the insti-
tutions of antiquity were adapted to war, not only as an occa-
sional event, but as the prime concern of social life. To recur
to the analogy of the savage state : like our Indians, they trained
up their young men to the arts of destruction, and, if they failed
them, then to meet death and tortures, "exile, and ignominy, and
bonds, the sentence of their conqueror," with patience and forti-
tude. This explains their mode of discipline and education.
The infant, who promised to be puny or deformed, was condemned
as unfit to live. Infanticide was universal — it was even a sort
of mercy. The infant warrior, in the myth, was dipped by his
mother in one of the rivers of hell — he was hardened by exposure,
invigorated by exertion, made nimble and supple by exercise.
The gymnasium was thus an indispensable institution, and we
no longer wonder at the figure it makes in the philosophy of
Plato.t The glory of the Olympic stadium was a part of the
same system — nor is it without grave reasons of state that such
an interest was felt by the most cultivated people in quoit-pitch-
ing, leaping, wrestling, boxing, and such like exercises, or that
the genius of the first, beyond comparison, of lyric poets, should
have immortalized the happy victors who turned up the Olympic
dust with their glowing chariot wheel s.J A stoical apathy with-
in accompanied this external discipline, and steeled the breast
equally against the cries of the vanquished and the insults of
the haughty conqueror. The principle of slavery, as a substitute
for death in battle, being universally recognised and acquiesced
in, the captive knew his doom, and met it without a murmur.
Greeks, it is true, among Greeks, were frequently, perhaps gene-
rally, ransomed ; but that was an exception to a well settled rule,
and the shocking scenes recorded by Thucydides show how
little such could be counted on. There was nothing to secure
any part of Greek society against the most cruel reverses of the
kind, and the proudest nobles, the first gentlemen and ladies, (if
those names were not peculiarly christian,) might look forward
with melancholy apprehension to the chances of being sold, with
their delicate children, into slavery, and being made to writhe

* See especially the frightful picture drawn by old Priam, 1. XXII. 60. sqq., and
compare 1. XVIII. 175. sqq., and the touching story of the Egyptian king Psam-
menitus. Herod. III. 14.

Yet Aristotle — a voice crying in a wilderness, 1. VII. 15. and Isocrates, Pana-
then, and de Pace, hold the language of philosophy and humanity on this subject.
Plut. Nicias.

[t See a passage in point. Diod. Sic. xv. 50. of the Thebans preparing for their
great war by the gymnasium.]

l For the importance of bodily strength in ancient warfare, see Plutarch's
Life of Pelopidas, who seems to have been a very Paladin.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 433

under the scourge, being cast into mines and quarries, or com-
pelled to undergo any other outrage or torture at the pleasure of
a barbarous master.*

It is plainly impossible to do justice to any institution of an-
tiquity, without giving its due weight to this important and fun-
damental consideration. The deeds and the scenes of violence
that are so revolting to the modern reader, made by no means
the same impression on a Greek, even in the most civilized age.
Witness the coolness with which Thucydides relates so many
horrible atrocities. Gradually, to be sure, as men became more
accustomed to the enjoyment of peace, its blessings would begin
to be better appreciated, and be sometimes extolled. Isocrates
speaks in this vein, and Aristotle was beyond his age in that as
in almost all things. Athens, from being the ruling city, the
seat of empire for half a century, was become soft and luxurious,
and her genius turned to the best account the advantages which
her power gave her. She was the torturer, not the victim : the
mistress, not the slave; and in the quiet purchased for her by
her naval force, and paid for with the sufferings of others, she
learned to moralize and be sentimental, and so the stern spirit
of ancient warfare might occasionally be censured and rebuked
by a speculative philosopher. But certainly her practical men
and the great bulk of her people thought of the rights of con-
quest as their ancestors had thought. Accordingly, they never
affected to deny or palliate the fact, that their federal policy was
essentially despotic. They set up the tyrant's plea of necessity,
and openly relied upon the right of the strongest. This avowal
repeatedly occurs in Thucydides, but no where in form more
cynical and odious, than in the answers he puts into the mouths
of their plenipotentiaries in the curious conference they are
reported to have held with the representatives of the besieged
Melians.f Their practice, too, was in the strictest conformity
with their principles, and Mitford found it abundantly easy to
exemplify the rapacity, violence, and cruelty, which he alleges
to be inherent in democracy, in every part of the conduct of
Athens towards her allies. But he forgot that cruelty, rapacity,
and violence, were the characteristics of all forms of government
m antiquity— that they infected the whole spirit of society — that
oligarchies waged perpetual wart with the people, and waged it
with a ferocity nothing short of infernal§ — that single tyrants
perpetrated habitually such horrible excesses as throw into the
shade even the Eccelini and the ViscOnti of the middle ages. I!

[♦According to Plutarch the victory at Leuctra was gained by bodily strength —
they actually wrestled.]
t 1. V. 87. sqq.

[t Plut. Lysander B. 14. 19, 77. Thebes— Odyss. xi. 264.]
§ Thucyd. III. SI, 2.

II Picture of a petit tyrant. Plut. Pelopidas, c, 30. Alexander the Thessalian,
vol. i. — 55

434 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

We refer, for a singular illustration of this reverence for the
right of the strongest, to an oration of Isocrates, which we have
had more than one occasion to cite. The old rhetorician had
been declaiming against Sparta for her contempt of all laws,
and her remorseless spirit of conquest, and exalting, in compari-
son with it, the more humane and peaceful conduct of Athens.
He had gone so far in his invective that he felt some remorse for
his intemperance — but what was his surprise when, on consulting
a professed partisan of that state, he found him regarding that
declamation as only an artful piece of irony, and the pretended
censures as really the highest panegyric*

IV. Another important peculiarity of the political systems of
antiquity was the idea, so opposite, as we hinted above, to the
fundamental principle of the Feud, and consequently to the
spirit of modern governments, that the individual existed only
in and for the whole society, and was at all times under its ab-
solute control, and liable, with all that was his. to be sacrificed
for its benefit.

The perpetual war in which the cities, as a refuge from ene-
mies.t had their origin, and which converted every common-
wealth into a sort of camp, with the discipline and the unity of
a military organization, had its effect, no doubt, in producing
this state of opinion. This, it is true, was more remarkably the
case with the Dorian states, but, in spite of the boast of Pericles
in the oration so often referred to, not exclusively so. Thus, the
whole organization of the classes and centuries at Rome was
strictly military, and political rights were distributed in reference
to services to be rendered in war. It was so with the constitu-
tion established by Solon. Now, it was inevitable that an idea
so fundamental and so predominant should influence all the opi-
nions of the people, and their whole manner of being. Accord-
ingly, their definition of a state, and their conception of the ends
of the social union, as well as the means and powers by which
they were to be accomplished, were as different from ours as
martial law is from the usual course of a limited government.
In our times, the notion is beginning more and more to prevail,
that the less governed the world is, consistently with the preser-
vation of order, the better for it — that society is to be looked to only
for protection against force and fraud, and that the individual shall
be restricted as little as possible in the enjoyment of his liberty,
the pursuits of business, and the comforts of personal accommoda-
tion. In short, amidst the perils of perpetual war among the
states of Greece, the salus populi, which is every where the
supreme law, necessarily superseded all others. In modern
times, where war is only an episode — becoming every day more

* Panathenaic. Epilog.

ft Thftbes Odyss. xi. 264-5. J

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 435

rare, and at the worst, confined to a part of the nation omy —
there is the ease and the careless freedom of a state of entire
security.

But not only did the permanent condition of the ancient com-
monwealths lead naturally to that despotism of the society over
the individual, but the peculiar turn of the Greek mind extended
it still farther, and reduced it to the shape of a theoretical sys-
tem. We spoke, in the former part of these remarks, of the ideas
of political justice embodied by the philosophers in their Utopian
commonwealths. These all, from Pythagoras downwards, re-
gard a state as a body politic, organized after the fashion of the
natural body, with a variety of members and faculties varying
in dignity, but each indispensable in its place, and all co-opera-
ting to the same end, the health, strength, and well-being of the
whole, under the absolute control of one will and understanding/
A polity, say they, is the soul of a city, and stands in the same
relation towards it as reason to the human system.t There
ought, therefore, to be in every well ordered community a com-
plete identity of interests, an entire sympathy between all the
the parts, and there was nothing necessary or useful to the whole
which it had not a perfect right to exact of every individual in
it. It was on this principle, that sumptuary and agrarian laws
were resorted to, and other means of enforcing an artificial equal-
ity of condition. The Dorian states seem to have approached as
nearly as possible to the complete execution of this system of
universal restraint and discipline. According to the so-called
laws of Lycurgus, the state interferes with every concern of the
citizen — it determines whom he shall marry, and when he shall
repudiate his wife — it dictates to him which of his children he
shall bring up, and which of them he shall expose to the beasts
and birds on Mount Taygetus — it limits the quantity of land he
shall hold, and his power of disposing of it — it interdicts to him,
as we have seen, all commerce and business whatever — it binds
him soul and body — thinks for him, feels for him, acts for him,
or what comes to the same thing, compels him to think, feel, and
act only for itself. Swift's Houyhnhnms that had no fondness
for their foals, but took care of them only from reason, and be-
stowed the same attention on their neighbor's offspring as their
own, were of the true Spartan breed. This odious system, so
well calculated to extinguish all genius, nay, thought — to turn a

* Iamblich. ub. sup. 168. c. 30.

<ro xosvov xeu Itfov, xccl co s-yyvrcLrw'

svog tfwjuoaToj xa; jar^c 4^/t^ o/xotfa^sn/ rfkvrac;. *****

* * * iv <ro?j rj&zdi <ro 'ibiov nfSLv sfo^itfacr * * * , etc.

He alludes, no doubt, to Plato de Repub. 1. V. p. 461, where the same analogy
of the human body, and the sympathy of all its parts with each, is used,
f Isocrat. Panathenaic, vs.

436 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

whole people into a mere machine, like a well drilled standing
army — to make it, as has been said of China, a shrivelled mum-
my, not like it swathed in silk, but armed in proof, was the
boasted suragia of the Dorians, so much envied by Plato and
Xenophon. It will present the contrast between the ancient and
modern worlds, in this important matter of the right of society
to control the pursuits and purposes of the individual, in a very
striking light, to look into the works of one of the greatest cham-
pions of liberty that ever existed, and to see in what he makes it
to consist — we mean Milton. Our space will not admit of our
doing more than barely alluding to the three species of freedom
which he held to be essential to social life — the religious, the
domestic, and the civil ; and adding that, to promote the first, he
wrote his Treatise on Reformation — to establish the second, he
published his Treatise on Divorce, his Tractate on Education,
and his Areopagitica or liberty of unlicensed printing ; while his
ideas as to the third may be found in all his works, but especially
in his famous defence of Regicide.* Yet, with all his freethink-
ing, Milton was, as every body knows, grave, austere, and strictly
regular in his life and habits.t His opinions, therefore, are a
remarkable specimen of the deep-rooted notions of personal inde-
pendence that have taken possession of the modern mind on the
subject of legislative interference with the private concerns of
mankind, t

It is true, as we have seen, that this despotism of the whole
over the parts, this absorption of the individual in the body poli-
tic, was much more mitigated in the Ionian than in the Dorian,
in the democratic than in the oligarchical states. In that beau-
tiful picture which Pericles paints of the democracy in its highest
estate, happy at home, triumphant abroad, obedient to its own
law, controlled by its calm reason, he dwells particularly on the
social ease and freedom of Athens as one of its greatest privileges.
So Aristotle considers an impatience of the restraints imposed
elsewhere on the individual, as one of the characteristics of po-
pular government. We do not understand him, in these passages
as Mr. Hermann, does, merely to mean that such government al-
ways tends to licentiousness and anarchy. We think he refers to a
general relaxation of the corporation-spirit, the state control, of
which we have been speaking, and we admit that he doos not
seem altogether to approve it. If we are right in our interpreta-
tion of his sense, here is another point in which the democracy
of antiquity showed a tendency towards the principles that are

•See Life of Milton, prefixed to the Aldine edition of his poems, p. xvi.

[t Cf. 1. Bl. Com. 126.]

t Yet in the incorporated towns of the Low Countries, which were all close oli-
garchies, the esprit, de corps produced similar effects, and the bourgeois was absorb-
ed in the commune or body politic. Meyer. Inst. Judic. III. 75. 96.

THE DEMOCRACY OP ATHENS. 437

at the bottom of all modern civilization. But. however mitigated
the effects of the principle referred to may have been at Athens,
it still operated to a very considerable extent upon the opinions
of men, and, of course, upon the administration of affairs.

Now those effects are all such as would shock a modern reader
most. The sanctity of private property, for example, may be
regarded as a great cardinal principle of European society. The
difference between even military autocracy in that continent, and
Asiatic despotism, consists precisely in this. The latter is not. the
sovereign, the ruler only ; he is the proprietor of his states, and
all that reside within it. His dominions are his domains. The
law of meum et tnum is merged in the public law, and the estates
as well as the lives of the subject are a mere peculium, held at
the mercy of a master. In Europe, the jus privatum, is every
where sacredly observed, and strictly enforced. No absolute
monarch there ever dreams of infringing the rights of private
property, farther than is permitted by the fundamental law.
The windmill of Sans Souci is the great monument of the Euro-
pean jus gentium — a monument prouder than any arch or co-
lumn at Rome or Paris. The eminent domaine is, indeed, every
where acknowledged, but so is the principle of compensation to
be made for all property needed for the public service. This
principle is consecrated in the French code, and extended so far
as to require the compensation to be previously paid. A Greek,
it is plain, never could feel the same sensibility on that subject.
His way of thinking, in regard to it, was more Asiatic than Eu-
ropean. In his eyes the property as well as the life of the indi-
vidual belonged absolutely to the state. He drew no impassable
line between ihejus publicum and jus privatum — he was apt to
allow of an indictment where an action only should have lain.
The language of Barrere's famous proclamation in '93 was just
such as he had been accustomed to hear, as a carmen necessa-
rium, from his tenderest years. There were, of course, many
cases in which he would have this stern political justice tempered
with a little mercy, in which he might even think it so harsh
and cruel as to shrink from enforcing it. But he could not pos-
sibly regard their financial system — which to us looks merely
like legalized plunder — with the disgust it inspires now. So of
all the scenes of confiscation and forfeiture which were continu-
ally passing before his eyes.

But the operation of the principles we are speaking of by no
means stopped there. It pervaded the whole life of the Greek
city. We have seen how the legislator interfered with and con-
trolled the strongest instincts of nature, and all the dearest affec-
tions of the heart. Shocking as such a system appears to us,
every philosopher of antiquity not only admits its propriety, but
inculcates its fundamental and indispensable importance. Edu-

438 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

cation is every where regarded as matter of state policy ; and to a
greater extent than is dreamed of in our philosophy. Plato
would hegin within the womb, and take care that the left hand
be made, by exercise, as useful as the right.* The child was
begotten for the service of the commonwealth, and was to be
trained up to suit its exigencies. "Madam," said Bonaparte, to a
lady of rank who had besought him to accept of a substitute or
any equivalent for the service of her only son, ordered to join
the army in the Russian campaign, — "you, your child, and your
fortune, are my property already" — and few things rendered him
more justly odious to the people of that country, than this cyni-
cal avowal of a stern military, and even barbarous despotism.
Every modern feels it so, and perhaps, in the mouth of Alexander
a Greek would have thought it savored of the oriental pride he
affected, yet it was, in fact, the language of all their laws and
the practices of all their governments.

Nor was this control over the popular mind confined to tne
education of youth. It shaped public opinion in every thing and
made all morality an affair of positive institution.! Mala pro-
hibita were not only as criminal as mala in se, but the whole
evil in every case was created by the statute. Home Tooke's
etymology of right — rectum — from regerc, to rule, was literally
exact there. Utility, in the narrowest sense, and with its most
licentious tendency, became naturally the standard of justice.
Whatever was advantageous to the state was, of course, right,
and the sophists, who openly professed and sedulously inculcated
that doctrine, might render it somewhat more odious by exagge-
ration, but taught nothing but what was implicitly received in
all the conduct of governments. To say that infanticide was
the universal, familiar, and approved usage of antiquity, is say-
ing every thing. The Spartan theft, punished only if discovered,
was obviously a misnomer.t The law gave the property to
whoever could appropriate it without being detected. It was as
good a title as any other. It was only pushing out to one more
consequence the principle of which we are speaking, and of
which the tendency was to blunt in all things the perception of
any distinction between meum and tuum. Accordingly, nothing-
could be more glaring and notorious than Spartan dishonesty, in
every shape which fraud and injustice could take ; and the state
of public morals at Athens was no better. Defalcations were
universal among the receivers of public money. Bockh, in the
valuable work so often cited, has the following equally just and

* De Leg. VI. 765. a VII. passim.

f The to 6ixgcjov not the same in all governments. Arist. Pol. V. 9.
So he speaks of what was good airXug, and what was good ^o^ttjv tfoXiTS-
iav. IV. 7.
[I Cf. Schloss. 1 Th. 2 abth. 236.]

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 439

pointed observations : "From what has been said, it is evident
that there was no want at Athens of well-conceived and strict
regulations ; but what is the use of provident measures where
the spirit of the administration is bad ? Men have at all times
been unjust and covetous, and unprincipled, and above all, the
Greeks distinguished themselves for the uncontrolled gratification
of their desires, and their contempt for the happiness of others.
If any competent judge of moral actions will contemplate their
character without prejudice, and unbiassed by their high intellec-
tual endowments, he will find that their private life was unsocial
and devoid of virtue ; that their public conduct was guided by
the lowest passions and preferences ; and, what was worst of all,
that there existed a hardness and cruelty in the popular mind,
and a want of moral principle, to a far greater degree than in
the Christian world. . . . When we consider the principles of
the Greeks, which are sufficiently seen from their historians and
philosophers, it cannot be a matter of surprise that fraud was
used by public officers at Athens in so great a matter as the re-
gulation of the days. . . . Every where we meet with instances
of robberies and embezzlement of money by public officers ; even
the sacred property was not secure from sacrilegious hands."*
This is literally exact, and yet the Athenian might affirm with
truth, that he was no worse than his neighbors. The whole
drift of Isocrates. in his Panathenaic oration, is to show that if
his degenerate countrymen were bad, (as he acknowledges them
to be,) the Spartans were in all respects a great deal worse. His
success in such an undertaking is only a proof of the deep and
disgusting moral depravity of the ancient world. There is
scarcely a great man of Greece whose biography is free from
some of those dark stains, which no virtues would now be
thought sufficient to compensate, and no glory to conceal. With-
out citing the examples of such men as Themistocles and Lys-
ander, notoriously, and even for their own times, remarkably
unprincipled, however gifted and celebrated men, Plutarch has
scarcely a hero who would pass muster as a gentleman now.
Timoleon, for instance, has been pronounced by Heeren and
others, the most perfect model of a republican in the history of
the world— a world that had seen our Washington! And we
admit that we do not think the annals of popular government,
in all antiquity, offer an example, on the whole, more enviable
and winning. Yet, if his biographer is to be relied on, he was
accessory to, by permitting, as barbarous and wanton a murder
as the mean vengeance of faction ever perpetrated.t

* Pub. Econ. of Athens, v. II. 260. Cf. Athense. XII. passim,
f Plutarch says it was of all Timoleon's works, the a-^a^gorarov ! Gentle
enough, surely. [Not to mention his killing his brother. Diod. Sic. xvi. 65.]

440 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

V. There remains to be suggested another consideration of
importance, that ought not to escape the student of Greek history.

We have just seen what their idea of a state, was in relation
to the individuals that composed it ; the same notion of its com-
posing a close, compact, regularly organized whole, applied
equally to the space it was to include within its limits. Both
in Greek and Latin, the words which signify a state and city,
are synonymous. Ancient society, as has been remarked by
several writers of ability*, was born in cities, modern, in the
country and the castles, and this difference of origin would natu-
rally have some effect on their respective characters. It is very
remarkable, for example, that, when communities analogous to
those of antiquity sprang up in the incorporated towns of the
middle ages, many peculiarities of the ancient oligarchies or de-
mocracies were observable in their conduct and policy.t These
peculiarities, however, owing perhaps, in some degree, to the
fact that the cities were, after all, only subordinate parts of still
greater communities, and were, more or less, subjected to their
control, never developed themselves so fully in the modern mu-
nicipal governments as in the sovereign commonwealths of
Greece. But, besides this, there was, as we have shown, some-
thing in the original bent of the Greek mind, that led to the
study of unity of design and symmetry of parts in government
as in art and poetry. Be that as it may, certain it is that the
greatest philosophers among them would have regarded as some-
thing monstrous a republic, spreading over half a continent and
embracing twenty-six states, each of which would have itself
been an empire, and not a commonwealth, in their sense of the
word. Aristotle expressly declares, that the population of a city
must not be allowed to increase beyond a competent number,
because it would cease to be a state, (toXk) and would become a
nation, (s&vog,) unsusceptible of any thing deserving the name of
a polity.}:

As the excessive length of these remarks admonishes us to
hasten to a close, we shall not extend them farther than barely
to allude to the care which the Greek lawgiver was forced to
bestow upon keeping the number of his citizens always just at
the proper point of fulness, without redundancy, and at the im-
portant changes that sometimes occurred from accidental causes.
Thus, the great plague, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war, is supposed, by Wachsmuth, to have wrought a sort of re-
volution at Athens ;§ and this it did, not only by the extreme

* Guizot, Si&mondi, &c.

t Meyer Institutions Judieaires. ubi supra.

i Pol. VII. 4.

§ V. II. 189. Aristotle had pointed out the way. Pol, v. 3, 4.

THE DEMOCRACY OF ATHENS. 441

dissoluteness that always accompanies such events, but by dis-
turbing the relations between the different classes of society, and
depriving the people of some of their wisest guides and counsel-
sors. Not only so, but, on such occasions, in order to fill up the
ranks of society, means would be resorted to which could not
but produce the most pernicious effects upon its general charac-
ter such as polygamy, the legitimating of bastards, the emanci-
pation of slaves, and the naturalizing of foreigners. A great bat-
tle* would be accompanied with the same effects, and even a
comparatively trifling loss would be most severely felt, if it hap-
pened to fall upon the flower of the citizen soldiers ; witness the
extraordinary impression made at Sparta by#the capture of a bare
handful of their troops at Pylus. The result was that, since a
city ought neither to be too great nor too small, and the popula-
tion should not be allowed to dwindle away, on the one hand, or
press too heavily upon the means of subsistence on the other, the
division of the land belonging to it — its ager — became, as Nie-
buhr remarks, the great first principle of ancient political philo-
sophy and legislation.!

We will add one more remark in this connection. Montes-
quieu's ideas were formed, in this respect, on the doctrines and
examples of antiquity. He thinks republican government adap-
ted only to small spaces and limited numbers — just the circum-
stances under which the frenzy of the moment is most fatal to
law and liberty, — the hatred and hostility of individuals, the
feuds of families, and the mutual jealousy of classes, are most
apt to grow into deep-rooted and inveterate factions. If there
were no other obstacle to the establishment of popular govern-
ment in France, the overruling influence of Paris would, alone,
be an insuperable one. One of the great conservative principles
of our own republican institutions is the very extensive space
over which they spread their benignant influences. In this point
of view, as in so many others, the blessings of the federal union
are above all price and all praise. But that is a subject for a
more ample and solemn examination.

We will only say, in conclusion, that, if every American, who
looks upon the picture we have presented of the so-called democ-
racy of Athens, feels, as he must, a still deeper and more fervent
gratitude to heaven, for having cast his lot in this most blessed
of all lands, where perfect liberty has hitherto been found united
with the dominion of the law and the reign of order, let him be
penetrated with the conviction, that he owes it to the institutions
of our fathers as they were originally conceived. Let him be
assured that their glorious work needs no reforming, and that
the base flatterers of the sovereign people, who preach to them of

[*So the great insurrection of Helots after the great earthquake in Sparta.]
t Compare Arist. Fol. V. 7. and VII. 4. 11.
vol. I. — 56

442 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GREECE.

their infallibility, are here, what they ever have been, the ambi-
tious, the vain, the unprincipled, the aspiring, who would bow
down and worship any other power that could promote their own.
History is written in vain, if mankind have not been taught that
demagogue and tyrant are synonymous ; and that he who pro-
fesses to be the friend of the people, while lie persuades them to
sacrifice their reason to their passions — their duty to their capri-
ces— their laws, their constitution, their glory, their integrity, to
the mere lust of tyrannical misrule— is a liar, and the truth is
not in him.

DEMOSTHENES.

1. Demosthenes als Staatsbiirger, Redner und SchrifFsteller. Von Albert
Gerard Becker, Pastor zu St. Aegidii in Cluedlinburg. Erste Abtheilung
Literatur des Demosthenes. Quedlinburg und Leipzig. 1830.

Zweite Abtheilung. Nachtrage und Fortsetzung der Literatur vom J.
1830 bis zum Schlusse des J. 1833. Quedlinburg und Leipzig. 1834.

•2. Gtuaestionum Demosthenicarum Particula tenia. De Litibus quas Demosthe-
nes oravit ipse. Scripsit Antonius Westermann, in Academia Lips. Prof.
Ord. Accedit epimetrum de repetitis locis in orationibus Demosthenis.
Lipsiac, MDCCCXXXIV.

3. A Dissertation on the Eloquence of the Ancients, with an Appendix, by Lord
Brougham, in Lord Brougham's Speeches, vol. 4. Edinburgh. 1838.

The subject of popular eloquence, always an attractive one
in free countries, has been invested for us with a more than
ordinary interest by the events of the last year. A new era
seems to have occurred in the development of our democratic
institutions. There have been congresses of the sovereigns in
proper person. We have seen multitudes, probably greater than
any addressed by the ancient masters, brought together, by means
of the steam engine, from the most distant parts of our immense
territory, to consult with one another upon the state of the nation,
and to listen to the counsels of men distinguished among us for
their influence or ability. We have seen the best speakers of the
country, called for from all parts of it, compelled to leave their
homes however remote — some of them drawn forth even out of
the shades of private life — to advise, to instruct, and to animate
their fellow-citizens, exhausting all their resources of invention
to supply topics, of strength to endure fatigue, of oratory to
command attention, and even of voice to utter and articulate
sound, in order to meet the almost incessant demands made upon
them by a people insatiable after political discussion. It was
not one part of the country that was thus awakened and agitated,
the commotion was universal; yet nothing was more remarkable
in these stirring scenes than the order, decorum and seriousness
which in general distinguished them. These eager throngs
listened like men accustomed to inquire for themselves, and to
weigh the grounds of their opinions. There was to us, we
confess, something imposing and even majestic in such mighty
exhibitions of the Democracy. But quiet and patient as these

444 DEMOSTHENES,

vast popular audiences certainly were, to a degree much beyond
anything that could have been imagined beforehand, their atten-
tion was far from being uniform andundiscerning. They never
once failed to listen to the best speech with the deepest silence,
and to award the highest honors to the best speaker. We mean
the best in the proper, critical sense of the word ; for our previous
opinions, founded upon the experience of other times, have been
fully confirmed by our own, that it is impossible to speak too
well to a vast and promiscuous assembly ; and that it is by
qualities which would insure success at any time under a popular
government similarly circumstanced, that Demosthenes, the
most exquisite of writers, was the delight, the guide and the
glory of the Democracy of Athens.

Considering, as we do, the masterpieces of this great orator as
the true and only models of popular eloquence — as its beau
ideal — not Greek, not Attic, not ancient, not local or transitory
or peculiar as Lord Brougham vainly imagines them to be, but
made like the Apollo or the Parthenon for all times and all na-
tions, and worthy of study and imitation wherever genius shall
be called to move masses of men by the power of the living
word, we know not how we can do anything more profitable or
more acceptible to our readers, than to fix their attention, for a
few moments, upon the excellencies which distinguish him be-
yond every other orator that has ever appeared in any period of
the world's history. Nor let it be feared that we shall be found
dealing in the stale trivialities of a subject long since worn out.
It is true that the name of this Homer of orators,* and certain
epithets which school-boys are taught to associate with it, are as
familiar as household words. But it is also true, to an extent
not to be conceived by any but scholars, that anything but a just
idea — nay, that a very absurd idea — of the Demosthenian style,
is suggested by those same familiar phrases. We want no better
proof of this than is furnished by the dissertation of Lord Brough-
am, the very latest thing that has appeared upon the subject,
placed, with two other publications much more entitled to the
attention of scholars, at the head of this paper. But of that by
and by. The truth is that, in common with all the other depart-
ments of philology, the schools of Germany have, within the
last twenty-five years, addressed to this, with signal success,
their vast research and their matchless criticism. The work of
Mr. Becker, mentioned in our rubric, contains sufficient evidence
of this. It is entitled, as our readers will have seen, the "litera-
ture" of Demosthenes, that is, it is a succinct account, in two
parts, containing together but three hundred pa^es, of all that
has been published in regard to the orator, to his life and charac-
ter, editions and translations of his works, or essays and com-

* Lucian Encom. 4, 5.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 445

mentaries upon them ; everything, in short, that can make us
acquainted with the man or the speaker. It is quite remarkable
how much more has been done in this way. within the short
period just mentioned, than during the whole seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries put together.* This same author published
in 1815-16 a work upon Demosthenes, which was one of the
first contributions to a more critical knowledge of its interesting
subject. That work (Demosthenes als Staatsmann und Redner)
we have never been so fortunate as to meet with, having ordered
it repeatedly in vain from Germany. Mr. Becker complains
that, living where he does, (at Q,uedlinburg, at the foot of the
Hartz,) he has not the advantage of access to any of the great
public libraries of Europe, and that he feels very sensibly the
want of such an instrument.! What would he say if he shared
our privations in that respect? Yet much as we regret the not
having had an opportunity of reading a work to which he often
refers, and of which we have so often seen honorable mention
made, we are the more reconciled to be without it by the reflec-
tion that this branch of knowledge has made great progress since
it was published, and by the confession of the author that he
feels the necessity of recasting it with a view to that progress.
Indeed, the work before us is a preparation for the projected
improvement in the first, and contains a collection of the materials
out of which it is to be reformed and completed.

M. Becker is a devotee to his subject, if there ever was one.
He assures us that since the year '91, when a dissertation of his
to prove that the Oration on the Letter of Philip was spurious,
was shown to F. A. Wolf, and honored with the approbation of
that admirable critic, he has never lost sight of the orators. At
the end of half a century his zeal seems nowise abated. He
collects with a tender care and repeats with fond complacency
whatever has been uttered in any time or tongue, of praise to
his author, or in extenuation of his faults which, until recently,
none were found bold enough to deny. Some of these Testimonia
auctorum are really ver.y striking and eloquent, and, did our
space permit us, we would willingly translate one or two of
them for the benefit of our readers.}: They show that M. Becker's
enthusiasm for Demosthenes, not only as an orator, but as a man
and a patriot, is the common feeling of most of his contempora-
ries in Germany. Dionysius of Halicarnassus himself who
sacrifices not only Isocrates, but even Plato and his favorite
Lysias to the prince of the art, does not indulge in a more lively
and rapturous strain of encomium, than is almost universal among

* F. A. Wolf first awakened the true taste for the Attic orators, and with them
for the whole subject of Greek Antiquities, says Becker, p. 109.

t See Vorrede to Th. 2, s. vi.

X Especially a portrait of Demosthenes by Zell, p. 276, and some remarks of
Raumer. p. 141.

446 nEMOSTHEN'ES,

(hese quiet students of climes so much nearer the pole than
Greece. But it is not in these times only that Germany has
confirmed the vote by which the Demus of Athens crowned the
immortal champion of Ctesiphon. Among the bibliographical
notices, with which this volume of M. Becker is filled, are those
of two scholars, scarcely known but to men devoted to the same
studies, Jerome Wolf and Jo. Jac. Reiske ; who are instances of
that enthusiasm remarkable enough to be cited here. To the
first of these editors the modern world is under greater obliga-
tions for the advantage of reading Demosthenes in a correct
form, than to any other individual whatever. He lived in the
sixteenth century, a century during which no less than seven
different editions of the whole works of the orator were published,
beginning with the Aldine in 1515, and ending with Wolfs
last ; not to mention an incredible number of the Philippics and
of single orations, and a great many translations into various
tongues. Becker observes that, in this respect, the "literature"
of no other writer is to be compared to Demosthenes. Thousands
upon thousands of copies were rapidly spread through the schools
and universities of Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands,
France and Italy, Poland, Spain, and even England. Wolfs
third, it seems, and celebrated edition of the speeches of Demos-
thenes, and iEschines, was published in 1572. This remarkable
man — as remarkable in his humble way for patience and heroic
martyrdom as his subject himself — devoted his whole life to the
thankless task of an editor, amidst every sort of difficulty and
discouragement. It is really touching to read the accounts he
gives in his various prefaces and epistles, of what he was doomed
to surfer, in his obscure labors for the sake of philology.* Yet
he consoles himself, like the famous Strasburg goose in the
Almanach des Gourmands, with the idea, that, albeit his life was
not the most enviable, and he had been treated with but little
favor by some of his countrymen, yet foreign nations had heard
of Wolfius, and posterity and studious youth and the learned of
all ages would honor the "consuls and senate of Augsburg" for
protecting him.t In one of these prefaces, written in Greek, the
devoted scholar speaks with a complacency akin to that of Gibbon
on the completion of the "Decline and Fall," of the services
which he had rendered to the "great and heroical orator," and
hopes that the name of Wolf will be forever identified with that
of Demosthenes. And, in very deed, if his disembodied spirit
can content itself with the admiration of a fit audience, though
few, it may well be reconciled to its long agony of injured
merit and struggling ambition while in the flesh, by the ac-
knowledgments now made to him by the learned in Germany.

* Pref to Fngger,%ub. init.

t Ad nobiles et magnificos viros, etc. H. W. in D. et M. Graeco-latinos przefat.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 447

We have seldom read a more beautiful tribute than that offered
by Vomel (1828) to his memory, and republished in this volume
by M. Becker, (p. 94). We would be glad if it were possible to
lay it before our readers, together with- an extract to be found in
a note (p. 95) from the rhapsodies of the poet Kosegarten, pre-
fixed to his German translation of Wolf's autobiography.

After the lapse of two centuries, (1770,) the labors and suf-
ferings of Jerome Wolf, for the sake of Demosthenes, were re-
peated in the person of another German (whose estimate of
the moral character of his author was not a flattering one, how-
ever,) Jo. Jac. Reiske. It would almost seem that the contagious
bad-luck of the ill-starred orator, with which iEschines taunted
him, and which Juvenal has handed down in his famous satire
on all human aspirations —

Dis ille adversis genitus fatoqne sinistro,

was destined to pursue his friends to the end of time. In read-
ing Reiske's own account of his life and labors, from which M.
Becker furnishes an extract, we find that he undertook the print-
ing of his edition of Demosthenes at his own expense. "The
work," says he, "is begun in the name of God. Whether I shall
iive to see it finished, depends on Him. If I had to rely on men,
I should most certainly fall a sacrifice to my own good will and
their ingratitude and cruelty." It deserves to be mentioned, as
an instance of woman's self-devoted generosity, that his wife,
who assisted him in his literary labors, pawned her jewels in
order to have the printing begun. Becker assures us that this
auto-biography exhibits the character of that worthy scholar in
a most estimable light ; and adds that his correspondence with
Lessing* (which we regret we have not the time even to look
into,) completes the picture of "a great man." We are glad to
find that Schafer has defended Reiske against the unmeasured
reproaches which it was once so fashionable to heap upon him,t
and, without denying his defects, has vindicated his incontestable
claims upon the gratitude of scholars.

But whatever was in other respects the ill luck of Demos-
thenes, it did not reach the MSS. charged with the preservation
of his master-pieces for posterity. His speeches have been as
fortunate in this respect, as they were in the delivery. Not only
are all his most celebrated orations, (with one or two exceptions
probable of extemporaneous, or at least unwritten harangues,:}:)
come down to us, but, if the acumen of modern criticism may
be relied on, his name has saved from oblivion many more than

* Lessing's Werke, XXVI. S. 275.

f See, for instance, Payne Knight's contemptuous language in note to II. H-
137-8, of his own Homer, (1820).
t The speech at Thebes, for instance ; why have we not that 2

448 DEMOSTHENES,

his own. Of sixty speeches, published in the' usual collections,
only forty-two are admitted in the canon of German scholars.
Becker expresses with na'wde, a fond wish that no more may be
thought to deserve a place in the Index Expurgatorius, and
ventures even to hope that some of those now suspected may be
re-integrated in their former rights. We will just permit our-
selves to say, by the way, that we heartily rejoice to see the mark
of the beast set upon one at least of those not doubted by the
ancients, we mean the atrocious attack upon Timotheus, which,
disgusting as every thing in their literature shows the morals
and manners of the Greeks to have been, we still found especially
revolting as a low libel uttered by the greatest orator against the
greatest captain of Athens. This singular preservation of the
works of Demosthenes shows that there is more of design and
discrimination than is commonly imagined, even in the ruins
which time and barbarism deal about them. If we are to believe
Payne Knight, Homer is in the same way overloaded with the
interpolations of rhapsodists ; and, with comparatively few ex-
ceptions, the works of genius, celebrated by the ancients them-
selves, have been saved for us by amateurs whom they found
even amid the darkness of Gothic, Saracenic and Mongolian in-
vasion. But in the case before us, M. Becker suggests an idea
not implausible, to say the least. He thinks Demosthenes owed
something to the favor which he found with the fathers of the
Greek Church. The Basils, the Gregories and the Chrysostoms,
whatever might be the austerity of their aversion to the mytho-
logy of ancient Greece, still labored to emulate her eloquence,
and nothing seems more natural than that the pupils of Libanius,
that men, educated in the schools of Athens and of Antioch,
should share the admiration of their masters for the most per-
fect model of speech and reasoning.

The sixty-one, or more properly speaking, sixty speeches now
extant and vulgarly ascribed to Demosthenes, are divided into
three leading classes. 1st. Those delivered in the popular as-
sembly, and falling under the head of deliberative eloquence.
2d. Those addressed to courts of justice, or judicial pleadings.
3d. Panegyrical orations. Of the first class there are seventeen
in all, of which the principal are the Philippics, the Olynthiacs,
that de Chersoneso, etc. Four of them, however, have been re-
jected as spurious. The speech de Haloneso, and the two de
Republica ordinanda, and de Fcedere Alexandrino, were ex-
cluded from the canon by the ancient critics ; the first has been
shown to be the work of Hegesippus, a contemporary of Demos-
thenes. The 4th Philippic, though admitted by the Greek
critics, is considered supposititious by most recent German writers
beginning with Valcnaer and F. A. Wolf, whose opinions have
been adopted and confirmed by Bockh, Becker, Bekker, Wester-

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 449

The speech ad Epistolam Philippi is treated by
them in the same way. We recommend this remark to the at-
tention of oar readers, for, when we come, as we presently shall,
to examine Lord Brougham's Dissertation, we shall find him
taking his examples of the peculiarities of Demosthenes almost
invariably from these spurious or suspected works, and some-
times treating as perfections the very blemishes by which their
authenticity is disproved.

The judicial speeches, or arguments, as many of them ought
rather to be called, are divided, again, into two very distinct
classes. The first comprehends those of a public character, and,
as Demosthenes was of a stern and morose temper — the reverse
of Cicero, who was so much given to the. melting mood that the
peroration was always assigned to him by his associate counsel —
we shall not be surprised to find them almost without exception,
accusations (xar^yo^ai). Under this head Jerome Wolf classes
the famous harangues de corona, and on the Embassy, as well
as those less known, though not less deserving to be known,
against Leptines, against Androtio, against Timocrates, against
Aristocrates, and against Midias. The speeches against Aristo-
geiton which belong to this category, although quoted with ho-
nor by Pliny the younger,* are most certainly not the work of
Demosthenes. Taylor, however, goes too far in treating the
first as a miserable declamation (declamatiuncula). There are
passages in it which are very good imitations of Demosthenes,
though surrounded with others full of exaggeration and bombast
and which he could not have spoken without ceasing to be him-
self.t The second division of judicial speeches, are those writ-
ten (with some exception) to be delivered by others as their own
in private causes (bixai). It is not necessary to say more of them
in this connection, than that they are as many as thirty in num-
ber, of which, four have been rejected as spurious, and some
others are questioned.

The panegyrical orations are only two — the funeral oration
and the \oyog egmixos, both of them unquestionably supposititious,
as Dionysius pronounces them.

Upon this formidable array, which will show the general
reader at a glance, how voluminious are the remains of Demos-
thenes, the question will at once present itself to him, why it is
he has scarcely ever heard of any but the Philippics and the
speeches for the Crown and on the Embassy, and even of the
last, but rarely? It seems very evident to us, for example, that

* Epist. IX. 26. We challenge the whole array of Roman critics of that age
in regard to Greek eloquence. What could be "expected of the author of the
"Panegyric" and a man accustomed to address another as (famine, sitting in
judgment on the democratic art par excellence ?

t For instance, § 14 is very good, and § 16 is very bad, as also § 17. Wester-
m ann says Demosthenes might sleep sometimes but not snore outright.

vol. i. — 57

450 DEMOSTHENES,

Lord Brougham, though he does occasionally allude to the
speeches in public or state trials, such as those against Aristo-
crates and against Leptines, has confined his attention, for any
purpose of critical examination, exclusively to the famous har-
angues just mentioned. Now, we take it upon us in limine to
pronounce that no one can pretend to know what manner of
speaker Demosthenes is, who has not — we will not say attentively
read, but — thoroughly studied the judicial oraiions, especially
those in public causes. These are, as we have seen, against
Leptines, Androtio, Aristocrates, Timocrates, and Midias. The
speeches here enumerated, together with the most famous of
them all, that de CoronA, and its fellow, the one on the Embassy,
were regarded by ancient critics as his master-pieces. Theo of
Alexandria says so in words which, with a view to some of our
subsequent remarks, it is important to notice. "The best of his
public speeches are those containing an examination of some law
or decree of the assembly or the senate."* The long and elabo-
rate speech against Midias — a tremendous reqvisitoire — in which
he prosecutes a man of condition, who was to him what Clodius
was to Cicero, for one of the greatest outrages, or rather, for a
series of the greatest outrages that ever disgraced even a Greek
city — was celebrated among the ancients. It is said, whether
justly or not, to have been made the subject of a special commen-
tary by more than one of them, especially by Longinus. Yet,
though mentioned as a model of its kind by Photius, others have
imagined it imperfect, because it was never delivered. The
oration against Leptines is still more remarkable. It shows none
of the 6sivor*j£ of its author. It is written, as Cicero observes,!
altogether in the style for which Lysias was so much distin-
guished— simple, natural, flowing, equable, and above all, exqui-
sitely elegant, F. A. Wolf says of it that, by reason of its high
finish, none but a thorough-paced critic is competent fully to ap-
preciate its graces. Mere amateurs, as we are, we are thus to
take the pleasure, great as it is, which we have derived from it,
as only an antepast and earnest of that which will reward more
profound studies. Of the class to which it belongs, Wolf thinks
none but the speech against Androtio will bear a comparison
with it. It is not, perhaps, less on account of this wonderful
perfection of style, than for its being replete with the most im-
portant and instructive matter, that the great scholar just men-
tioned chose it for the subject of a particular commentary, and
by a learned edition of it in 1789, (says Becker) rendered as great
a service to philology as by his famous prolegomena to Homer.
But there is another remarkable feature in this speech which
commends it more highly than any other work of Demosthenes,

* Theo Sophist, p. 5, Elzev. 162&
t Orat. 31.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE 0RA10R. 451

to the acceptance of a modern reader — its moderate, decorous
and well-bred tone. It was made a theme of constant reproach
to him, by his contemporaries, that his maternal grandmother
was a Scythian* — as foul a stain in an Attic pedigree, as M. de
Beaumont represents the smallest mixture of African blood to be
in America. Diogenes the Cynic is said to have characterized
him as Scythian in words, and civil (acnxos) in battle. And it is
true that his eloquence, with all its unrivalled power and beauty,
breathes in general a spirit of rudeness, ferocity and violence,!
that contrasts singularly, (let German critics say what they
please) with the politeness of iEschines, whose occasional ribal-
dry seems to us aliquid coronce datum and mere retaliation.
Be that as it may, there is nothing at all Scythian in his oration
against Leptines. Whether it was that Leptines was an object
of particular consideration to Demosthenes, or to whatever cause
we are to ascribe it, certain it is, that numberless objections are
urged against his system in the best possible temper. Some pas-
sages are distinguished by a striking degree of urbanity ;$ those
upon Conon and Chabrias are splendid compliments. But, above
all this, the argument is conducted with consummate ability.
The subject, indeed, as Wolf justly remarks, is placed in every
possible light and completely exhausted, and the speech deserves
to be regarded as a master-piece of forensic disputation.

Inferior to the oration against Leptines only in tone and dic-
tion, not at all less important, (if not more important still) for the
matter it contains, and rising occasionally into far higher strains
of eloquence, and even into the regions of the sublime, II the
speech against Aristocrates, has attracted both from ancient and
modern critics, quite as much attention as the master-piece just
mentioned. Indeed, we doubt whether there is any other single
production of Demosthenes which deserves so much to be stu-
died with a view to the matter, and especially which throws so
much light upon the theory of the Athenian constitution, and
the whole system of legislation established by Solon. It has,
accordingly, been very much commented upon with a view to
these subjects by learned men, such as Salmasius and Heraldus.
It is remarkable for the harmony of its periods — and yet, strange
to say, all this pains was bestowed upon a piece written to be
delivered as his own by one Eutyches, who is only remembered
for having pronounced it. The oration against Androtio, is, as
we have seen, in F. A. Wolfs opinion, the nearest approach in
point of exquisite finish, to the perfection of the oration against
Leptines. As Androtio the defendant, was a pupil of Isocrates,

* Msch.

t Since writing the above, we remark that Dionysius says his only defect is

want of xailG or Su<r£owr' ^sia.
)f 5, cf.§31, 32. IJ § 50 sq.

452 DEMOSTHENES,

and a man of great forensic experience and celebrity, Demosthenes
is supposed by critics to have bestowed, in a spirit of emulation,
more even than his usual pains upon the composition of this
speech. The oration against Timocrates belongs to the same
category, and is altogether worthy to take its place by the side
of the master-pieces just mentioned. It excels in the same fea-
tures of close argument, acute, and searching analysis, condensed
and powerful summing up of topics.* It deserves to be men-
tioned, that these orations, so admirable in every point of view,
were all composed by Demosthenes when lie was a young man
of only eight-and-twenty or thirty years, and, like his arguments
against Aphobus, when he was still a mere youth in his teens,
indicate, by their faultless correctness and elegance, an extraor-
dinary precociousness of mind. Wonderful that, beginning thus,
he so completely surpassed himself by his subsequent efforts,
that the author of the orations against Androlio and Leptines, is
forgotten in the transceudant glory of the crowning speech. But
one of his peculiarities as an artist was, that his whole life was
progress ; and it was progress, because it was study. He never
put out his lamp, according to the tradition, until he was fifty,
and his best speech was his very last— the ripest as the latest
fruit of the autumn of life.

It is obvious to observe that the speeches, to which we have
just called the attention of our readers, reveal the powers of
Demosthenes in quite a different light from that in which even
our best English writers, Hume, for instance, have been accus-
tomed to contemplate them. They are all (except that against
Midias,) to all intents and purposes, arguments, as we should call
them, on points of constitutional law, as much so as any ever
delivered in the supreme court of the United States by the Pink-
neys and the Wirts. The mover of a decree either in the senate
or the assembly (^^»^a), which was supposed to violate one of
the fundamental laws, was liable to be impeached for it by any
public-spirited citizen, before one of the tribunals of the Heliasts.
The only restraint upon this power of impeachment was the
provision that imposed a fine of a thousand drachmas upon the
accuser in case he failed to obtain one-fifth of the voices of the
jury, as happened to iEschines in the affair of the Crown. This
prosecution of an unconstitutional law (/pp^ wa^avo(awv) was the
palladium of Solon's legislation, yet, in most cases, it served only
to show how wide the difference was between the theory and
the practice of the government We have endeavored to demon-
strate, in a former articlet in this journal, how little security there
was, in that practice, under the abuses of a degenerate democ-
racy, for either life, liberty, or property. A reader of the speeches

* 1. e. g. \ 24 cf. \ 19, \ 25 and 26, are admirable for Ssworric:.
t New- York Review, No. XIII.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 453

in question would be inclined to question the accuracy of the
opinion there expressed. They place, it must be owned, in a
very striking point of view the wisdom of the lawgiver, or rather
(since wisdom ought to be more practical) his knowledge of the
sins that most easily beset democratic government, and of the
restraints necessary to prevent abuses of power under it. But
in truth, whatever of seeming paradox there may be in the opi-
nions referred to, is explained by the fact, visible in every page
of these speeches, without going any farther, that the constitu-
tion of Solon was become in fact the cobweb it was from the
first wittily pronounced to be by one of the Seven wise men.
The laws were a mere name. They were treated as obsolete.
The orators — the representatives by profession of the arbitrary
will of the people — denied their authority in argument with as
little reserve as they trampled upon their precepts in practice.
Your laws are superseded, says iEschines, by detestable pse-
phisms* — and he might have added by a still more detestable
judicature. There never was a clearer case in point, as we shall
have to observe hereafter, than the result of his own accusation
of Ctesiphon,who had plainly violated the law by his motion,
and who was almost unanimously acquitted by the judges, to
the confusion and ruin of the prosecutor. The will of the de-
magogue for the time being, was the law of the land ; and even
in reading these orations, a man of experience is enabled suffi-
ciently to discern the true state of facts. The very attempts made
to enforce the laws in their pristine severity show how frequent-
ly, how easily, and how glaringly they were violated with im-
punity.t

So much for the matter of these admirable speeches. The
reader will perceive that it is difficult to overrate their importance
to a philosophical student of the history of governments. But
the point of view in which we now wish to present them to him,
is exclusively philological. It is plain from what we have said
of the tone, the diction, and the general scope and economy of
these orations, that they belong to a class entirely different from
that of the Philippics. They fully verify the remark of Aristotle,
that judicial speeches are altogether more curious and complex
in structure, as they are less simple and direct in purpose and
bearing than the deliberative ; and are, as he adds, the chief object
of all systems of rhetorical instruction. X He, therefore, who

* jEschin. c. Timarch. § 35.

t "I know he will say the law is obsolete," is a common form of anticipating
the reply of the adversary.

Who cares about your old laws, the psephism is a good one. c. Aristocr. § 14, cf.
Ibid. § 26. The senate is bound by the law and the oath, but the tribunals are
omnipotent, c. Timocrat. § 34. And look at the summing up in that speech, and
in the oration against Androtio, for the multitude of laws violated without scruple
by occasional psephisms.

J Rhet. 1. ii.

454 DEMOSTHENES,

knows Demosthenes only by the Philippics and other harangues
in the assembly, may be said scarcely to know him at all ; or, at
any rate, to have a most imperfect insight into his intellectual
character, and his infinite resources as an orator. Now this is
precisely the case with the great majority even of highly educa-
ted people. Here is a melancholy instance of it before us in no
less a personage than Lord Brougham, who has (or had some
years ago) the reputation, among his admirers, of being able to
teach almost any branch of knowledge lectured on at the uni-
versity of Edinburgh. His whole dissertation from beginning
to end is a tissue of error and sophistry, which, in so able a
person, can be accounted for only by a very superficial attention
to his author, or an imperfect acquaintance with his language,
probably both.

To do his lordship justice, we will permit him to state in his
own language the propositions to which we object. The first
is that modern speeches are as much superior to the ancient in
substance, as they are inferior to them in form, and that is not
an absolute superiority merely, resulting from what he thinks
deeper philosophy, larger views, more diversified information,
and subjects of greater magnitude and splendor, (as to all which,
(picere,) but relative also. That is that a modern orator, in the
very same place, and under the very same circumstances with
Demosthenes, would have made speeches, better in point of
substance for the practical purposes his were intended to accom-
plish than he did, and, vice versd, that the Greek would have
failed in the House of Commons by attending more to the man-
ner than the matter, while Mr. Canning was quoting Horace
and Mr. Brougham lecturing on political economy.

The first passage we shall quote is at pp. 428, 429.

"It is impossible to deny that the ancient orators fall nearly as far short
of the modern in the substance of their orations as they surpass them in
their composition. Not only were their views far less enlarged, which
was the necessary consequence of their more confined knowledge, but they
gave much less information to their audience in point of fact, and they
applied themselves less strenuously to argument. The assemblies of mo-
dern times are eminently places of business ; the hearers are met to consider
of certain practical questions, and not to have their fancy charmed with
choice figures, or their taste gratified with exquisite diction, or their ears
tickled with harmonious numbers. They must, therefore, be convinced ;
their reason must be addressed by statements which shall prove that the
thing propounded is just or expedient, or that it is iniquitous or impolitic-
No (ar-fetched allusions, or vague talk, or pretty conceits, will supply the
place of the one thing needful, argument and information. Whatever is
beside the question, how gracefully soever it may be said, will only weary
the hearer and provoke his impatience ; nay, if it be very fine and very far-
fetched, will excite his merriment and cover the speaker with ridicule. Or-
nament of every kind, all manner of embellishment, must be kept within
its subordinate bounds, and made subservient merely to the main business.
It is certain that no perfection of execution, no beauty of workmanship,

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 455

can make up for the cardinal defect of the material being out of its
place, that is, indifferent to the question ; and one of the most exquisitely-
composed of Cicero's orations, the one for Archias, could clearly never
have been delivered in any English court of justice, where the party was
upon his defence against an attempt to treat him as an alien ; though,
perhaps, some of it might have been urged in favor of a relaxation of the
law, after his alienage had been proved, and the whole of it might have
been relished by a meeting assembled to do him honor."

Now, as far as Cicero is concerned, and especially the speech
for Archias, there is some truth in the objection — though it is
but fair to remind the reader that the Roman orator begins by
advertising his audience that he intends to deviate for once from
the beaten forensic track. But did Lord Brougham never hear
Sheridan speak? and would he have us believe that he was not
listened to with pleasure by the House? or that he was a man
to sacrifice style, and point, and imagery, to dry reasoning and
solid information? We have it on excellent authority, for Lord
Brougham at least, on his present utilitarian tack, that Sheridan's
famous speech on the impeachment of Hastings, was excessively
rhetorical and declamatory, as might be expected from the char-
acter of his mind, and that he showed more wisdom in suppress-
ing than in making it. Yet it had its merits, no doubt, for the oc-
casion, for it succeeded better, perhaps, than the best harangue of
Mr. Fox, who himself, though a debater and nothing but a de-
bater, was so little intent on informing his audience, that he
professed not to be able to comprehend the problems of political
economy ! As to Lord Brougham's description of the sort of
speech necessary to please a modern assembly, (by which he
must be always understood to mean the House of Commons, for
it is evident that very different things have had influence with
other assemblies, as for instance the French Convention,) it is
not an adequate, to be sure, but it is, as far as it goes, a very
accurate description of a Greek business speech, as we shall
see. And if Demosthenes is the prince of orators, as he unques-
tionably is, it is because, coming up to that description in every-
thing required by the most severe taste, he adds to it every thing
necessary to raise the language of truth and reason into that of
eloquence and inspiration. Lord Brougham's so-called modern
eloquence is no eloquence at all, but only sensible speaking:
Demosthenes' speaking was not a jot less sensible than that of
Sir Robert Peel or Lord Lyndhurst, but at the same time infinitely
more powerful, persuasive and sublime. But this Lord Brougham
denies.

His second objectionable proposition is that it is all a mistake
to speak of the great orator as a reasoner, for that, although he
did something marvellously like it, and seemed bent on doing
nothing else, yet that in fact, when passed through his lordship's
crucible, it is found to be just no reasoning at all.

d56 DEMOSTHENES,

"It is a common thing with those who, because Cicero is more ornate,
suffers the artifice of his composition to appear more plainly and indulges
more in amplification, imagine that he is less argumentative than the
Greek orators, to represent the latter, and especially Demosthenes, as dis-
tinguished by great closeness of reasoning. If by this is only meant that he
never wanders from the subject, that each remark tells upon the matter in
hand, that all his illustrations arc brought to bear upon the point, and that
he is never found making any step in any direction which does not advance
his main object, and lead towards the conclusion to which he is striving to
bring his hearers — the observation is perfectly just ; for this is a distin-
guishing feature in the character of his eloquence. It is not, indeed, his
grand excellence, because every thing depends upon the manner in which
he pursues this course, the course itself being onequite as open to the humblest
mediocrity as to the highest genius. But, if it is meant to be said that
those Attic orators, and especially their great chief, made speeches in
which long chains of elaborate reasoning are to be found — nothing can be
less like the truth. A variety of topics are handled in succession, all cal-
culated to strike the audience.

"Passions, which predominated in their minds, are appealed to — feel-
ings, easily excited among them, are aroused by skilful allusions — glaring
inconsistencies are shown in the advice given to others — sometimes by ex-
hibiting the repugnance of those counsels among themselves, sometimes
by contrasting them with other counsels proceeding from the same quarters.
The pernicious tendency of certain measures is displayed by referring,
sometimes, to the general principles of human action, and the course
which human affairs usually take; more frequently, by a reference to* the
history of past, and generally of very recent events. Much invective is
mixed with these topics, and both the enemy without, and the evil coun-
sellor within the walls are very unsparingly dealt with. The orator was
addressing hearers who were, for the most part, as intimately acquainted
as himself with all the facts of the case, and these lay within a sufficiently
narrow compass, being the actual state of public affairs, and the victories
or the defeats which had, within the memory of all, attended their arms, or
the transactions which had taken place among them in very recent times.
No detailed statements were, therefore, wanted for their information. He
was really speaking to them respecting their own affairs, or rather, respect-
ing what they had just been doing or witnessing themselves. Hence, a
very short allusion alone was generally required to raise the idea which
he desired to present before the audience. Sometimes a word was enough
for his purpose ; the naming of a man or a town ; the calling to their recol-
lection, what had been done by the one, or had happened to the other.
The effect, produced by such a rapid interchange of ideas and impressions,
must have struck every one who has been present at public meetings. He
will have remarked, that some such apt allusion has a power — produces an
electrical effect — not to be reached by any chain of reasoning, however
close ; and that even the most highly-wrought passages, and the most ex-
quisite composition, fall far short of it in rousing or controlling the minds
of a large assembly. Chains of reasoning, examples of a fine argumenta-
tion, are calculated to produce their effect upon a far nicer, a more confined
and a more select audience. But such apposite allusions — such appropriate
topics — such happy hits, (to use a homely, but expressive phrase,) have a
sure, an irresistible, a magical effect upon a popular assembly. In these
the Greek oratory abounds, and, above all, its greatest master abounds in
them more than all the lesser rhetoricians. They would have been highly
successful without the charms of composition, but he also clothes them in
the most choice language, arranges them in the most perfect order, and
captivates the ear with a music which is fitted at his will to provoke or to

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 457

soothe, but ever to charm the sense, even were it possible for it to be ad-
dressed apart, without the mind, foo, being moved.

"Let any one examine the kind of topics upon which those orators dwell,
and he will be convinced that close reasoning was not their object — that
they were adapting their discourse to the nature of their audience — and
that, indeed, not a lew of their topics were such as they would hardly have
thought of using, had they been arguing the matter stringently with an
antagonist, 'hand to hand, and foot to foot' ; or, which is the same thing,
preparing a demonstration to meet the eye of an unexcited reader. It is
certain that some of Demosthenes' chief topics are exactly those which he
would use to convince the calm reason of the. most undisturbed listener or
reader — such as the dangers of inaction — the formidable, because able and
venturous, enemy they had to contend with — the certainty of the peril
which is met by procrastination becoming greater after the unprofitable
delay.- These, however^ are the most obvious considerations, and on these
he dwells the less, because of their being so obvious. But the more stri-
king allusions and illustrations, by which he enforces them, are not always
such as would bear close examination, if considered as arguments, al-
though they are always such as must, in the popular assembly to which he
addressed them, have wrought a wondrous effect." — pp. 431-433.

Now, as to a speech being good in form or execution, which
is good for nothing hi substance, we profess ourselves unable to
comprehend such a thing. It smells of the rhetorician's art
which is mere pedantry, and never did and never will contri-
bute in the slightest degree to make any man really eloquent.
We do not think this language of his lordship a jot less absurd,
though somewhat less ludicrous, than an idea quoted, we think,
by Blair, from the Pere Rapin, that Cicero must needs be a better
speaker than Demosthenes, because he had seen and studied
Aristotle's Rhetoric, whereas the Greek orator had actually de-
livered and published his master-pieces before that work saw the
light ! We are firm believers in matter, or, which is the same
thing here, in mind. Our experience — and it has been, we sus-
pect, on this point, very much more extensive and diversified than
Lord Brougham's — is conclusive that in any assembly met to dis-
cuss and do business, the speaker who really knows more about
the matter in hand than any body else, and is at all in earnest
about it, will be sure to lead, in spite of every disadvantage in style
and delivery. We know it is so in the House of Representatives
at Washington, for example — a body, of which, for many rea-
sons, it is so difficult to command the attention, that we have
heard intelligent foreigners inquire whether it ever listened at all.
Yet, it does listen ; and it listens to any one who has informa-
tion to communicate on a subject interesting to it, and will do so
with any thing approaching to brevity. It listens always to gen-
tlemen who have established a reputation for speaking only to
inform others, and to illustrate the question before the House.
And so it is, we repeat, and so it has been, and so it ever will be
with every assembly, rude or cultivated ; in every country, bar-
barous or civilized, convened for such purposes as war and peace,
vol. i. — 5S

458 DEMOSTHENES,

legislation and judicature. It is only under very peculiar cir-
cumstances, in moments, for example, of intense revolutionary
excitement, when all argument is out of the question, that a mere
declaimer can aspire to any decided influence. Here, as in the
sister art,

"Sapere est et prineipium et ions,"

"get wisdom — get understanding" —

"Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequeniur ;"

or, as Milton quaintly but forcibly expresses it: "Whose mind
soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good
things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of
them into others ; when such a man would speak, his words, (by
what I can express,) like so many nimble and airy servitors trip
about him at command, and in well-ordered files, as he would
wish, fall aptly into their places."* And not only does he com-
mand language, but he infallibly commands attention.

The idea that all this, though perfectly true in modern times,
is inapplicable to antiquity, is preposterous. If Lord Brougham
really thinks so, he is the first person of any note we have ever
heard of, who would profit by that learned dissertation, mentioned
in Gil Bias, to prove that, at Athens, little boys cried when they
were flogged by their schoolmasters, just as they do at Oviedo
or Salamanca. Let any one read the life of Demosthenes, and
consider under what circumstances, and in the face of what an
opposition it was that he maintained, for a generation together,
such a decided ascendant in that fierce democracy, and he will
see at once the absurdity of ascribing his wonderful success to
the art of tickling the ears or the fancy of his hearers in set
speeches — or to any other means than those which, in all ages
and in all countries, have moved and controlled the minds and
the hearts of men — strength of understanding, strength of will,
sagacity in counsel, decision in conduct, zeal in the pursuit of his
objects, and passionate eloquence to recommend them.

But not only is all that we have said, as applicable to the pub-
lic assemblies of Athens, (other things being equal, that is to say,)
as to those of any modern nation ; it was, if possible more so.
What does the epithet "Attic" mean ? Lord Brougham has read
Cicero's rhetorical works; at least, he quotes them profusely upon
occasion. He knows, of course, that some of his most distin-
guished contemporaries objected to the Roman orator that he
was not Attic, and that his constant effort, in many elaborate es-
says, is to show, that however austere the taste of the Athenians
might be, it did sometimes admit of a copious and ornate style.
The idea, then, was not that substance was to be a mere second-

* An Apology for Sraeetymus.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 459

ary thing, but that it should be every thing, and for that purpose
should be presented in a diction as pure and simple as light it-
self. Lysias was the model they most affected. The epithets,
by which Cicero characterizes this style, are ail expressive of the
severest taste and reason.* Compare with this account of it
what Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a devoted admirer of Lysias,
says of the prominent beauties of his elpquence.t What are
they ? Purity of diction, simple, popular idiomatic language,
with a studious avoidance of every thing tropical, poetical or
hyperbolical ; great clearness, both in words and matter ; the art,
in which no one but Demosthenes ever surpassed him, of con-
densing what he had to say, and rolling it up and compressing
it as it were into solid masses, to carry every thought with the
utmost force to the minds of his hearersi — that he was unrival-
led in narrative and exposition, placing every topic just where it
ought to be, and not only distinct but vivid and graphic in des-
cription, painting all objects to the very life, bringing them, as it
were, in reality before the hearer ; observing in all things fitness,
decorum and character ; aiming in all things at truth and nature,
and recommending every part of the argument to the favor of
his audience, by a certain native grace and sweetness diffused
over the whole. Surely, if speeches, thus severely chastened,
thus rigidly stripped of every thing savoring of theatrical pre-
tension or foreign ornament, were successful, (as they are admit-
ted to have been,) with the Attic tribunals, it could only be by
dint of thought and sentiment. The merit of such a style, as
that of every pure and transparent medium, consists in bringing
out the objects themselves in their proper colors, shapes and di-
mensions. The perfection otform, then, of which Lord Broug-
ham speaks, was to be without any apparent form — their art
studiously concealed itself — their only affectation was that most
delicate of all impostures, the affectation of simplicity. And
this is so true, that we venture to say, it is the experience of every
scholar without exception who has studied the Attic orators that
he was at first excessively struck with a certain (we wish to say
statuesque) nakedness of style. Lysias especially, like La Fon-
taine in French, is never appreciated by any one who has not

* He calls the Attics of this stamp "dry and sound," as a gourmet would speak
of fine old wines — saniet sicci. De Opt. gen. Oral. 3. Sincemm judicium Atticorum
that incorruptible judgment that would bear nothing in the least extravagant, af-
fected or forced — nullum verbwm insolens, nullum odiosum. In another place it is
the "salubrity and as it were healthiness of Attic diction," illam salubritatem At-
tica diztionis et quasi sanitatem, which he contrasts with the gross and fat diction of
the Asiatics, (adipata.)

* Judic. de Lysia Orat.

| The phrase is worth citing in the original : r\ tfvg'gscpovrfu ret vo^/xara xai
g*goyyj\uc; ixysgovrfcc Xsjjis — needed in judicial speeches and very true d^/wv.
c. 6. Cicero, speaking of the harmonious periods of Demosthenes, says, cujus non
tarn vibrarent fulmina nisi numeris contorta ferrentur, Orat. c. 70.

460 DKMORTHKNES,

made himself very familiar with the Greek idioms; and the
unceremonious, business-like way, in which Demosthenes opens
and treats the subjects of his Philippics and other deliberative
speeches, attracts the attention of a reader, fresli from Cicero, a
great deal more than his sublimity and force and passionate
earnestness.

Lord Brougham evidently supposes, and this notion is at the
bottom of all his errors upon the subject, that every Greek oration
was a mere theatrical exhibition. Indeed he says so in so many
words. There is barely truth enough in this supposition to
'give color for the lay gents,' as special pleaders express it ; but
the conclusions which he draws from it are altogether extrava-
gant, and entirely at variance with facts familiar to scholars. It
is, indeed, undeniable, that throngs of curious spectators flocked
from all parts of Greece to listen to some debate of great expec-
tation,* just as people of leisure now repair to Washington for a
similar purpose ; and it is quite natural that this circumstance,
by imparting more solemnity and splendor to the occasion, should
induce the orator to make what he had to say as perfect as pos-
sible in its kind. But how it should affect the character of his
speech in any other way, how it should induce him to sacrifice
its real excellencies, and turn it into mere declamation, we own,
we do not exactly perceive. It is also true that a high degree
of precision and correctness in diction, a harmony of cadence, a
fullness and finish in periods, not difficult to attain in a language
of such infinite compass and euphony as the Greek, were required
to please ears susceptible to the most refined delicacies of accent
and quantity. Yet a wise man — Phocion, for instancet — would
command their attention without any one of these graces (except
perhaps the first) to recommend his oratory. It must be admit-
ted, too, that Attic taste, so severe, so exquisite, in every depart-
ment of art, might not be as indulgent as that of an Elnglish or
American audience, to a slovenly, or feeble, or inappropriate style
of speaking — that the most gifted orators, Pericles, for example,
and Demosthenes, were unwilling to encounter the Demus with-
out full preparation, though Demades and others did so contin-
ually— and that the master-pieces produced by the efforts made
to come up to the demands of such a public, were in fact the
perfection, the ideal, of the noblest of all arts. Then it must,
also, be taken into the account, that many of these speeches were
delivered in vast assemblages, where it was extremely difficult,
as everything proves, to command attention, and where a little
more emphasis and effort in delivery and in style might not be
altogether unnecessary, and not in a St. Stephen's chapel, too
small to accommodate even a British House of Commons, and

* iEsch. c. Timarch. §25.
t Plut. in. Demosth.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 461

reducing the contests of orators to mere piquant conversation at
close quarters, over a table. For that the shape, size, and cha-
racter of the Hall — if it deserves the name — has had something,
and even a good deal to do with fixing the style of English
parliamentary debating, we have, after some attendance there,
no doubt whatever ; and we venture to predict that, if they turn
the House of Commons, as they now think of doing, into a
National Assembly, sitting in a Beau Locale, they will presently
become less colloquial — "more Irish and less nice."* But, after
making every possible allowance for the effect of a real difference
in some external circumstances, we insist upon it that the Greeks
drew the line between the panegyrical oration and the business
speech — between Gorgias and Isocrates on the one hand, and
Lysias and Demosthenes on the other, as rigidly, and more rig-
idly, than any other people, modern or ancient. It would be
mere waste of time and space to load our pages with the evidence
of a proposition so incontestable. t

It would indeed be the most surprising of all things that they
who carried art to such perfection in all things, that every piece
of marble that has been so much as touched by a Greek chisel
becomes a precious stone, and their very geometry is a model of
elegance, (without ceasing to be geometry on that account, as
Lord Brougham well knows,) should not have perfected that art,
of all others the most indispensable in every democracy, and in
which theirs, in fact, lived, and moved, and had its being. That
true eloquence should not flourish in a close oligarchy, or even
such a mitigated one as governed England from the Revolution
to the Reform Bill, (we say nothing of the bar,) is not at all to
be wondered at.t But, among the Athenians! The most ligitious
and disputatious of all men — continually judging and arguing
causes, as exercising jurisdiction over half Greece — with a pop-
ular assembly, uniting in its own hands supreme executive and
judicial, with legislative functions, and forever in session, they
lived in the agora, and the ecclesia. Power, wealth, distinction,
everything that can excite the ambition and cupidity of mankind,
and of the most ambitious, rapacious, and unprincipled of man-
kind, especially, was commanded in the days of Demosthenes
by eloquence alone. Without office, place, or dignity, of any
kind, without an election, or a commission from any constituency,
mere volunteers on the Bema, to which the crier summoned all

* This idea of the effect of the place, etc., on the style of oratory, is hroached
by Lucian, de Domo, § 14, 15, 16, and by the author of the dialogue be Causis Cor-
ruptee Eloquentice, c. 39.

f Cic. Orat. 12, sq Dionys. Halicarn. IIsp; Itfoxgurovg, passim, especially
§ 12 (exactly in point). Id. TLsfi rr\g \sxtixy\s Ayixotfdsvo-og <$SJvo<rr,roc, from
beginning to end.

t Magna ilia et notabilis eloquentia alumna licentise, comes seditionum, etc.
See the dialogue just quoted, De Caus. Corr. Eloquent.

402 DEMOSTHENES,

who might choose to say what they thought of public affairs,
the orators ruled the state, were practically its ministry, had the
functionaries of the commonwealth, its generals, its treasurers,
at their mercy. They themselves held responsible for their
measures to any one that chose to impeach them, lived in per-
petual war with one another, denouncing, prosecuting, defying
each other face to face before the people, struggling desperately,
per fas et ucfas, not merely for victory and pre-eminence, but
for life and for death. And yet, amidst such fierce and unsparing
conflicts, with every thing in the shape of public and private
interest to excite their zeal to the highest pitch, and to stimulate
them to the intensest exertions, Lord Brougham would have us
believe that these combats a mitrance, (if there ever were such,)
were mere Eglinton tournaments, where mimic knights tilted
upon a field strown with saw-dust, and lances not made to kill
were shivered for the amusement of fine ladies ! That nothing
can be farther from the truth, any one that opens the Philippics
of Demosthenes will be convinced before he has read a page. lie
will find the orator every where engaged in mortal combat —
literally breathing threatenings and slaughter.

As to the assertion that the Greek orators took less pains to
inform their audiences than modern speakers, it is quite as gross
a fallacy as the one we have been discussing, and springs, un-
doubtedly, from the same source. We refer to what we have al-
ready said in regard to the orations against Leptines, Aristocrates,
etc. Not only are they as full of information as any speech in
the four volumes before us — and Lord Brougham, we suspect,
will hardly deny that they are "pretty fair specimens of the best
English speaking — but to say nothing of vices of style of all
sorts that abound in these volumes, we should be glad to have
a single oration in this whole collection pointed out, that, if
England were no more than a tale of the past, would attract, by
its contents alone, as much attention as either of the above men-
tioned productions of Demosthenes. Which of them will better
deserve to be edited by some future Wolf, with learned prolego-
mena, upon the fiscal system of Great Britain, or to be made a
subject for the commentaries of the Petits and Heralduses yet
unborn ? The fact is the very reverse of what the learned Lord
alleges to be. The orators of Athens filled the places not only
of the Parliament and the Ministers, as we have just seen, but
of the modern Press, the "Fourth Estate," as well. They were
all in all for the people. They were expected to be thoroughly
versed in public affairs — in the constitution and the laws, the
history, the policy, foreign and domestic, of the State. This
was the province, the profession, the authority, the very existence
of a public man. If he did not possess this information, who
should? What was he doing on the Bema? What pretension

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 463

had he to lead the Demus? We do not now refer to the puerile
notion which Cicero ascribes to Crassus, in his dialogue De
Oratore, that the orator should be a living encyclopedia of sci-
ence— iEschines and Demades, the latter especially, who made
it a boast that he knew no school but the popular assembly, are
enough — if any example were needed — to explode that. But,
for politics and law, and especially everything fitted to illustrate
the subjects embraced within either, his whole strength lay in
his knowledge of such things, and his skill in turning it to ac-
count. Rhetoric and Statesmanship, indeed, were considered as
synonymous terms.*

Lord Brougham could not possibly have fallen into so gross
an error, had he not confined his views entirely to the Philippics,
and the two great orations against iEschines ; though even with
regard to these his remarks are quite groundless. He seems not
to have considered what was the peculiar character and objects
of these famous harangues. The Philippics are not "chains of
reasoning," to establish principles of science ; they are rapid de-
velopments of practical truths, with a view to immediate action —
they are vehement exhortations to the performance of duty,
pressing every topic that can make it be felt as sacred and impe-
rative. They fall within the class of deliberative eloquence, as
it was understood by the Greeks, who regarded it, as we have
seen, as more simple and direct than the judicial. It belonged,
in the ancient democracies especially, rather to the category of
action, than to that of science and speculation. It was, so to
speak, a branch of the executive power. It aimed at influencing
the conduct of men ; it aimed at stirring them up to mighty ex-
ertions and high undertakings by whatever motives are best
fitted to inspire masses with the enthusiasm called for by such
efforts. The genius, which distinguished the orator on such oc-
casions, was that of the statesman and the captain. What he
needed was a rapid sagacity, a sure coup oVoeil to seize every
occasion and turn it to the best account, a clear perception of the
relation between the means and the ends proposed, and the
talent of inspiring others with his own confidence in the results.
His eloquence is concerned with the future, rather than the
past ; it deals in prophecy and conjecture : it encounters danger
with courage ; it is sanguine of success in spite of difficulties.
But mere conviction will not do ; he must persuade, for his pol-
icy needs the sanction of others, and the success of an enterprize
depends upon the spirit in which it is undertaken : possunt quia
posse videntur. He must make his followers, if possible, as
fanatical as the armies of conquerors — the Hannibal s and the
Bonapartes. He must make his people act like one man, and

* See Wachsmuth, Greek Antiq. v. 2. p. 196, (transl.) Pollux, 4. 16, for the

py]To?sg itoXirsvo^svoi, Hermann Manual.

464 DEMOSTHENES)

that man a hero — he must oppose a factitious Philip to the real
Philip. But this is not to be done by long trains or chains of
reasoning; how absurd and pedantic would such things be, were
they even possible, under the circumstances in question ! He
must address himself to the motives of human conduct. He
must show that his measures are practicable, are politic, are fit,
are morally necessary. To this end sentiment is one of his
surest resources — the sense of honor, the sense of duty, the ex-
ample of an illustrious ancestry, the pride of long established
superiority, the sacred obligation of transmitting to our children
the heritage of liberty and glory handed down to us from our
fathers. He resorts continually to topics like these, not because
he has no better ones, but because in fact no others can possibly
supply their place. In such cases, the end of all reasoning is to
show that what we do, or will that others shall do, is reasonable,
and this he does by showing that, being what they are, it is pro-
per, it is becoming, it is right, it is indispensable that his hearers
should pursue the course pointed out. He deals, therefore, not
in syllogism and dissertation, but in maxims, in statements, in
example and enthymeme.* He lifts them up to the height of his
argument by working in them a moral regeneration. How else
can he persuade them? How is he to prove to cowards that
they ought to rush into the midst of dangers — to the slothful,
that they should be incessantly vigilant and active — to the lux-
urious and corrupt, that they should prefer "hard liberty before
the easy yoke of servile pomp?" He not only presses with the
greatest force all the topics called for by the subject and the oc-
casion, but what is a far more difficult task, he breathes into his
audience a soul to appreciate them. Is he not a reasoneron that
account 1 And, if that is not reasoning, which urges with the
greatest force the best reasons that can be imagined to produce
conviction under the given circumstances, what is ? And is it
not, at all events, absurd, to speak de haut en has, as Lord
Brougham does, of such a prodigious triumph of mind, warmed
and elevated by the most heroical spirit, as if it were a mere
theatrical pomp of words ? To put an analogous case ; suppose
Lord Chatham, during his immortal quinquennium, instead of
displaying his genius in action, by a prompt, peremptory and
absolute exercise of a gigantic executive power, wielded by his
will and turned in the twinkling of an eye, wherever he saw a
vulnerable spot in the body of the enemy's empire, had been
compelled, as Demosthenes was. to go into a popular assembly
and obtain its previous consent; does any body suppose that the
occasional inspirations of that great and ruling practical mind
would have been uttered in long "chains of reasoning," in the

♦Arist. Rhet. 11.20.

AND THE ORATOR. 465

House of Commons, or in pregnant harangues after the fashion
of Demosthenes '\

If we are right in this view of the subject, the Philippics of
Demosthenes are precisely what we should a priori expect them
to be under the circumstances. They are still more — they are,
like every thing else he has left, perfect in their kind — the ideal
of deliberative eloquence in a simple democracy, attacked,
threatened, beset on all sides by a new and formidable foe. We
shall presently, when we come to speak of Demosthenes as a
statesman, have occasion to remark more particularly on that
prophetic sagacity which enabled him to discern in Philip — long
before others saw any serious danger on that side — the future
destroyer of Greece. But it was difficult for some time to con-
vince the people of Athens that a "man of Macedon" could pos-
sibly entertain so audacious a project, or, if he did, that without
a navy, and without the cooperation of some of the leading
Greek states, he had the least chance of accomplishing it. The
orator had, therefore, a double task to perform. He had to show
that Philip really was formidable, but that, if met at once with
powerful and systematic resistance, his ascendancy in the north,
founded as it was on fraud, injustice and violence, would be ef-
fectually overthrown. This task he performs as no other man
who ever addressed a popular assembly could aspire to perform
it. His portraiture of Philip shows how clearly he had conceived
his character and designs, and how worthy he was to be the se-
lected champion of Greece against that great man. He saw all
the bearings of his policy — he felt the impression of his strong
will and his ambitious, persevering and indomitable spirit — he
exposes the arts of corruption by which he makes himself a
party in every state, and undermines cities otherwise unconquer-
able— he paints him in his campaigns exposed to hardship, to
danger, arrested by no obstacle, discouraged by no difficulty,
patiently waiting where he could not speedily execute, persever-
ing always to the end ; though a voluptuary, a free liver, a boon
companion, loving to pass his evenings over the bottle with
actors and gleewomen, yet sacrificing every comfort without
hesitation, when he had an object to carry, exposing his life as
if he had nothing to live for, giving up to fortune any part of his
body she asked for, now an eye, then some other member, asking
no compensation of her but success, and obtaining that always
and every where, until a few more steps in his progress would
bring his battering-rams up to the very gates of Athens. Let
any man versed in the history oi those times read over these
orations of Demosthenes, and he will acknowledge that every
view that could be presented by a statesman, that eyery topic,
which a man thinking and feeling on the subject of Athenian
rights and power as the orator thought and felt, could imagine
vol. i. — 59

466 DEMOSTHENES,

for the purpose of awaking a degenerate people to a sense of
their dangers and a determination to resist them, is pressed with
the most evident reason, as witli unrivalled power. What would
Lord Brougham have had him do more ? What would he —
master of all modern science — have done in his place? He has
given us specimens of his skill at translations, which are truly
Demosthenes done into Brougham. Suppose he furnish us with
a substitute better than the original, and show us what "chains
of reasoning" would have kept out the conqueror so long?
Voltaire scoffs at somebody for attempting to demonstrate the
existence of a God by "X ptus Y equal to Z." Would Lord
Brougham defend a city in the same way ? or instead of Demos-
thenes, play Duns ?

The strictures of the learned lord on the speech for the crown
strike us as not less erroneous than what he says of the Philip-
pics. We concede that such a harangue would have been out
of place as an argument in the Exchequer Chamber: and, had
the debate been confined to the issue in law, iEschines would
certainly have carried his point. We have great doubt, however,
nay, we more than donbt, whether he would have been success-
ful, under similar circumstances, before an English jury, though
controlled and directed by an English judge. But Demosthenes
was not addressing a tribunal accustomed to confine the evidence
and the argument to a single issue, joined upon record. This
strict and salutary rule of English pleading, so essential to the
proper operation of the system of trial by jury, was unknown to
Greek judicature. There was, to be sure, a law forbidding the
orators to wander from the matter in hand, (S£« <rou irgayii.aros
Xs'ys»v),* but it was no more enforced in practice than that other
law which required, in all debates in the ecclesia, the subject to
be first spoken to by men over fifty years of age. The popular
tribunals (for so they all were) of Athens looked upon them-
selves as a mere commission of the general assembly, and as ex-
ercising in that capacity an arbitrary sovereign power. Law, as
a science, had never attained to any great perfection at Athens,
and, if it had, in a democracy so licentious, so immoral, so agi-
tated, the sublime function of judicature would, under any cir-
cumstances, 'probably have been perverted and abused. We
have already observed that the arbitrary conduct of the courts is
quite consistent with the array of statutes intended to prevent it,
which we see in many of the orations of Demosthenes. This,
however, we must say for him, that his pleadings, both in pri-
vate and in public causes, are as much superior to those of Ly-
sias in tone and topics, as they are in force, point, condensation,
and eloquence. .This is one of the merits of that extraordinary
man, in most things far above the age in which he lived, Ac-
* Lys. c. Simon, § 15.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 467

cordingly his judicial speeches are generally exceptions to the
practice, universal with others, of urging all the topics, however
remote from the point at issue, best calculated to inflame and
prejudice the minds of the court against an adversary, and make
him too odious to hope for justice.

If his speech on the Crown constitutes, as it does, an excep-
tion to his usual practice, it is because the occasion itself was
altogether peculiar. The technical issue was entirely lost sight
of in the real one. This often happens even in modern assem-
blies. One of the most celebrated debates, perhaps the most
celebrated, in our recent history, is that on Foote's resolution in
1830. Where was that resolution so much as touched upon 1
Mr. Webster, in his very happy opening of that speech, which
alone would carry his name down to posterity, alludes to it once
only, to justify himself for dismissing it altogether from his
thoughts. Demosthenes does not "assume," as Lord Brougham
affirms, "that his whole public life is put in issue :" it notoriously
was so. He was pleading for a crown, meant to be conferred on
him as the reward of all his labors as a statesman, a citizen, and
a devoted patriot. That, and that alone, gave the least interest
to the discussion. That, and that alone, provoked the hostility
of iEschines, and overcame his habitual unwillingness to speak,
and especially to address an audience which he could not but
know was strongly prejudiced against him, and almost entirely
devoted to his mighty rival. His only chance of success, to be
sure, was in his unanswerable argument on the point of law,
and under cover of that he could wreak "the hoarded vengeance"
of years upon his detested adversary, with some hope, at least,
of an apparent triumph — for a real one was evidently out of
the question before an Athenian jury at that time.* He, accord-
ingly, insists that they shall keep Demosthenes to the legal issue,
while he expatiates at large into the history, public and private,
of his life. His demand was a mere rhetorical artifice ; he knew
it would be refused. The cause of Demosthenes was their
own ; the history of his administration, however^ disastrous,
they thought the glory of the state, and they sympathized with
him too deeply in every syllable he uttered to think of abridging
his account of it in the least. What, indeed, did it signify to
men who had survived Cheronea, and seen Thebes effaced from
the earth, and the liberties of Greece trodden under foot by Ma-
cedonian satraps, whether one of those crowns, of which they
were then habitually so lavish, could be voted to a public officer
before he had settled his accounts, or should be proclaimed in
one assembly rather than another?

* No better evidence is wanting of this than the appeal of Demosthenes to the
judges whether they did not know iEschines to be a corrupt tool of Philip — an-
swered by them in the affirmative. This was in an early part, too, of his speech.

4(58 DEMOSTHENES,

Lord Brougham, proceeding with his critical examination of
this speech, comes at length to "the most celebrated passages of
the whole," and admitting — we will not say how consistently —
that "this truly magnificent passage cannot be too often referred
to, or its merits too highly extolled," endeavors, nevertheless, to
show that it is "not a piece of close and sustained argumenta-
tion." We can only afford the space necessary to animadvert
upon what he says of "the famous oath." It is as follows : —

<wNow, every way splendid and prodigious as this famous burst of elo-
quence is. in point of argument, and if viewed as a piece of reasoning, it is
positively nothing. For it would then stand thus, and this would be the
argument : — 'My counsels led to your defeat at Cheronea ; but because you
won four or five great victories by following other counsels, or which is the
same thing, these counsels in other circumstances, therefore I was justified
in the disastrous advice I gave you.' Or thus : 'You gained great victo-
ries at Marathon, Salamis, Platsea, and Artemisium ; therefore you were
justified in fighting at Cheronea, where you were defeated.' Then as to
the funeral honors, the argument would stand thus: 'The victorious sol-
diers, who were slain in the successful battles of former times, were buried
with public honors ; therefore the state rewards those who fall in defeat ;'
and consequently the counsels are not to be blamed which are bold, al-
though they lead to disaster.' "

We have never met with a perversion more pitiable than thisr
and we have no scruple in saying that a mind capable of it is
incapable of appreciating Demosthenes. For, in the first place,
with regard to '^he funeral honors," the orator does not confine
his allegation to those who fell at Marathon, etc., but extends it
expressly to "many others,"* buried at public expense, all alike
honored, not the victorious and the successful only ;t "and right-
ly," he adds — "For the duty of good men and true had been
equally performed by all, their success was various according to
the fortune allotted to each by the providence of God." These
are the words of Demosthenes, and our readers will at once per-
ceive that whatever is illogical in Lord Brougham's proposition
belongs to himself.

The other part of the famous passage speaks for itself, but to
do it full justice it must be taken in connection with the whole
context of the argument.

The peace party argued after the fashion of Lord Brougham.
It is all very well, said they, to prate about Marathon and Sala-
mis, provided you are pretty sure of success. But why lead us
into an unavailing and disastrous struggle? Why not submit
quietly at first, instead of waiting until defeat left you no alterna-
tive? Your Quixotic resistance has only made matters much
worse. You left a thousand of your fellow citizens dead upon

* Kai tfoXXou? £<re£ou£.

f 'Atfavras 6/xq»w£ .... ou^i toujt xaro^wtfavrag ou6s roue: x^arrjo'avracr

fAOVOVJ.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 469

the field, and two thousand prisoners in the hands of the foe, to
whose moderation alone we owe the salvation of the city itself.
Such are the fruits of your insane counsels and your predestina-
ted ill-luck, and yet you live, and not only live, but come here
into the midst of those on whom you have brought so many
calamities, and have the effrontery to ask, not for pardon or
oblivion, but for thanks and a crown ! Certainly his position
was a very trying one, and nothing can give us a higher concep-
tion of his influence as a man, a politician and an orator, than
the fact that, with Lord Brougham's unanswerable argument
against him, he succeeded, in the midst of those very disasters,
in convincing the people that they had done only what they
were bound to do, then and at all times. He told them that the
issue of all human counsels was in the hands of God ; that he
had not had the command of the army, and so was not strictly
responsible for its defeat ; but, even were he fairly called to ac-
count for it, he should think himself acquitted by showing that
everything had been done that depended on his foresight, dili-
gence and courage ; they had discharged their duty as Athenians,
and left the consequences to Heaven. It was a cheap wisdom
which had nothing to say beforehand, but would denounce, after
the event, measures of which it might and (if they were really
so bad) ought to have prevented the adoption — like a physician
at a funeral, mentioning for the first time the prescriptions that
would have saved the patient. "If this man had done so or so,
he had not died." s^ovr/irs, sira, wv \sysig* This is the topic,
which, as was remarked by some of the old critics, he was al-
ways insisting on.t Do not judge by the general result ; examine
each measure upon its own merits, in reference to the circum-
stances under which it was adopted. But that answer, however
satisfactory to his hearers, does not satisfy him — he is not content
to place his, or rather their case, upon such low though safe
ground. Any other orator, iEschines or Lord Brougham, for
instance, would have stopped there, and thought the argument
exhausted. Not so, the heroical imitator of the glorious past.
He ventures to go much farther ; he disdains to skulk behind
the uncertainty of events, and to ask indulgence and pardon for
human weakness. He wants no forgiveness ; he needs none ;
he throws away the advantage of his obvious and unanswerable
defence. He challenges his adversary forth upon the ground on
which he means to plant his own fame for ever. He concedes
that the contest, instead of being a doubtful one — so doubtful,
that Philip himself, when it was over, looked back to it with a
feeling of awe — had been altogether desperate ; and he maintains
that the example of their ancestors, who had resolutely rejected

* n. gsyuvov, § 71. See 66. f Theo. Sophist. Progym, c. 11.

470 DEMOSTHENES,

all offers of peace and protection from the Mede, if they would
only consent to his conquering the rest of Greece, and had chosen
rather to abandon their hearths and altars, and to give up their
fair city with its most holy temples to be sacked and devastated
by a barbarous foe, with no hope or resource but in "the courage
never to submit or yield," and their gallant ships to fight it out
unto the last — that their position at the head of the civilized
world, and the duties it imposed upon them — left them no alter-
native but to resist — to resist with arms in their hands — to resist
at all hazards, to the uttermost extremity, and be the consequen-
ces what they might. Even Lord Brougham himself, with a tem-
perament most un-Demosthenian. and treating this whole matter
as honest Jack FalstarT discusses honor, admits this splendid and
prodigious passage to be successful — in spite of its being just no
argument at all — and we venture to say that no man capable of
interpreting Greek prose ever reads this chapter with its equally
admirable context, without experiencing some, at least, of the
tumultuous enthusiasm which Dionysius of Halicarnassus* de-
clares is awakened in him by the eloquence of by far the mightiest
orator that ever swayed the souls of men. Nobody has the least
doubt that the paradox, so bold for a degenerate people, that
Demosthenes begs they will not reject it till they hear him out
with it, nobody has a shadow of doubt but that it is fully es-
tablished long before he has done with it. There is not a man
of us all but is ready to swear with him that it was all perfectly
right, and would have been so, though Athens had been blotted
out for ever from the face of the earth, and nothing left of her
but the glory of such a defeat. But then, it seems, though the
topic is so satisfactory, and so irresistibly put, it is no argument,
and why ? Because the great men, whose example is cited and
whose merit Demosthenes alleges to have consisted in their
courage, undismayed, even in what seemed a desperate case,
having, in fact, succeeded after all, (though that, according to
the hypothesis, is a perfectly immaterial circumstance,) it was
not "a case that ran oji all fours" with the one before the
court. What is to be done with such Nisi-Prius cavilling?
c^bPovr/jrs ri "hiystg.

This part of the argument of Demosthenes rests upon an
illustrious precedent, or rather a series of illustrious precedents,
the history of Athens in the day of her glory and power. He
aims to show that, in this second attempt of a barbarian (as he
pronounces Philip) to conquer Greece, her position had been
precisely what it was at the time of the first, and that his policy,
as her adviser, had been, in all respects, except what he labors
throughout his whole speech to prove was wholly immaterial —

* II. T. X. A. £S|V0T7]T0£.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE 0RA10R. 471

success in the issue — identical with that of Miltiades and The-
mistocles. What he regards as the great feature in the conduct
of that heroic age was the sublime spirit of self-sacrifice in the
people of Athens. Spurning at all terms, however tempting to
baser natures, from the enemy, they had chosen, rather than see
the liberty and civilization of Greece overthrown without an
effort to save it, to abandon their country, for many reasons pe-
culiarly sacred in their eye, and had determined, should events
be, as seemed probable, unfavorable, to emigrate for ever to some
distant clime.

It was not because Themistocles had conquered at Salamis
that his name was immortal — that only proved his skill and
address as a captain — but what made him a hero, and gives to
the whole story of the war the air of mythology or epic poetry,
was that he had fought there under such desperate circumstan-
ces— hazarding the very existence of the state upon a single cast
of the die. It was the spirit, the generous devotedness, the nice
sense of what was due to the superiority of Greek nature, and
the unshaken determination to live Greeks or live no more. It
was the choice of Achilles :

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Certainly the whole reasoning of Demosthenes proceeds upon
the assumption that all this is right. If you deny his principle,
there is an end of the whole argument, for one of the first rules
of logic is that there is no disputing with him that questions
principles.* How should you prove to a Quaker that any war
was just, or necessary, or glorious 1 How could Sir John's ar-
gument on the point of honor be refuted to the satisfaction of a
jury of Falstaffs ? If Lord Brougham does not feel and acknow-
ledge the force of the precedent, as he seems not to do, then he
is no fit judge of Demosthenes or his reasoning — the whole mat-
ter is to him coram non judice. But, if he admits the premises
of the orator, his conclusion is irresistible ; and the verdict of
the only tribunal competent to do it full justice — the people of
Athens — has settled the question for ever. Nor, indeed, do we
envy him that reads this wonderful oration— wonderful in every
thing that can enter into the composition of a perfect speech, but
most of all in the heroical elevation of sentiment — without /eeZ-
ing it to be true that the motives, the conduct, the spirit of the
contest, were those of Salamis and Artemisium — that this spirit
had moved the mighty orator from the beginning, as it did to the
end of his great and tragical career — had made him throw him-

* Contra negantem principia non est disputandum.

472 DEMOSTHENES,

self into the breach on the memorable occasion, painted in all its
terrors (in this very speech,) of the sudden capture of Elateia by
Philip, when no other public man durst utter an opinion or pro-
pose a measure — had dictated his immortal manifesto, as full of
statesman-like wisdom and high patriotism, as of matchless elo-
quence*— had gone with him on his embassy to Thebes, and
there armed him with invincible might, and insured him a com-
plete triumph over every difficulty of sloth, and fear, and rooted
prejudice, and over the most formidable opposition from the par-
tizans of Philip — and was now. in this last solemn account of his
stewardship, by the lofty tones in which the examples of the
past were invoked to justify his measures, attesting in the most
unequivocal manner their moral identity. As to his failure in
the great result, we shall say more of that hereafter, but the ora-
tor has not left us to conjecture the disadvantages under which
he labored in his contest with Philip. In a passage of this very
speech, they are most clearly and forcibly summed up.t

But we have already, perhaps, dwelt too long upon this part
of the subject, and we must hasten to another.

The second volume, at the head of this article, is one of many
contributions to the literature of Demosthenes which Professor
Westermann has made within a few years past. This little vol-
ume contains his remarks upon the causes which the orator ar-
gued himself, in contradistinction to those wherein he furnished
arguments to others. These were the Lis Tzitorid, or his action
of account against his guardians — the Lis Midiana, or his action
against Midias for a ruffianly assault upon him, of which we have
already spoken — the two contests with iEschines on the Em-
bassy and the Crown — the Lis Aristogeitonia, two declamatory
pieces, certainly not genuine — and the Lis Harpalica, involving
the famous charge of corruption against him, for extending his
protection to the fugitive treasurer of Alexander, and sharing in
the fruits of his famous embezzlement. The book closes with
an epimetrum, in which the author treats of the repetitions that
occur in the orations of Demosthenes, and animadverts upon
certain critical remarks of Lord Brougham in regard to them.
We shall take notice of these, if our space admit of it, by and by.

1. The two speeches against Aphobus were delivered when
Demosthenes was only eighteen or twenty years of age; the
third is condemned as spurious. Crassus, in the Dialogue de
Oratore,t mentions his appearing before the public, on an im-
portant occasion, at almost as early an age. In the case of De-
mosthenes, the wonder is greatly increased by the extreme matu-
rity of thought and style that distinguishes these speeches. This
was, indeed, so remarkable, that his master Isaeus was charged
with having helped him in the composition of them. The only
* De Coronfc, § 55. t Ibid. § 65. * L. 3, c. 20.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 473

difficulty in the way of that supposition is, that they happen to
be better than any thing- the said master has done for himself.
The peroration of the first is extremely pathetic, and there is one
point in it (§ 13) that is particularly well reasoned. The speech
is in other respects a dry matter of account, which he states,
item by item, with the precision of a master in chancery. He
appears, however, to make out his case very clearly, and the
judgment of the court shows that his evidence was as strong as
his statement was plain. It seems that he was left, at his father's
death, a boy of seven years old, with a sister two years younger,
and a fortune, the bulk of which had been bequeathed to him,
of fourteen talents, which properly managed would have in-
creased, by the time he was of age, to thirty (about £7,250).
Instead of this opulent estate, (for so it was then.) he received
from his guardians only a house, fourteen slaves, and thirty
mince. (£120) in money. This was the beginning of his mis-
fortunes, and, according to some of his biographers, of his great-
ness. Facit indignatio versus. To be revenged on these
wicked men, they suppose him to have devoted himself to the
study of eloquence — as if the orator, par excellence, ot all time,
was a creature of accident or art, or as if any body can be elo-
quent, after the manner of Demosthenes, without a physical or-
ganization of a most peculiar kind. But it deserves to be men-
tioned that, if Demosthenes afterwards wrote, as we have seen
he did, many speeches for money, this humiliating necessity
was imposed upon one born for better things, by the profligate
mismanagement of others. The profession of a feed advocate,
or logograph, at Athens, was regarded with extreme disfavor.*
Demosthenes himself informs us, it was generally admitted that
the worst class in the community were those who wrote and
spoke for money.t There is a terrible picture, though in very
exaggerated colors, in the oration against Aristogeiton, of the
vast influences, as well as of the detestable practices, of the ora-
tors in general, but especially the venal sycophants — brokers in
iniquity, as they are called, who traffic in their influence with
the people, and live on the terrors of the rich.t

The speeches against Aphobus, we may add here, stand at the
head of those composed for private causes. These are a curious
variety of the Demosthenic style, and strikingly illustrate its
wonderful versatility, so much extolled by Cicero and Dionysius.
It is equally perfect, that is, fit and appropriate, on all subjects,
from the highest to the lowest. There was no imaginable sort

[* Aristoph. Plut. 30.]

t Cont. Aristocrat. § 36. Cf. Midiana, § 52. "He will call me orator, to make
me odious." Timocrat. § 17. "Have no pity for him, he writes for pay."

t Aristogeit. §§ 9-11. "The dogs of Demus." [Or rather keepers of the Dog,
Demus, whom they starve into ferocity and let slip upon their enemies. Aristoph.
Vesp. 704.] Passages, these, certainly not of Demosthenes.

vol. i. — 60

474 DEMOSTHENES,

of speaking in which he did not excel — observing every where
the cardinal rule of Roscius, which that great actor declared it
was so difficult to practise — Caput est artis decere. One of the
false ideas which writers like Blair, and even Lord Brougham,
instil into the minds of youth, is that this wonderful artist is a
sort of tragedy-hero always in buskins and "sceptred pall" — the
r^w-aywvitfTTjg of oratory, as he calls JEschines — or, worse yet, as if
he were always, as Bottom says, "playing Ercles — or a part to
tear a cat in — to make all split." Nothing can be farther from
the true conception of a style of which the peculiar characteristic
is decorum, as nothing, indeed, could be more insane than such
uniform, unremitting vehemence. There is one class of these
private causes which are reduced to some single point or excep-
tion beside the merits, and take the tone of an argument in our
courts on a demurrer or a special plea. Think of Demosthenes
the special pleader ! But, though in general they are distinguish-
ed by any thing rather than the ranting vein ascribed to their au-
thor, his great power occasionally displays itself in no equivocal
manner. Thus the first speech against Stephanus for perjury is
admirable throughout, and contains some tremendous peals of de-
nunciation.* So the speech against Olympiodorus for damages
(gXagi??) is exceedingly fine. That against Polycles is full of in-
structive matter about the trierarchy, sailors' wages, the corn
trade, ate. In short, these arguments embrace a great variety of
questions in Attic law, and are well worthy the attention of all
who are curious about comparative jurisprudence. One other
remark, altogether characteristic of Demosthenes, we will make
in reference to these speeches, and that is that, like his arguments
in matters of public law, they are, with but a single exception,
every one of them for the plaintiff, or prosecutor. These causes
were all restrained within certain limits as to time, varying, ap-
parently, according to circumstances, and measured by a propor-
tional allowance of water in the clepsydra. It is no uncommon
thing for the orator to say, "I have a good deal more to add, but
I see the water running short," or to find him crying out, when
he called for the reading of a law or document by the clerk, (as
was the usage,) "stop the water." The first maxim of Attic taste
in all things is, ne quid nimis, (ovdsv ayav) — when shall we learn,
in this most long-winded ot all countries, to imitate at least the
Atticism of brevity ?

The second of the causes in which Demosthenes appears in
proper person, according to Professor Westermann's arrangement,
is the Lis Midiana. This case, of which we have already said
something, is very illustrative, both of the state of manners at
Athens, and of the character of Demosthenes himself. It grew
out of the cause against his guardians, in which Midias inter-

* § 23, cf. § 10.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 475

fered to protect the latter, by procuring the orator to be charged
with an oppressive liturgy — and when he declined it offering
him, according to the Athenian law, an exchange of fortunes, by
means of which Aphobus would have been at once discharged
from all farther liability. It seems that in offering this antido-
sis, (such was the technical term,) the conduct of Midias was ex-
cessively brutal.* From this source flowed a most malignant and
mischievous personal grudge on the part of the unprovoked of-
fender, against the youth he had wronged : and many years af-
ter, when Demosthenes, as Choregus of his tribe, was making
preparations for an exhibition of hischorus at one of the great
public festivals, this ruffian (one of the principal people of
Athens,) committed a series of outrages, ending with a box on
the ear, inflicted upon the young orator in public. The people,
indignant at such brutality, insisted that the offender should be
brought to condign punishment, and accordingly measures were
taken to effect that object. Among other things Demosthenes
composed, but it is said did not deliver, his celebrated speech —
having compromised his suit with his formidable adversary for
thirty minse (£120). Why did he receive this hush-money?
Plutarch regards it as a proof that, although he was at that time
thirty-two years of age, and had delivered one at least of his har-
angues in the assembly of the people, not to mention the four
admirable speeches in state trials already adverted to, he. had as
yet too little political influence to venture upon so unequal a con-
test. He is led to ascribe the compromise to some such motive,
from the irascible and vindictive (?) character of Demosthenes.
Be that as it may, the compounding of this prosecution, together
with a similar occurrence between him and one of his relatives,
was matter of much pungent waggery. iEschines' sarcastic re-
mark, that his head was a treasure to him,t shows at least the ou-
tfits of the day. His determination to drop the prosecution was
no doubt prompted, in some degree, by an indictment for deser-
tion, and another for murder, which Midias immediately got up
against him, and of which we hear no more afterwards, not even
from his worst enemies.

We are not to judge of such an outrage, nor of the conduct of
Demosthenes under it, by our modern standard. Corneille's Cid
would not have been appreciated at Athens. They had no idea
of the point of honor, in the chivalrous sense of the word. The
individuality of the person, the haughtiness of the modern moi,
were merged in implicit obedience to the law, and in the para-
mount duty of the citizen as a member of a community. The

* § 22.

t More literally, a "capital" — not xspaXT], but xscpakaiov, is a conjectural
reading approved by Bekker.

476

honor of the Greek was a fanatical patriotism — lie was at all
times, and at any sacrifice of his own interests or feelings, to
obey the command, to promote the welfare of the state. The
pride of the citizen was the humility of the man. It was this ru-
ling passion which Demosthenes, as we have seen, knew so well
how to move, and which he did awaken to transports long un-
felt, by his Philippics and his Speech on the Crown. But, inde-
pendently of this high and ruling idea of Greek life, the Atheni-
ans were a people steeped in profligacy to the very lips, and
wholly without shame or sensibility on subjects of honor. This
shocking contrast, between the exquisite in art, the polite in dic-
tion, the sublime in thought, and occasionally the great and he-
roical in sentiment, and a tone of manners and topics of discourse
often the most low, vicious, brutal and cynical, is one of the
most striking peculiarities of the ancient Greek world.

This speech against Midias is thus doubly curious, as exhibit-
ing Demosthenes to us in a situation calculated severely to try
his character, and as throwing light upon Athenian opinion on a
matter of so much importance as the protection of the person. It
appears, from a law cited by the orators, that every sort of vio-
lence or contumely (u£gig) was rigidly punished, so that an assault
and battery was a high crime : even slaves were protected, by a
popular action, against outrages of the kind. On this, as on other
occasions, the court is addressed as if the degree and even the
nature of the punishment were entirely at its discretion. The
orator seems to think that death itself would not be too much —
but, at all events, he demands that the defendant shall be render-
ed harmless by the forfeiture of the whole estate which at once
inspired his insolence and secured its impunity. Not to extend
these remarks unnecessarily, we will only add, that there are pas-
sages of great beauty and power in this speech ; as for example,
the noted one as to the circumstances that aggravate the character
of an assault, (§ 21,) and the necessity of protecting, in his person,
the security of all. (§ 59.) His argument, on the application of pre-
cedents cited by the adversary, or by himself, is extremely dis-
criminating and powerful, sufficiently so, we should think, to
come up fully even to Lord Brougham's ideas of "close and sus-
tained argumentation.'1 (§§ 11. 17. 19. 48.)

To do Demosthenes complete justice in this distressing affair,
it ought to be mentioned, that it was not an action for damages,
but a public prosecution, that he had instituted — so that his
object was simply to punish the offender, and not to profit by the
offence.

But by far the most important of the controversies in which
he appeared himself, were the memorable ones with iEschines,
after Eubulus and Philocrates, and with Phocion, the leader of

AND THE ORATOR. 477

the Macedonian or Peace party, his mortal enemy, and the first
orator of Greece, with the single exception of the great victor
himself.

It is a remark applicable in general to the German writers of
the present day, and particularly so to M. Westermann, that
they treat iEschines just as Demosthenes did ; that is, they re-
ceive implicitly all the charges made against him by the latter.
This is like judging Hannibal by the Roman accounts of him.

We confess, for our part, that we are disposed, in this contest,
to lean a good deal towards iEschines, just as in Homer we in-
voluntarily take sides with Hector against Achilles. He has,
for a Greek, a remarkably well-bred and gentleman-like tone, a
cairn self-possession, a quiet dignity, a nice sense of moral pro-
priety, and bating some rather rhetorical passages, his speaking
is perfectly Attic. His oration against Timarchus is a beautiful
and most effective speech. Unfortunately it turns principally on
so revolting a subject, and reveals, in the existing state of morals
at Athens, such unutterable abominations, that it would sully
the pages of a modern journal to do more than allude to its con-
tents. Otherwise, we have never read a speech in a foreign lan-
guage which we should feel more tempted to translate. It is
particularly remarkable for a sound moral tone, and for a certain
delicacy in the manner of dealing with such horrors. The ora-
tion in his own defence, when charged by Demosthenes with
malversation in an embassy to Philip, is also an admirable mas-
ter-piece; and his third and most celebrated, though unfortunate,
effort against Ctesiphon, would probably have been reckoned the
perfection of the art, had not Demosthenes totally eclipsed him
in his immortal reply. These three speeches are all the remains
of iEschines ; for although, or rather, perhaps, because a great
extemporaneous speaker, he published little. They constitute
what is called, in the language of the Greek drama, a Trilogy —
the beginning, the middle, and the end of his mortal combat
with his more popular rival. Antiquity expressed its judgment
upon them by designating them as the Three Graces. The ori-
gin of the feud was the first embassy to Philip to treat of peace.
Up to that time iEschines seems to have distinguished himself
as much by his opposition to the king, as Demosthenes. After
his return, however, from that mission, he changed his course,
and in a second embassy sent to conclude a definitive treaty with
Macedon, he is charged with having, together with some col-
leagues equally disaffected or corrupt, purposely delayed the
ratification until Philip had accomplished his projects in Phocis
and Thrace — projects which the king had very much at heart,
since these were the two most vulnerable points of Athens.
iEschines seems to have contracted for Demosthenes a strong
personal aversion during the first mission, and nothing can be

478

more graphic and humorous than his account of the behavior of
his rival in their journeys as well as at Court. On their return
from the last, Demosthenes and Timarchus, in concert, were
preparing to impeach him for malversation in office, when
iEschines turned upon one of his adversaries, and striking him
down, seems for the time to have silenced, or at least foiled the
other. He accused Timarchus of infamous conduct, which,
according to Attic law, deprived him of the right of speaking in
public. lie was convicted, and, it is said, committed suicide in
despair. Demosthenes wrote, as did iKschines, a long and la-
bored speech, to be spoken in the impeachment of his rival.
Whether they were delivered or not, is still matter of dispute.
Some report that iEschines was, in fact, tried, and escaped but
by thirty voices — others that, owing to the confusion of the times,
the case was indefinitely postponed. M. Westermann suggests,
rather plausibly, that the prosecution was never even instituted.
The argument, which he considers as conclusive upon the sub-
ject, is one that weighed very much with Piutarch, namely, that
no allusion whatever is made to it by either of the orators in
their speeches on the Crown. But this fact may be otherwise
explained ; and Jerome Wolf well remarks that by the same ar-
gument it might be proved that the oration against Timarchus
had never been delivered. We think it not improbable, how-
ever, that the success of iEschines in the prosecution against
this man, and the odium, which his notorious and revolting infa-
my threw upon the whole cause, shook the nerve of Demos-
thenes, and made him abandon his purpose. If this was so, it is
a remarkable instance of the pains which the ancient orators
bestowed upon the composition of their harangues on great occa-
sions— unless, indeed, we are to suppose that the suppressed
speeches were circulated as political pamphlets. That of JEs-
chines is the more finished production of the two — his rival's is
considered as a mere cartoon — but it is a cartoon of Demos-
thenes.

With regard to the merits of the controversy, the impossibi-
lity of arriving at the truth must be apparent to any one who
examines the state of the evidence. Contemporary history is
perished with Theopompus ; and what we find in later writers,
such as Plutarch, is manifestly copied, or at any rate more or
less deeply colored, from the mutual recriminations of the ora-
tors. It follows that we are, after all, referred to the speeches
for the solution of the difficulties raised by the speeches? And
what do we find in these? Palpable, irreconcilable contradic-
tions, on subjects many of which must have been at that time
matter of public notoriety. In the midst of a small society, in
reference to events that had but just happened, we see them ap-
pealing, with equal confidence, to the testimony of the first men

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 479

in the state, nay, to public records, affirming and denying, with
the most solemn imprecations, things which, one should suppose,
the whole assembly must have known as well as any witness.
Every allegation necessary either to the attack or the defence is
clearly stated, and apparently made out by the most irrefragable
proofs ; you see them, with all the gravity in the world, bid the
clerk read the document, the record, the testimony needed. Poor
Wolf (Jerome) is so much annoyed and scandalized by this con-
flict of asseverations, that he inveighs continually in his annota-
tions against the perfidious art of the orators. In one of them
he quotes Lactantius to the same purpose, and heartily joins in
the repentance expressed by the Christian Cicero, for having
done any thing to promote this science of falsehood and impos-
ture*— to say nothing of that anthology of vituperation, as it has
been well expressed, which might be easily culled from these
speeches — especially those of Demosthenes — bidding defiance to
Billingsgate at its worst. M. Westermann assumes that this
orator is more to be relied on than his adversary, and this he
assumes because he assumes, again, that he was the better man,
as he undoubtedly displayed more statesmanship, as well as pa-
triotic devotedness, in his opposition to Philip. But this argu-
ment is by no means conclusive. It proves too much. It ap-
plies as strongly to Phocion, who voted with iEschines through-
out, and who is universally admitted to have been the most
upright man of the time, and worthy to be associated with Aris-
tides. There is one consideration of very great weight in favor
of iEschines. The war party was at that time decidedly the
strongest at Athens ; why did not the impeachment succeed ?

As to what M. Westermann (pp. 48-50) considers as a con-
fession of the defendant himself, it is absurd to separate, as he
attempts to do, the fact from the intention. iEschines admits
that on his return he made some such representations as had been
imputed to him ; but he resists the inference attempted to be
drawn from them that he had betrayed his country. Far from
denying, he boldly avows and most eloquently defends his policy
in promoting the peace. t He draws a frightful picture of the
calamitous consequences of the war, the waste of treasure and
the dilapidation of the finances, the loss of no less than seventy-
five towns, restored to the confederacy by Conon, and of a hun-
dred and fifty ships of war, the resources of the state lavished
only on the refuse of all Greece, the corrupt brawlers in the
public assemblies, and their worthless dependants, until the city
was reduced to the condition of a mere den of pirates, while her
mercenary generals, instead of arresting the progress of Philip,
becoming daily more formidable, were not even to be found on

* Ad. TEsch. de fals. Legat- § 3.
t De fals. Legat. § 24.

480 DEMOSTHENES,

the theatre of war, but prosecuted elsewhere, without authority,
enterprises of their own against the allies of the republic. In
answer to the appeals to the conduct of their ancestors, in the
Persian war, he reminds them of the effects of the invasion of
Sicily, and of the terrible fruits of their obstinacy in persisting
in the struggle with Sparta, when they might have put an end
to it on moderate terms — the destruction of their walls, the over-
throw of the democracy, the despotism of the thirty tyrants, and
the execution of fifteen hundred citizens without a trial. It
seems to us very conceivable, considering the situation of Greece
at that time, (of which we shall presently say more,) that iEs-
chines might have been governed by such views, and honestly
advised peace, and all the measures which subsequently led to
the ruin of his country. That he had been captivated by the
plausible professions and amiable manners of Philip, during his
first embassy, is very evident ; why should he not have been
his dupe? M. Westermann seems to think he had deliberately
conspired with that prince to overthrow the liberty of Greece.
Does he suppose so crafty a politician as Philip let an Athenian,
an orator, a babbler by profession, into the secrets of his ambi-
tion ? The only argument of any force against this view of the
matter, is that pressed by Demosthenes in his speech on the
Embassy. "Had he not sold himself, I should expect to hear
him say something to this effect : 'Men of Athens, do with me
as you please ; I believed, I was imposed upon, I have erred, I
confess. But be on your guard, Athenians, against that man ;
he is faithless, perfidious, wicked — do ye not see how he has
used me, how grossly he has deceived me V But I hear nothing
of the kind from him, nor you neither. Why ? Because he
spoke under no error, or delusion, but for the wages of his
treachery, acting the part of a good and faithful mercenary, but
of a traitor ambassador and citizen, and deserving to die for it,
not once, but three times over."* This is specious, yet a political
party has seldom been known to change its ground on a disco-
very of its error, and still more rarely to confess its shame when
it has been disgracefully duped. The Whigs, under the lead of
Mr. Fox in 1793 and in 1803, were in precisely the same pre-
dicament in regard to the French Revolution, as that in which
iEschines stood in relation to Philip — and they were as far as
he from making any confession or retraction.

After the failure of this attempt upon the head of the peace
party, we hear no more of conflicts between the great rivals
until the last and decisive one. So far iEschines had been com
pletely triumphant in defending himself. He had destroyed
Timarchus, and driven back his great colleague himself, foiled
and discomfited. But he had not supplanted this latter in the
* De fals. Leeat. § 109.

The man, the statesman, and the orator. 4SI

affections of the people. Very far from it. Events had occurred
since that contest which had given to Demosthenes all the credit
of sagacity and patriotism. Philip, taking advantage of a second
Holy War, set on foot by iEschines, (though it is very possible
the latter might have been actuated by motives which, at any
former period, would undoubtedly have led the Amphictyons to
adopt the same measures,) pounced suddenly upon Elatea, and
revealed, even to the blindest, his ulterior projects against Greece.
Demosthenes, as we have seen, nothing daunted by this sudden
and imminent peril, roused up Thebes to an alliance with Athens
against him, and the fatal battle of Cheronea fulfilled the worst
forebodings of the patriot orator. His country was fallen for
ever from her political pre-eminence, but Philip was excessively
ambitious of her praises. "Grecian, too, with all his vices."
He wanted her for his theatre, and her wits and artists for his
spectators, in the great part which he fully intended to perform,
of Conqueror of Persia. He left her nominally an independent
democracy. She still retained her darling Mtfjjtfft*. The orators
might still speak — of the past — and the last appearance of De-
mosthenes was on the occasion on which we have already dwelt,
of Ctesiphon's motion to reward him with a crown. He comes
forward now no longer as a counsellor, but as a historian, to
justify his whole political course. It is the grandest piece of
egotism on record — Milton's, perhaps, excepted. Yet is the sub-
ject so dexterously, or rather, we should say, so simply, so sin-
cerely, so sublimely managed, that you forget the orator in the
statesman, the statesman in the patriot, the patriot in his country,
which seems to have engrossed, penetrated, transformed and
elevated his whole being.

Surely it is not to be wondered at that this defence was trium-
phant. It was impossible it should fail were the laws ever so
express against the honor proposed — were the calamities brought
upon Greece by resistance to the conqueror worse even than they
were represented to be by the adversaries of the orator. The
democracy, except the name, was gone, but it had died on the
bed of glory. The achievements, which Herodotus records in a
simple tale of wonder, were not more worthy to be had in honor
among men, were in nothing but in good fortune and in military
skill superior to the last struggle to emulate them. But it was
all over with popular government — Alexander had trodden out
the first sparks of insurrection in Greece — he had effaced the
antique and myth-honored Thebes from the map — he had de-
manded of the Athenians that their orators, and especially their
great orator, should be delivered up to him to be put to death.
He was pacified by Demades and did not press this demand.
But the proscription of a patriot is his apotheosis in the eyes of
those for whom he suffers, and whatever influence may be as-
vol. i. — 61

482 OEMOSTHENES,

cribed to his matchless genius and eloquence — matchless then
and for ever — it is certain that through all his subsequent life —
even when, under duress, they voted his banishment, nay, when
they afterwards voted his death — he was without a rival in the
affections of the people of Athens. It was impossible, therefore,
that iEschines should have triumphed, had he even made, as he
did, on the subject of the embassy, a better speech than his rival,
instead of being, as he was, hopelessly eclipsed. The Macedo-
nian influence on which he is supposed, and with good reason, to
have counted, was not strong enough at the moment to have any
effect on the issue of such a discussion. It served, on the contrary,
to render him more odious — he was identified, like the Bourbons,
with the conquest of his country and hatred for the foreigner.
The relative positions of the orators with regard to the audience
reversed their nominal parts. The prosecutor is plainly on the
defensive throughout — the accused attacks with ferocity. The
cause had been pending, according to the common account, eight
years. M. Westermann thinks he has proved that the delay
was only half that time. The difference is unimportant for any
practical purpose. This solemn note of preparation, the reputa-
tion of the speakers, their inveterate hostility personal and politi-
cal, the memory of their former contests and of the tragical end
of Timarchus, the fact that one of the champions was backed
by the Macedonian interest, while the other was cheered by the
sympathy of a people as true to him in defeat and disaster as
they had been in the day of triumph, the renowned democracy
of two hundred years lilting up, for the last time, its spirit-stirring
voice in the midst of a world doomed to hear it no more ; the
past, the present, the dark and hopeless future — every thing con-
spired to give to this immortal contest a character and an interest
altogether' unique in the history of the human mind.

The eloquence of iEschines is of a brilliant and showy char-
acter, running occasionally, as we have said, though very rarely,
into a Ciceronian declamation. In general, however, his taste
is unexceptionable — clear in statement, close and cogent in argu-
ment, lucid in arrangement, remarkably graphic and animated
in style, and full of spirit and pleasantry, without the least ap-
pearance of emphasis or effort. He is particularly successful in
description and the portraiture of character. We have spoken
of the ridiculous light in which he places the behavior of Demos-
thenes on the first embassy, and the miserable failure of the
great orator in his attempt to address Philip. His delivery seems
to have been fine, though, perhaps, somewhat theatrical. De-
mosthenes alludes repeatedly to his musical and powerful voice,
in comparison with his own rather feeble one,* as he contrasts

* De fals. Legat. § 61. (pdsyys<Jdat psyig-ng.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 483

his boldness and composure in speaking, with his own nervous-
ness and timidity.* His well known ridicule of some of the strong
phrases in which the passion of Demosthenes sometimes (we
must suppose extemporaneously) vented itself,f shows him to
have been a very Athenian for fastidiousness of taste. The re-
ply of the great orator to this criticism is characteristic both of
the man and the speaker — who are, indeed, inseparable — that to
be sure, it signified a great deal to the welfare of the Greeks
whether he used one phrase rather than another, or stretched out
his arm thus or thus. His high opinion of his rival, however,
is sufficiently betrayed by his frequent admonitions to the assem-
bly to remember that their debates are no theatrical exhibitions
of voice and oratory, but deliberations involving the safety of
their country. His bitterest scoffs, too, against iEschines, have
reference to his former profession of an actor, in which he gene-
rally had the "tyrant's part."! (r^rayuvig-ris.) He tells them it is
very strange that the same audience that had hissed and almost
stoned him, when he attempted to play Thyestes, so that he
abandoned the stage in despair, should listen to him with so
much complaisance when he took it upon him to counsel them
about the gravest matters. § If you were choosing a crier, it
would be of some importance to know what sort of a voice he
had, but what does it signify in a statesman, and what eloquence
or ability can recommend so bad a man '/ In his speech on the
Crown his invective is nothing less than gigantic — he throws
whole heaps of ribaldry and vituperation upon his adversary
with "jaculation dire" — and if iEschines occasionally, though
certainly not to the same extent, uses the same weapon, he may
plead a provocation sufficient to excuse, or even to justify any
retaliation. His piquant and graceful satire, however, is too
light for such warfare.

What did the eloquence of iEschines want to make it perfect ?
That which distinguishes the eloquence of Demosthenes, above
all others, ancient or modern. — earnestness, conviction, the power
to persuade that belongs to a strong and deep persuasion felt by
the speaker. The old question so much discussed among the
rhetoricians, whether a great orator (we do not say speaker,
merely) must be a good man, must undoubtedly be answered
sub modo in the affirmative. He must be honest, at least quoad
hoc. He must believe in the cause he pleads. Milton, in a pas-
sage, part of which has been cited above, says, "true eloquence I
find to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth" — or

* Ibid. I who am before great multitudes as you say dsiXog, as I say
sv\a/3r)g. cf. lb. § 64.

f Dionys. Halicarn. it. r. X. A. 5sivotyjtos says it is a false charge.
t De fals. Legat. 69. 71. Creon JEschines, etc.
§ lb. §§ 95. 96.

4S4 DEMOSTHENES,.

more properly, what the speaker believes to be the truth. This
sentence ought to be engraved on the mind of every young aspi-
rant. It is the great cardinal principle of all sound rhetoric, and
is worth more than all Q,uintilian's twelve books put together.
Faith, hope, love — the three Christian graces— are indispensable
to excellence in any art — but of all arts, in oratory most. It is
given to no man, be his genius or accomplishments what they
may, to sway, with a real empire, great masses, with any other
voice than that of faith, animated by hope, but above all, in-
flamed with zeal in his cause, and with "dearest charity," to im-
press his convictions on others. Do you expect to be eloquent?
Say nothing you do not believe — the voice never lies — the
slightest tone of nature will pierce and penetrate ten thousand
bosoms as if with an electrical spark, but the least falseness or
coldness, and still worse, affectation, there, is fatal. It is for this
reason that the weak things of this world so often confound the
wise, in this kind. It is a maxim in the Church, that no here-
siarch has ever done much unless his temper was vehement.
Fanaticism is always more or less eloquent, hypocrisy never —
truly eloquent, we mean, not disertns, for, we repeat, eloquence
is quite a different thing from good, and even from the best
speaking. Many men have worked miracles by eloquence, who
could scarcely have been, in any proper sense of the words, tol-
erable speakers, Peter the Hermit for instance. But they had
that, without which the most exquisite use of language is with-
out soul, without power. Was Mirabeau in earnest in his pur-
poses? Of destruction down to a certain point, most certainly —
not beyond that, and there he would have perished, like so many
other half-way men. He had sworn hostility to existing insti-
tutions in bastiles and dungeons — he had given pledges to revo-
lution by a life stained by every turpitude that could blot out
the escutcheon of a gentleman born. The outcast Riquetti
could not but be sincere in making war upon Montmorenci and
Chatillon. He felt, it is true, (as who of them all did not in his
own case?) the fancied superiority of his birth, and thought
himself, as in fact he then was, all the better tribune for being
descended, like Clodius and the Gracchi, from an ancient and
illustrious line. But what did that descent signify to him, as
long as he was debarred the privileges it ought to have confer-
red ? The day was coming — was come — when he would have
stopped short in his revolutionary career, and tried, for his wages,
to stop others — but there he would have failed, and another
Mirabeau — fruit of the arriere saison of full-blown monocracy —
the terrible Danton. would have had his head in the excutioner's
basket, (if indeed it had escaped the butcher's knife of the Sep-
tembriseur,) long before the end of '93.

There is another man of that day, famous to all time, to whose

THE MAN. THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 485

ability in this respect justice has not been done. Robespierre is
said to have attracted Mirabeau's attention in the Constituent
Assembly, although then only one of the "thirty voices" whom
he treated, as events proved, with an ignorant disdain. That
man, however, he saw and said would go far — because he had
a conviction. He was right, as we know by the fact— he was
sagacious in the ground of his conjecture. Robespierre ivas in
earnest. He believed. Rousseau had in him as fanatical a fol-
lower as the Old Man of the Mountain ever sent forth to do a
deed of blood. That, like Cromwell and other celebrated knaves,
he turned imposter at last, is quite likely — it is the natural course
of things. But he achieved his horrible greatness by faith.
Beaux esprits and people of wit and leisure about town, at first,
voted him a bore — a pedantic and tiresome rhetorician — but
there was an audience out of doors who listened to every sylla-
ble he uttered, and "understood a fury in the words, if not the
words." Both he and Danton were, in the proper sense of the
word, far more eloquent than the hypocritical declaimers of the
CHronde, who, beginning with a vast majority both in the Con-
vention and ; in the Departments, were overthrown in a few
months, and perished like felons upon the scaffold, The ear-
nestness, the zeal, the decided and fanatical nationality of the
Jacobin leaders, stirred up the people like the Marseillaise.
Never was there such an example of the utter inefficiency of a
mere talent for speaking, without any fixed, resolute, practical
purpose, as is to be found in the famous struggle in question, be-
tween the Titans of democracy, "earth born that warred on
Jove," and their nondescript adversaries.

The same advantage Demosthenes had over iEschines. He
had faith in his country, faith in her people, (if they could be
roused up,) faith in her institutions.* He thought and spoke of
Philip for a long time as Nelson spoke of Bonaparte and a French
invasion. Had he been as good a soldier as Phocion, he had
acted out successfully what he felt. He is mad at the bare
thought that a man of Macedon, a barbarian, should be beating
Athenians in the field, and giving laws to Greece. To Lacedae-
mon, to Thebes under her Epaminondas, he might have con-
sented to yield the supremacy ; but that a king- of a house whom
they had but lately treated as their proteges and dependants, of
a country whence, as he expresses it, they could not even get a
slave good enough for their service, should aspire to be their
master ! Philip's astonishing successes had proved him to be a
formidable enemy ; but the orations of Demosthenes breathe all
the confidence he felt that there was no real danger but in the

* There is a remarkable passage in one of his speeches, in which he says that
democracy is not a good thing in theory, but it had always worked well in prac-
tice, at Athens. Cont. Leptin. § 23.

486 DEMOSTHENES,

supineness of the people, the distraction of their counsels, the li-
centious conduct of their mercenary troops, and the bad faith or
incapacity of their generals. iEschines, on the contrary, was
become sceptical and irresolute. He saw less clearly, it is pro-
bable, the designs of Philip, and more clearly the inadequacy of
the means of resistance. He is charged by Demosthenes with
giving himself airs, and treating with contempt the low people.
He saw how little chance democracy had of continuing, in any
vigorous, constitutional form, an existence threatened by so many
enemies, from without and from within. We have seen that the
greatest man (in action) of that day, Phocion, thought with him.
Many German writers consider the conduct of the latter as a per-
plexing moral problem. But surely the scenes revealed in their
own historical sketches, sufficiently establish the truth that the
cause of republican government in Greece was completely despe-
rate, and that she was only waiting for a master to pick up the
crown that lay ready for him on the ground. The great curse
of misrule in the popular form had produced its usual effect of
destroying, except in a few heroical or fanatical minds, as the
case might be, all faith in it, and driving them to seek quiet and
security under a king. That this was in fact the state of opin-
ion on that subject, we have the most conclusive evidence to
show. Not to mention the writings of the philosophers, on
which we had occasion to dwell more at large in a recent num-
ber of this journal,* what more striking example could be pro-
duced than that of Isocrates — who would not consent to survive
the disaster at Cheronea, and whom Dionysius of Halicarnassus
pronounces the best teacher of political wisdom and virtue ?t

Not very long before the great catastrophe, the veteran rhetor-
ician addressed a discourse to Philip which is a most precious
monument of those times. Disgusted at the scenes of violence,
anarchy, and blood, in the midst of which, almost without any
intermission, his long life of a century had been passed, he recom-
mends, as the only remedy for the evil, that Greece shall be uni-
ted by a common war, and should direct against the foreigner,
the cupidity, rapacity and profligate contempt of law and author-
ity, that were now tearing her own bowels. Philip was, in his
opinion, the man to do this, and the conquest of Persia, the means.
This discourse, among other things* shows very clearly, that the
policy of Demosthenes, who was designated in a manner not to
be mistaken, was reprobated not only by Phocion and jEschines,
and their political party, but by men who stood aloof from all pol-
itics and all party. We can imagine, however, no greater com-
pliment to his sagacity than this "censure, founded, as it is, on
the presumed friendly and pacific purposes of Philip. Though,
to do full justice to that extraordinary man, we must confess,

* New York Review, No. xiii. t Judie. de Isocrat. § 4.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 487

his whole ambition appears to us to have been to make himself
another Agamemnon, conquering at the head of united Greece
— just as his government in Macedon seems to have been a mon-
archy after the old patriarchal and Homeric fashion. Isocrates
tells him* he perceives that he (the king) is traduced by certain
envious people, accustomed to fish in troubled waters, and to
look upon the common peace of Greece as a great personal ca-
lamity for them; who, neglecting every thing else, can speak of
nothing but his power, as if it was growing to its present height,
not for the benefit, but for the ruin of Greece, and as if the king
had been for some time past plotting against them, and only pro-
fessed to mean, when he should settle matters at Phocis, to as-
sist the Messenians, while he, in fact, meditated the conquest of
the Peloponnesus. — They alleged, it seems, that already the
Thessalians and Thebans, and all the Amphictyonic states, were
ready to follow him ; the Argives, the Messenians, the Megalopo-
litans, and many others were prepared to make war upon and to
overthrow the Lacedaemonians — that should he effect this he
would easily subdue the rest of the Greeks — that they who held
this idle language had succeeded by their sophistry in persuading
many, and especially all such as desired the same social disorders
as the authors of the reports referred to. as well as those who
looked but little into public affairs and were thankful to any who
pretended to feel so much concern and apprehension for them,
and especially those who do not dislike the idea of his plotting
against the Greeks, but look upon such designs on his part as
rather a desirable thing. But these people, he continues, do not
know, that by an indiscriminate use of the very same language,
they injure some persons and honor others. Were any one to
say, for instance, that the King of Persia was plotting against the
Greeks and preparing for a hostile expedition, they would say
nothing to his disadvantage, but rather make him out to be more
valiant and more worthy than he is. But, if the same imputation
were made against one descended of Hercules, who had been the
benefactor of all Greece, it would be fixing a very serious re-
proach upon him. For who would not be justly indignant at
his appearing to plot against those, in defence of whom his an-
cestor voluntarily encountered so many dangers, and, instead of
endeavoring to keep up the good name and hereditary popularity
of his house, should, on the contrary, meditate the most reprehen-
sible and unwarrantable things. With such impressions, says he
to Philip, you must not despise the calumnies, with which your
personal enemies are seeking to charge you, and which all your
friends feel bound to repel, etc.

A short time after Isocrates published this guileless expression
of confidence, or this lesson in disguise to Philip, the victory at
* Ad Philip. §31.

49$

Cheronea showed him how little he knew his man, and hilly vin-
dicated Demosthenes from the charge of calumniating that inno-
cent prince. This was the peculiar boast of the great statesman
and orator. From the moment Philip, by his projects upon so
important a city as Olynthus, revealed a systematic and far-reach-
ing ambition, Demosthenes saw at once that a new power had
arisen, that a new Hegemony would be aimed at, that another
Leuctra would have to be fought with a nation not hitherto coun-
ted for any thing in the politics of Greece. While others were still
thinking of their old enemy, the great king, by whose aid Conon,
her second Themistocles, had restored to Athens her walls, her
fleets, and her maritime ascendant ; and by whose aid again Spar-
ta had undone the work of Conon and sacrificed the interests, the
independence, and the glory of Greece, by the disgraceful peace
of Antaicidas, Demosthenes saw that Persia was among the things
that had been, and that the real enemy was one much nearer
home and never heard of before. He accordingly, as Isocrates
says, spoke of nothing but Philip. It became a sort of monoma-
nia with him ; but when, after the lapse of many years, his predic-
tions had been fulfilled, all who mourned over the fate of repub-
lican Greece — bright and beautiful as, with all her faults, she had
been in their eyes — did him, as we have said, an homage which
nothing could ever diminish. He was accused of having be-
haved in a cowardly manner at Cheronea, and in a city full of
sycophants (in the Greek sense) and personal enemies of his,
sarcasm, accusations, and prosecutions of all sorts, rained down
upon him. In vain. The very men, whom he was accused of
deserting in battle, chose him, while their wounds were yet
bleeding, in preference to so many other orators, to deliver the
funeral oration over the brave that had fallen in that battle. This
is a most remarkable fact ; jEschines speaks of it in words of
stinging severity ; yet it was in obedience to the commands of the
people ; a jury of the vicinage, who must have witnessed the
dastardly conduct imputed to him, as they had suffered from his
ill-fated counsels, that he performed this, equally distinguished
and delicate duty. There is, perhaps, no parallel to this, every
thing considered, in the history of any other great man. He
was baffled, disappointed, fallen, ridiculous in the eyes of the op-
position, odious as the cause, however innocent, of such terrible
calamities; without a party, for it was defeated, without a coun-
try, for it was conquered, and yet, instead of being disgraced, he
was more honored and popular than before. His eloquence, his
zeal, his devoted and even fanatical patriotism, had raised the
people up to the height of his own heroical spirit. The speech of
Lycurgus against Leocrates, who fled in terror to Rhodes after
the disaster of Cheronea, shows how lofty and determined a spirit
of resistance had taken possession of men's minds. When we

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE 0RA10R. 489

consider the depth of corruption and profligacy in which Athens
was sunk, we are filled with wonder at this conclusive evidence
of the influence of Demosthenes. He had "breathed a soul under
the ribs of death" — he found the commonwealth, as Demades ex-
pressed it, the mere carcass of what it had been ; he touched it
with the fire of his genius, and it lived, and moved, and acted
again, for a brief moment, as with its pristine vitality and vigor.

And let it be remembered that these effects were produced by
speeches in none of which (as we have already had occasion to
observe with regard to his private judicial arguments) does he
condescend to any topics but the most elevated and ennobling.
His rivals made a jest of his dwelling always on the glory of
the past — on Marathon and Salamis. the Parthenon and the
Propylaea, A modern writer* even censures his excessive free-
dom in chiding, nay, scolding the people. Seeking no personal
ends, despising, from his haughty and morose temper, all favor,
or protection, intractable, self-willed, looking upon his wonderful
gifts themselves but as instruments to effect the objects of a life
devoted to maintaining the ascendant of Athens in the Greek
world, he spoke with the courage which disinterestedness always
inspires. What had he to dread? Why should he dissemble
fearful truths because they might be offensive to his audience?
Was he to flinch from uttering counsels on which the salvation
of the state depended, because they might bring odium upon
himself — he, for whose proud self-esteem, nursed in studious
solitude, popularity could never have had any very strong at-
tractions ? As to his successes as an orator, he was unwilling
to speak except when the occasion demanded it, and then, Plu-
tarch assures us, would sometimes refuse to do so without time
for meditation, even though called for by the people ; for his
standard was the Ideal, and he knew what was due to a great
subject and a refined audience. But it never could have entered
into the heads of that audience, certainly it never occurs to his
readers, that he would have received a compliment to his oratory,
merely as such, in any other light but as an insult to his under-
standing.

But his sagacity in detecting the designs of Philip, his mas-
terly policy in counteracting them, and the unrivalled grandeur
and power of his eloquence, were all unavailing. The most
superficial glance at the external history of that period will con-
vince any one that the struggle to save the democracy, however
noble and heroic, was in vain. The bare outline of events, pre-
sented even by such a writer as Diodorus Siculus, is enough to
establish that. His sixteenth book is a necessary corollary from
the fifteenth. From the seizing by the Spartans of the citadel

* Wachsmuth, v. ii,
vol. i. — 62

490 DEMOSTHENES,

of Thebes in Olymp. 99. 3., until the battle of Cheronea, in
Olymp. 110. 3., every part of Greece was a prey to perpetual
war, revolution, and brigandage. The life of Demosthenes,
who, according to the prevailing opinion, was born in Olymp.
98. 4., covers this whole period. At the beginning of it we see
Sparta at the very height of her despotic Hegemony in Greece.
An insurrection, however, set on foot by a few Theban exiles,
led by two of the greatest men, one of them, perhaps, the very
greatest man of Greek history, subverts that domination so com-
pletely, that in a few years her most ancient dependencies are
wrested from her, and her soil, for so many centuries undefined
by the foot of a foe, is overrun, and the Eurotas, according to
the image of Demades, is startled, for the first time, by the
trumpet of invasion. But the glory of Thebes descended with
Epaminondas to the tomb, and the first holy war — which, begun
and carried on in sacrilege and plunder, raged for ten years to-
gether— completely reduced that city to extremities, and placed
her, with all Greece, exhausted and spiritless, at the mercy of
Philip, now admitted into the Amphictyonic council, and invest-
ed, as a member of that body, with authority to meddle with
the politics of the confederacy. Meanwhile, the Social War
breaks down the power of Athens and cuts off all her resources,
and with them the means of providing for her worthless popula-
tion, hitherto fed by what may be called her colonial and federal
dependencies, and of paying the mercenary troops, into whose
hands the fate of nations had now passed. These selfish adventu-
rers, whose country was their camp, and whose only fidelity was
to the best paymaster, swarmed over the whole face of Greece.
Citizen-soldiers — a truth Demosthenes did not see — were no
longer fit for serving in war, become an art under the new tactics
of Iphicrates and Agesilaus. That Philip, with his treasury
filled by the gold mines of Thrace, with an army experienced
and devoted to him, with lieutenants like Parmenio and Antipater
to execute his plans, and himself, like Napoleon and Frederick
II., that most formidable of all adversaries, a sovereign general-
issimo, should overthrow the democracy of Athens, even had
her badly appointed troops been led byChabrias and Timotheus,
is surely any thing but astonishing.* But what sort of chance
could she have, whatever might be the courage and the enthusi-
asm of her people, with her armies under the lead of such a
creature as Chares ? Nothing shows more clearly how ripe the
times were for another, and a final revolution, than the fact re-
corded by Diodorus, that Jason of Pherse, meditated, even in
his day, when Chabrias, and Iphicrates, and Timotheus, were in
the height of their excesses, the conquest of Greece, and counted
* See what Demosthenes says, De Corona., § 65.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 491

on effecting his object by means of mercenary forces, whom he
justly preferred to the militia of his country for the purposes of
offensive war.

If the impression made upon us by the external history of
Greece at this period is so unfavorable, a view of its internal con-
dition would fully confirm it. But our space does not permit us
to do justice to such a topic,* and we have already, in the course
of our observations, been compelled to say much of the deplora-
ble corruption of the times.t The orations of Demosthenes and
iEschines alone furnish abundant proofs of it — especially that of
the latter against Timarchus. The familiarity, with which the
orators charged each other, and the highest personages in soci-
ety and the state, with the most flagitious crimes — with bribery,
perjury, murder, and things not be mentioned in christian ears —
is not more shocking than the cynical levity with which many
of them confess and make a joke ot their own dishonor. But
the people of Athens had lost their personal identity, so to ex-
press it ; they were no longer the Autochthones, so proud, of
their illustrious origin, of former times. As degenerate in race
as in manners, they were steeped in the vices of ambitious pov-
erty. The only way to fortune was politics or war — only two
forms of piracy — and they served as mercenaries in both. The
robbing of temples was a characteristic of the times,* and led —
especially that of the temple of Delphi — to important conse-
quences. They ceased to be safe depositaries of treasure, and
bankers were ever after resorted to for that purpose, while the
gold and silver formerly hoarded in them was suddenly thrown
into circulation as money, and served to stimulate the cupidity
and maintain the disorders of a piratical generation. But, more
than all that, the great basis of all social order, religious faith or
fear, was subverted by the profanation of its holiest objects. One
additional circumstance is too important to be overlooked. It is
said that Alexander restored to their respective cities not less
than thirty thousand exiles, who lived, like the faorusciti of the
Italian republics, an army of outlaws, ever ready for any mis-
chief. In short, civil society was in a state of dissolution ; this
war of all against all can endure no where a moment longer than
it is absolutely unavoidable ; and who can wonder, as Schlosser
remarks, § that even such a man as Phocion preferred Philip, an
educated Greek, a Heracleid, and a constitutional monarch, to
some bandit, and, perhaps, barbarous chief — the Sforza of his
time — who would probably have succeeded, had he failed in his
projects of conquest ?

[* Aristoph. passim — Clouds. 900 sq.]

t See generally Isocrates, de Pace, especially § 27, sq.

t The elder D'ionysius, the tyrant, was famous for his sacrilegious depredations.

§ Geschichte der Alten Welt. 1 Th. ii. and iii Abth.

492 DEMOSTHENES,

The private character of Demosthenes appears in his speeches.
It so happens, as we have seen, that of some of the most re-
markable of these, his own conduct, feelings, and interests, were
the principal subject. His contests with his guardians, with
Midias, with /Eschines, exhibit him to us as in a dramatic auto-
biography. But independently of this immediate relation be-
tween the author and his works, his eloquence, distinguished as
it is by every excellence, is for nothing more remarkable, than
lor its spirit — its living spirit*— it is lull of soul, to use a fami-
liar but expressive phrase. From its sublime character, there-
fore, we may be sure, that whatever may have been his practice
and conduct, his natural impulses were all as high as his sensi-
bility was deep and exquisite. He teaches us how to appreciate
him fairly, when he demands of iEschines that he should judge
him, "not by comparison with the men of other times, but with
those of his own day." Plutarch, referring to this standard,
gives the palm to Phocion alone of all his contemporaries,, to
whom we ought to add Lycurgus, the orator, a man who seems
to have lived and died without reproach, although he had been for
twelve years entrusted with the management of the public trea-
sury at Athens, and been made the depositary of immense sums
on private account, and who, it deserves to be added, throughout
the whole course of his life, adhered steadfastly to the party of
Demosthenes. This last has found strenuous champions in the
great German critics of the present day. They will admit no-
thing against him except some natural frailties of a venial char-
acter. The two capital vices with which antiquity charged him,
and which, even Plutarch, with some hesitation, seems to con-
cede, were cupidity and cowardice. It is now considered as
settled, that the crime of having been bribed by Harpalus, has,
notwithstanding the judgment of the Areopagus, under Macedo-
nian influence, been completely disproved ; but Westermann
admits that he received considerable largesses from the Great
King. He denies, however, roundly, that this is any proof of
corruption ; they were, according to him, mere subsidies, intend-
ed to be used against the common enemy. His defence of De-
mosthenes reminds us of that set up by M. Thiers for Mirabeau,
when that needy patriot made terms with the court, and deter-
mined on arresting (if possible) the farther progress of the revo-
lution. Bribery, says the casuistical historian, is the wages of
treason and prostitution, not the recompense of services prompted
by previous inclinations! and independent judgment. Demos-

* Dionys. Halic. tf. t. X. A-yj/xoo'd. Ssivorrir. and compare what the philoso-
pher Panaetius apud Plutarch Demosth. says of his orations, extolling every
where the to xaXov for its own sake

t Hist, de la ReVolut. Francaise. This is the maxim of the civilians. Tur-
piter facit qu6d sit meretrix, non turpiter accipit cum sit meretrix. Another

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 493

thenes has a still higher example to excuse his conduct in this
particular. It is the better opinion, according to Hallam. that
most of the leaders of the exciusionists in 1678 — Algernon Sid-
ney among them — who figure in Barillon's accounts with his
court for secret service money, did, in fact, receive from Louis
XIV. rewards for their efforts against a popish succession.* No-
thing, however, could be more venial in the eyes of every good
Athenian, than to reduce, by any means, the exchequer of his
Persian majesty. Iphicrates, when accused of having taken a
douceur of the kind, openly confessed it, and said, amidst shouts
of approving laughter from the mean and profligate Demus, that
the best way to make war on the barbarians was to send, not
armies to invade their territory, but ambassadors to pocket their
money.

The charge of effeminacy and want of courage in battle seems
to be considered as better founded. Plutarch admits it fully.
His foppery is matter of ridicule to iEschines, who, at the same
time, in rather a remarkable passage in his speech on the Crown,
gives us some clue to the popular report as to his deficiency in
the military virtues of antiquity. Who, says he, will be there
to sympathize with him? Not they who have been trained with
him in the same gymnasium? No, by Olympian Jove ! for, in
his youth, instead of hunting the wild boar and addicting him-
self to exercises which give strength and activity to the body,t
he was studying the arts that were one day to make him the
scourge of the rich.t Those exercises§ were, in the system of
the Greeks, for reasons which we had occasion to develop in a
number of this Review already referred to, considered as abso-
lutely indispensable to a liberal education.il That of Demosthe-
nes was certainly neglected by his guardians, and the probabil-
ity is that the effeminacy with which he was reproached meant
nothing more than that he had not frequented in youth the pal-
estra and the gymnasium, and that his bodily training had been
sacrificed to his intellectual. That he possessed moral courage
of the most sublime order is past all question ; but his nerves
were weak. If the tradition that is come down to us in regard
to his natural defects as an orator is not a gross exaggeration, he
had enough to occupy him for years in the correction of them.
But what an idea does it suggest to us of the mighty will, the

point of resemblance is that Mirabeau refused many challenges without losing
caste with his party.

* Constitut. Hist, of England, v. ii. p. 547, 8. He excepts Russell and Hollis ;
the latter declined, the former was not insulted with an offer.

[t Aristoph. Eq. 1379. sq.]

t Cont. Ctesiph. § 94. As to his soft garments, iEsch. cont. Timarch. § 26. cf.
The pseudo-Plut. X. orat. in Demosth.

[§ TjPatpsvras sv tfaXa/aV^ajs xai X0.?0'? xai ^ouffixYj. Aristoph. Ran. 728.]

II Teren. Eunuch. II. 3. 23.

494 DEMOSTHENES,

indomitable spirit, the decided and unchangeable vocation, that,
in spite of so many impediments, his genius fulfilled its destiny,
and attained at last to the supremacy at which it aimed from the
first. His was that deep love of ideal beauty, that passionate
pursuit of eloquence in the abstract, that insatiable thirst after
perfection in art for its own sake, without which no man ever
produced a master-piece of genius.* Plutarch, in his usual gra-
phic style, places him before us as if he were an acquaintance —
aloof from the world ; immersed in the study of his high calling,
with his brow never unbent from care and thought ; severely
abstemious in the midst of dissoluteness and debauchery ; a wa-
ter drinker among Greeks ; like that other Agonistes, elected and
ordained to struggle, to suffer, and to perish for a people unwor-
thy of him : —

"His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook."

Let any one, who has considered the state of manners at
Athens just at the moment of his appearance upon the stage of
public life, imagine what an impression such a phenomenon
must have made upon a people so lost in profligacy and sensual-
ity of all sorts. What wonder that the unprincipled though
gifted Demades, the very personification of the witty and reck-
less libertinism of the age, should deride and scoff at this strange
man, living as nobody else lived, thinking as nobody else
thought; a prophet, crying from his solitude of great troubles at
hand ; the apostle of the past ; the preacher of an impossible res-
toration ; the witness to his contemporaries that their degeneracy
was incorrigible and their doom hopeless, and that another seal
in the book was broken, and a new era of calamity and downfall
opened in the history of nations.

We have said that the character of Demosthenes might be di-
vined from his eloquence ; and so the character of his eloquence
was a mere emanation of his own. It was the life and soul of
the man, the patriot, the statesman. "Its highest attribute of all,"
says Dionysius, "is the spirit of life — to <rvs-j(aa — that pervades it."
His very language dictates to a reader how it is to be uttered,
and I should think it impossible (it is the same critic who speaks)
that one with the sense of a brute, nay, of a stock or stone, could
pronounce his text without distinguishing the various meaning,
and kindling with the changing passions of the master. This is
the first and great characteristic of Demosthenes, the orator.
You see absolutely nothing of the artist ; nay, you forget the
speaker altogether: it is the statesman, or the man only, that is

* The words of Cic. de Orat. 1. 1, c. 30. What besides natural gifts shall be
needed 1 Quid censes, inquit Cotla, nisi studium el nrdorem quendam amoris sine quo,
etc. And see the same thing said of Demosth. Lucian, Enconi.

THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR- 495

before you. To him, eloquence, wonderful as his was consider-
ed as mere rhetoric, is but an instrument, not, as in Cicero, a
thing to boast of and display. This feature of his character has
been well seized and portrayed by the author of a declamatory
encomium on Demosthenes, ascribed to Lucian and printed
among his works. Gesner and Becker after him will not consent
to give it up ; all we can say is that, if it is the work of the Voltaire
of antiquity, Lucian was not Lucian when he wrote it. But,
though too high-flown and exaggerated for its supposed author,
it is a striking instance of the admiration in which the great
orator was held by the Greeks in all ages. It is from him we
borrow the phrase "the Homer of Prose," which describes so well
the admitted perfections of Demosthenes as a writer. But it is
not his style only that is extolled there. He admires his life,
his administration, his truly touching and sublime death. He puts
into the mouth of Antipater a supposed conversation in refer-
ence to this last event, in which the latter does justice to his great
adversary in a magnanimous spirit, and regrets that he chose
rather to die free and by his own hand, than survive a courtier
for the favor, <or a dependant upon the mercy of the conqueror.
It consecrates forever that tragical scene at Calauria, and leaves
the image of the mighty orator upon the mind with the greatest
pictures of fiction or history — with CEdipus at Colonus, or Marius
sitting upon the ruins of Carthage. We cannot join with the
author in his blasphemy against heaven for the trials to which
the greatest men have almost always been subjected, and none
more than Demosthenes. We know that sorrow is knowledge ;
that, if in much wisdom there is much grief, the reverse is also
true ; and that adversity is the only school in which genius and
virtue are permitted to take their highest degrees.

The second remarkable feature of the eloquence of Demos-
thenes is a consequence of the first : its amazing flexibility and
variety. As he thinks only of the subject, so he always speaks
like his subject. We have endeavored to illustrate this through
the whole course of this paper. We wanted to eradicate the
false and pernicious idea that Demosthenian is synonymous
with ranting. At times, no doubt, on extraordinary and exciting
occasions, he forgot himself in a transport of passion, and raged
on the Bema, as Plutarch has it, like a Bacchante. But we will
venture to affirm, that when he did so, his audience was as little
conscious of it as himself, partaking fully with him in the phren-
zy of the moment. In general, he aims at nothing but the true
and the natural. Hence, every thing is perfectly appropriate and
fitting, and, in the almost infinite range of his speaking, from a
special plea in bar or in abatement, (^a^a^,) to the sublime
and ravishing enthusiasm of the immortal defence of the Crown,
every thing is every where just what it ought to be — "proper

496 DEMOSTHENES,

words in proper places." It is he that exemplifies Cicero's defi-
nition— Is enim est eloqtiens, qui et humilia subtiliter, et mag-
na graviter, et mediocria temperate potest dicere.* And ac-
cordingly, he remarks farther that he is fully equal to Lysias, to
Hyperides, and to uEschines, in their respective excellencies,
while he adds to them, whenever occasion calls for them, his
own unapproachable sublimity and power. Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus goes still farther. In a work, written expressly to
unfold the perfection of the diction of Demosthenes, (for he
promised another and a separate one upon his other excellencies,)
he shows, by a critical comparison of passages from the works
of the orator with the most celebrated productions of other pens,
that he was the greatest master of every style. He prefers him,
for instance, to Plato, even in that kind of writing, in which the
philosopher is considered as a model.

The third distinguishing peculiarity of Demosthenes as an
orator is that his greatest beauties consist not in words or tropes
and figures of rhetoric, similes, metaphors, etc., which he seldom
condescends to use, but in thought, and sentiment, and passion.
The forms he delights in most are all adapted to express these —
to show the orator to be truly in earnest, and to enforce his opin-
ions as matters of deep conviction with himself, and deserving
to be so with his hearers. His grandest amplifications are only
vehement reasonings. Hence, too, his occasional abruptness, aud
suddenness of transition and startling appeal, interrogatory and
apostrophe — all the perfection of art because the dictate of na-
ture, which Blair most absurdly censures as defects, as if the
master of all style fell into such things because he could not
help it. Cicero developes this topic at some length, and with his
usual power of language, in one of his rhetorical works.t He
represents his perfect orator, who is only an imaginary Demos-
thenes, as presenting the same topic often in various lights, and
dwelling upon it more or less according to circumstances — as
extenuating some things and turning others into ridicule — as
occasionally deviating from his subject and propounding what
he shall presently have to say, and when he has fully discussed
any matter, reducing it into the shape of a rule or definition —
as correcting himself, or repeating what he had said — as pressing
by interrogation and answering his own questions — as wishing
to be taken in a sense the opposite of what he seems to say — as
doubting what or how he should speak — as dividing into parts,
omitting and neglecting some points and fortifying others in
advance — as casting the blame upon his adversary of the very

• Orat. c. 29, cf. 31.

t Orator, cc. 39, 40. Every reader of Demosthenes is familiar with such sen-
tences as ou<5s y%v — tfoXXou ys xai <$£», etc., thrown so naturally in the midst
of the most splendid passages.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 497

things for which he is himself censured — as often deliberating
with those who hear him, sometimes even with his adversary —
as describing the manners and language of men — as making-
mute things speak [that is rare in Demosthenes] — as drawing
off the minds of the audience from the true question before
them — as anticipating objections which he foresees will be made —
as comparing analogous cases — as citing examples — as putting
down interruptions — as pretending to suppress or reserve some-
thing, or to say less than he knows — as warning those he ad-
dresses to be on their guard — as venturing at times on some
bold proposition— as being angry, and even so far as to chide
and rail — as deprecating, supplicating, conciliating — as uttering
wishes or execrations, and using sometimes a certain familiarity
with his hearers. He will, he continues, aim, at. other times, at
other virtues of style — as brevity, if the occasion call for it. He
will bring the object often before their very eyes, etc. etc. It is,
indeed, in such ornaments of speech as these that the grand
excellence of Demosthenes consists — it is by these that it becomes
a thing of life, and power, and persuasion — a means of busi-
ness— a motive of action — but there is never the least prettiness
or rhetoric — nothing fine, or showy, or theatrical — nothing in
short, that can be spared, nothing that can be lopped off without
mutilating and weakening the body as well as deforming it.

And this leads us to consider a fourth characteristic of his elo-
quence— its condensation and perfect logical unity. It is not
easy, perhaps, without extending these remarks farther than
would be proper here, to make ourselves quite intelligible upon
this subject to the general reader. But every one that has stu-
died Greek literature and art, will at once perceive that we refer to
that unity of design, that closeness of texture and mutual depen-
dence of the parts — that harmony of composition and exact fit-
ness and proportion — in short, that cMwyx^ \oyoygacpixri, as Plato ex-
presses it, which makes of every production of genius a sort of
organized body, with nothing superfluous, nothing defective in it,
but every thing necessary to constitute a complete whole, an-
swering perfectly the ends of its being, whatever those may be.*
What Cicero says of the Stoical philosophyt may be applied to
the orations of Demosthenes. What is there in the works of na-
ture where such a perfect arrangement and symmetry prevail
or in those of man, so well put together, so compact, so intimate-
ly united ? What consequent does not agree with its antecedent ?
What follows that does not answer to that which goes before 1
What is there that is not so knit together with the rest, that, if a
single letter be removed, the whole structure would totter? But,
in truth, nothing can be Removed, etc. We differ, therefore, en-
tirely, with Lord Brougham, when, in one of the passages cited

* Plato.. Phaedr. p. 264, c. t De Finib. iii. 22.

vol. i. — 63

498 DEMOSTHENES,

above, he speaks of this marvellous unity and condensation as a
thing as much within the reach of mediocrity as of genius. It is,
on the contrary, the perfection of Greek art, and the orations of
Demosthenes are in this, as in every other respect, the most ex-
quisite model of it.

Another excellence, that has been mentioned repeatedly in the
course of the preceding remarks, remains to be particularly no-
ticed. Not only do the orations of Demosthenes resemble the
great works of nature in this, that their beauty and sublimity are
inseparable from utility, or more properly speaking, that utility is
the cardinal principle of all their beauties, but there is still an-
other analogy between them. It is, that the grandeur of the whole
result is not more remarkable than the elaborate and exquisite
finish of the most minute details. Dionysius, in the essay so of-
ten referred to, aims to show that the orator was by far the great-
est master of composition the world had ever seen. This critic
may be relied on for such a purpose. His fault is, that he ex-
acts in all things rather a pedantic precision and accuracy. In
short, he is hypercritical, and is too little disposed to make allow-
ance for small blemishes, even when they are redeemed by high
virtues, or to approve and relish the non ingrata negligentia —
the careless grace of genius. But, in Demosthenes, whose elo-
quence makes him perfectly ecstatical in its praise, he searches
in vain for a spot, however minute. He takes his examples at
random, and finds every thing perfect every where. Certainly,
in the critical comparisons which he institutes between him and
Plato and Isocrates, it is impossible not to admit the soundness of
his judgments. This prodigious perfection of style he affirms to
have been a creation of the orator's. He had studied, he thinks,
all the masters who had gone before him, and, selecting from each
what he excelled in, made up a composition far superior to any
of its ingredients. Thucydides gave him his force and pregnan-
cy, Lysias, his clearness, ease, and nature, Isocrates, his occasional
splendor and brilliancy, and Plato, his majesty, elevation, and
abundance. That Demosthenes studied, and studied profound-
ly, all these models, we have no doubt. Of Thucydides, espe-
cially, the tradition represents him to have been a devoted admir-
er. But eclecticism, imitation, was out of the question with
him. Undoubtedly he was indebted to them for having done so
much to perfect the instrument he was to use — the Greek lan-
guage; and their beauties and defects were hints to him in the
training of his own mighty and original genius. But that is all r
had they never written, his works would not, probably, have
been so unblemished in the execution, but they would infallibly
have formed an era in literature, and displayed very much the
same excellences that now distinguish them.

The instrument, of which we have just spoken, must not be

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 499

lost sight of in appreciating the Greek masters, and especially
Demosthenes. When one reads the rhetorical works of Cicero
and Dionysius, one cannot but perceive that the ancient lan-
guages, from their complicated and highly artificial structure,
admitted of certain graces that cannot be aimed at, to any thing
like the same degree, by any modern composition. One of these
is harmony and rhythm. The effect, which a polished and mu-
sical period (in the right place) had on the ears of an Attic, and
even of a Roman assembly, is scarcely intelligible any where but
in southern Europe. But there was immense difficulty in avoid-
ing a vicious extreme in the use of this art. If it were not di-
rected by the most exquisite taste and judgment, it became very
offensive, and gave to a business speech the air of a mere pane-
gyrical or scholastic declamation. Not only so, but nothing was
harder to avoid than the uttering of a complete verse, and no-
thing was reckoned more vicious. In this, as in every other
respect, Demosthenes is pronounced by Dionysius a perfect
model of judgment and excellence. With a compass, a fulness,
a pomp and magnificence of periods that distance the efforts of
Isocrates in the same style, he displays such an inexhaustible
variety of cadence, his tone is so continually changing with the
topic, there is every where such an appearance of ease and sim-
plicity, that while the ear is always charmed, the taste is never
once offended. He takes care always of the great capital object of
eloquence — the being, and seeming to be in earnest. For this
reason it is that he throws in occasionally those abrupt and
startling sentences, so ignorantly censured by Blair. He thus
avoids that continuity, which is too apparent and somewhat of-
fensive in Cicero, who continually forgets his own maxims on
this subject — that in all things sameness is the mother of satiety.*
That so great a master of the human heart as Demosthenes,
that a statesman, occupied with the gravest public affairs, that a
political leader, excited even to fanatacism by the conflict of par-
ties and the war of the popular assembly, should have time or
even inclination to give a thought to such minuticB of style, may
seem, at first, strange. But it is not so. In the first place, this
perfection was become nature with him by the time he made
his first appearance on the Bema. That lamp had not been burn-
ing in vain, in deep solitude, from his early youth upwards.
But, independently of that, it is a mistake to suppose that they
whose writings and speeches have had the greatest sway over the
minds of men, have been ever careless about the form and finish
of their v^orks. The very reverse is the fact. Franklin, Paine,
Cobbett, Paul Louis Courier, Beranger, Swift — were all not only

* On this whole subject see Dionys. Hal. or. r. X. Aijfi.otf^sv. dsivorrir. § 33.
et sqq. and Cic. orat. cc. 44-70.

500 DEMOSTHENES,

good, but exquisite, writers ; minutely versed in all the secrets of
the art of composition. And there is yet another instance, still
more remarkable, as presenting more than one coincidence with
Demosthenes. We mean J. J. Rousseau— the master, the Soc-
rates of the French Convention, whose frantic declamations were
mere paraphrases or perversions of his political speculations.
Never, perhaps, has a writer exercised a more terrible influence ;
yet look at his matchless style, and see what he says, in his Con-
fessions, of his extreme slowness and labor in composition. —
Those pages, which seem to have been filled up as with a flood
of spontaneous, irrepressible passion, in "those burning ecstacies"
of his, were the tardy product of years ot deep and mature medi-
tation ; those musical periods, that natural, various, and abundant
language of sensibility excited even to madness; they were not
dropped there in a fit of Sibylline rage and inspiration, but weigh-
ed, and trimmed, and recast, and polished over with a most me-
chanical precision and pains-taking, hundreds of times, before
they were sent forth to wring and agitate the hearts of men.
Shall we wonder at the elaborateness of Demosthenes, in the
midst of by far the most cultivated people (we mean, of course,
in reference to art) the world lias ever seen ? No better is need-
ed of their taste, than the pains he took to satisfy it ; his master-
pieces were such because they required them to be so ; and, both
by his efforts to please them, and his success in doing so by works
matchless in every perfection, he is the pride and glory, as he
was the idol, of the democracy of Athens.

One thing more, and we have done. These speeches, how-
ever elaborately composed, were still speeches. Every thing is
done to give them an air of business, and the appearance of
being the spontaneous effusions of the moment. No extempo-
raneous harangues were ever more free and natural.* They
were made to be delivered — some of them before tribunals com-
posed of many hundred judges, others before the ecclesia itself,
all of them in vast assemblages of people. Under such circum-
stances, in animated conflicts with able and eloquent adversaries,
a graceful, impressive manner, a clear, audible, passionate voice,
and all the other attractions of delivery were highly necessary.
His own repeated failures, on account of some defect from per-
sonal disadvantages in this way, led him to utter the sentence so
often repeated since, that, to an orator, the one thing needful is
good uacting."\ This comprehends the management of voice,
air, countenance, gesture, movements upon the Bema, and the

* See cont. Timocrat. § 31. Cont. Mid. § 22, and F. A. Wolfe, ad Leptin. § 18.

f 'Tiroxgicfic; — not "action" as it has been improperly translated. The best
essay, beyond comparison, we have ever met with, upon delivery, is in the au-
thor ad Herenn 1. iii. cc. 11. 15 ; the great object of all is to seem in earnest — tit res
ex animo agi videatur.

THE MAN, THE STATESMAN, AND THE ORATOR. 501

attainment of the perfect self-possession, sure tact and nice sense
of propriety necessary to it. The art of delivery was rendered
peculiarly important at Athens, by the extreme impatience and
intractableness of the audiences. We see evidence of this in
all the remains of the orator. Whole pages of the very pre-
possessing opening of iEschines, on the Embassy, are depreca-
tory of prejudice and unwillingness to hear argument. Many
other examples might easily be cited. In this, as in every other
excellence of his art, Demosthenes was without a rival ; and his
perfection here, too, must be described by the same epithets — he
was natural and in earnest. His most formidable rival acknow-
ledged this by describing him, as he does, as a magician or jug-
gler in oratory, and as one whose passions are so much under
his control that, when occasion demands it, he can cry more
easily than others laugh.* On this subject, Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus, in the essay already recited, after describing the effect
of these orations upon him, adds, "If we, at such a vast distance
of time, and no longer feeling any personal interest in the sub-
jects, are so agitated, and controlled, and carried about in every
direction by his eloquence, how must the Athenians and other
Greeks have been led by the man then — when they were in the
midst of the real struggle so vitally touching themselves, and he
was delivering his own language with the dignity that belonged
to him, and the courage of an elevated spirit, adorning and en-
forcing every thing with a suitable delivery, (of which, as all
confess, and as is indeed evident* from the very tone of his
speeches,!) he was the greatest master.

Such was Demosthenes, the Man, the Statesman, and the
Orator. If what we have written from impressions made upon
us by a long and rather intimate conversation with the great
original, should be found, as we flatter ourselves it will, to place
some things in his history and character in a new or more strik-
ing light, to the general reader, we shall be most amply re-
warded for the pains we have been put to in writing this article.
In conclusion, we give it in as our experience, that the trouble
(certainly not inconsiderable) of acquiring a competent know-
ledge of Greek for that purpose, is far more than compensated
by the single privilege of reading Demosthenes.

The remarks we proposed making on the Epimetrum of M.
Westermann, and Lord Brougham's admiration for the spurious
speeches, are, for want of space, necessarily omitted here.

*iEsch.'de Fals. Legat. \ 20 and 27, calls him yong, cont. Ctesiph. §71.
f if. t. X. Ar\po<f()ev. dsivorrir. § 22.

THE ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE OF
ROMAN LEGISLATION.

1. Lehrbuch cines civilistischen Cursus, vom Geheimen Justiz-Rath Ritter

Hugo, in G5ttingen, Dritter Bandwelcher die Geschichte des Romischen
Rechts bis auf Justinian enthalt. Elite, sehr veranderte Auflage. Ber-
lin: 1835.

2. Corpus Juris Cirilis, ad fidem Manuscriptorum aliorumque subsidiorum criti-

corum recensuit, commentario perpetuo instruxit Eduardus Schrader,
Jctus. In operis societatem accesserunt Theoph. Lucas. Frider. Tafel,
Philolog. Gualth. Frider. Clossius. Jctus. Post hujus discessum, Chris-
toph. Joh. C. Maier, Jctus. Tomus Primus, Institutionum Libri iv. Bero-
lini: MDCCCXXX1I.

3. Gaii Institutionum Commentarii Gluatuor, cura. Augusti Guil. Hepfter.

Bonn*: MDCCCXXX.

4. Commentaries on the conflict of Laws, Foreign and Domestic, in regard to

Contracts, Rights, and Remedies, and especially in regard to Marriages,
Divorces, Wills, Successions, and Judgments. By Joseph Story, LL. D.,
Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University. Boston: 1834.

5. Institutionum Juris Romani Privati Historico-Dogmaticarum Lineamenta,

observationibus maximfc litterariis distincta in usum praelectionum denuo ad-
umbravit et Legum Duodecim Tabularum nee non Edicti Praetoris atque
iEdilitii sententias integras, etc., adjecit. D. Christ. Gottlieb Haubold,
antecessor, Lipsiensis. Post mortem auctoris edidit atque additamentis aux-
it D. Carolus Eduardus Otto, Professor Lipsiensis. Lipsice: 1826.

Mr. Hallam, in his "History of the Middle Ages/3* speaking
of the civil law and its earlier professors in modern times, re-
marks, that he "should earn little gratitude for his obscure dili-
gence, were he to dwell on the forgotten teachers of a science
that is likely soon to be forgotten." As we do not affect to
have done more ourselves than glance over the pages of the
Corpus Juris Civilis Glossatum, and know (we confess it with
shame) little more of those restorers of Roman jurisprudence
than may be learned from Gravina or Terrasson, it is not for us
to take up the glove for Azzo and Accursius, or to censure very
severely the historian who omits their names in a general view
of the progress of society. Yet Accursius has found in the
first of elementary writers of the old schoolt a champion whose

*Chap. IX. P. II.

tHeinecc. Hist. Jur., § ccccxvii. He quotes and confirms the elaborate pane-
gyric of Gravina de Ortu et Progr. Jur. Civ. § CLV.

ORIGIN OP ROMAN LEGISLATION* 503

Zeal is equalled only by his prowess, and one does not very
readily conceive how the history of the human mind, in the
middle ages, can be written without reference to a branch of
study, which, in its double form of civil and canon law, did,
during that period, more than all others put together, to shape
and control the opinions of mankind. But when that writer
goes on to speak of the schools of the sixteenth century, and
even of the great Cujacius himself, as of those "whose names, or
at least whose writings, are rapidly passing to the gulf that
absorbed their predecessors" — and still more, when he gravely
assures his reader, that "the stream of literature, which has so
remarkably altered its channel within the last century, (he is
writing some twenty years ago,) has left no region more deserted
than that of the Civil Law," he must pardon us for doubting
whether he is the best of all possible pilots in that stream, or has
explored with any pains the particular channel, of which he
speaks with such flippant, and, as it happens, erring dogmatism*
We trust we are not insensible to the real claims of the author
of the "Constitutional History of England," to the grateful con-
sideration of statesmen, as. well as of scholars. That work, al-
though far, in our judgment, from being perfectly satisfactory, is
still a respectable one, and has, to a certain extent, filled a void
in a most important department of knowledge. But the "His-
tory of the Middle Ages" is a compilation, as superficial as it is
ambitious. That it should have attained to a certain degree of
popularity and reputation is, in the present condition of English
literature, unfortunately not to be wondered at. What does,
however, we confess, seem to us a little suprising, is the extent
of the ignorance — if extent can be predicated of such a negation-
discovered in this positive announcement of the end, actual or
imminent, of all study of the civil law, by a contemporary of
Hugo and Savigny, of Niebuhr and Eichhorn, of Dirksen, Schra-
der, Goschen, and a host of other names, scarcely less shining
than these.

Our very rubric, if we stopped there, were itself a refutation.
We could, for this reason, scarcely resist the tempting facility of
extending it much farther. We had, for instance, at first added
to it the other six volumes that make up the complete Civilistis-
chev Cursus of Hugo, together with the new edition of the Jus
Civile Anti-Justinianeum, including (what had been omitted by
Schultingius) the whole Theodosian code, published at Berlin in
1815, by a society of Jurisconsults, with a preface and index, by
that learned professor, and published after the discovery of
Gaius, with additions and improvements, in 1822-3. Haubold's
Lineamenta, one of the works placed at the head of this article,
would have supplied us with materials for the same purpose,
usque ad nauseam. The scheme of that work is to present, in

504 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

a systematic form, the outlines of a course of lectures, or of a
comprehensive treatise upon the elements and the progress of the
civil law, with references, under each particular head of doctrine
or history, to the writers by whom it has been most ably treated,
as well as to the whole body of collateral and subsidiary litera-
ture. {Apparatus Litterarius.) The extent of reading, thus
displayed, is prodigious — the volumes of "forgotten teachers,'
still studied by a learned Jurisconsult, are innumerable — and in
a science condemned by Mr. Hallam to such speedy oblivion, it
is quite inconceivable what a monstrous brood of this vain wis-
dom and false, and what is worse, (if he is right,) most perisha-
ble philosophy, has been brought forth, of late, as if in spite of
his prediction, by an incessantly teeming press.

The truth is that, at no former period was there ever more
ardor and activity displayed in the study of the civil law on the
continent of Europe, than at this very time.* A revival in it
took place some forty or fifty years ago,t when a new and heal-
thier taste for the unique, in art and literature, began to be dif-
fused. It was just then that Hugo first rose into reputation as
a professor. The editor of this posthumous edition of Haubold's
outlines,^ in his preface, speaks of it as a return of the age of
Cujas. It is even more than that. The great jurisconsults of
the present day to equal zeal add more knowledge, that is, more
exact and available knowledge, a penetration more refined and
distinguishing, and, above all, views of the constitution of socie-
ty, and of the principles, the spirit, and the influence of legisla-
tion, incomparably more profound, comprehensive, and practi-
cal. Criticism awoke about the middle of the seventeenth cen-
tury, yet Bentley was long without a rival — and Niebuhr con-
siders the sagacity of Perizonius, as thrown away upon an age
entirely unworthy of it.§ The example and the lessons of
Heyne and Voss have filled Germany with philologists, who
have carried into every department of thought and knowledge,
but especially those with which historical criticism has any con-
nection, the spirit and the habits of enlightened, searching, and
philosophical inquiry. Some of these writers are really great
men. Many of their opinions — conjectural at best — may, in
the progress of science, be qualified or refuted, but their general
views are characterized by too much comprehensiveness and
wisdom, are too agreeable to the analogies of society and human
nature in all ages, to pass away with the fashions of a day.

At the head of these (absit invidia) stands Niebuhr, who, we
acknowledge, is, with us, an object of most profound homage.

* Cooper. Lettres sur la Chancellerie d'Angleterre, &e. p. 480. (Ed. Brux-
elles, 1830.)
+ Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats and Rechts Geschichte, Einleitung, p. 27.
I Professor Otto of Leipsic.
§ Romische Geschichte, Vorrede, VIII. (Edit. 1833.)

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 505

We have studied his work, as he asks that it shall be studied,
and as he professes to have written it, conscientiously, and with
perfect freedom from all prejudice ; and the result is that, even
in the rare cases in which we do not share his conviction, we
feel the force of his reasoning, and admire the depth and sober-
ness of his views. To call him the first of philologists is to do
him but very inadequate justice. No such mind was ever pro-
duced by a mere scholastic education. Uniting the qualities of
Bentley to those of Montesquieu — when Montesquieu is not
sacrificing his wisdom to his wit — but, with the additional ad-
vantages which both would have derived from the unspeakably
instructive experience of the last sixty years, his pages chal-
lenge, and will reward, the meditation of the philosophic public-
ist. We ascribe to him the honor of having brought about a
revolution — for it was nothing less — in the history of public
law. He was, we believe, the first to lay his hand upon that
key of. the Past — the effect of races upon the revolutions of so-
ciety, and the character of governments — of which Thierry
has since made so striking an application in his History of the
Norman Conquest, and his Letters on the History of France.
It is not for his doubts, as some seem to think, but for his disco-
veries, that he is entitled to the thanks and admiration of the
learned — not for what he has done to discredit the magnificent
romance of Livy, (for the barren scepticism of Beaufort was
equal to that,) but for what only such a combination, as has
scarcely ever been seen in any single individual, of immense
erudition, unwearied industry, and incessant vigilance of re-
search, with matchless critical sagacity, could have enabled him
to accomplish, towards explaining what was obscure, reconci-
ling what was contradictory, completing. what was defective, and
correcting — often out of his own mouth — what was mistaken,
or misstated, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus. His examination
of this writer, for the most part the only witness we have to
vouch for the antiquities of Rome, is a master-piece of its kind,
and rivals the highest acumen and address of the bar. He sees
intuitively when his author tells the truth, as sometimes happens,
without knowing it, or knows the truth without telling it. He
has an infallible instinct, in divining what is half revealed in a
corrupt text, or in making an intelligible and consistent whole
out of fragments separately dark, or not apparently related to
one another. His conjectural emendations and reasonings a pri-
ori, always cautious, are rendered sure by his habitually pa-
tient and comprehensive inductions, and the immense command
of analogy and illustration with which his various knowledge
supplies him. Enabled by such means to anticipate what the
truth ought to be, he detects it in the most blundering or per-
verted statement, turns to account every casual and distant hint,
vol. i. — 64

506 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

and attaches to words uttered in one sense by the writer, a
meaning entirely different from his own, yet more probable in
itself, and serving, perhaps, to clear up parts of his narrative,
otherwise incongruous or unintelligible. It is not, we repeat it,
the negative but the positive part of his work that entitles it to
its great reputation. It is a mighty creation, or if we may bor-
row a thought from an old writer, it is more, it is raising the
dead. Niebuhr, himself, compares the task of the philologist in
this restoration, or anamorphosis of the history of the past, to that
of the naturalist gathering and putting together the fossil bones
of a lost species of animal.* It is thus that he has rebuilt, with
fragments picked up here and there where they lay scattered
about, as by a tempest, over the whole surface of ancient litera-
ture, the sacerdotal and patrician City of the Kings, in its old
Cyclopean strength and massiveness, and the awful forms of
Tuscan mystery and superstition. It is thus that you are made
to see the Eternal City, already with her triple crown — not
mystical — of gentes — three privileged tribes of various origin,
greater and lesser — incorporated successively into one people,
and constituting, in legal contemplation before the legislation
of Servius Tullius, the whole people — while the noble plebs,
the city of Ancus Martius, the people of the Aventine, never
equalled by any other but the commons of England, excluded
from the rights of citizenship, is, for centuries together, fighting
its way, like the Saxons under their Norman lords, into the pale
of the constitution, and a full participation in its benefits. Never
was more laborious and patient learning tasked to supply mate-
rials for the conception of genius, and the conclusions of philo-
sophy, and never were such materials wrought by the hand of
genius and philosophy into a more solid and stately fabric.

If Niebuhr had done nothing but rebuild the ancient city, and
reveal, for the first time, to the light of history — of that history
of the life and forms of a community which may so long precede,
as he well remarks, all knowledge of individuals — the "buried
majesty" of Rome, he had rendered an immense service. The
Kings lived with honor in the traditions of the republic ; each of
them was the personification of some commanding or venerable
attribute ; war, religion, legislation, conquest, heroic virtues, some-
times heroic crimes, were ascribed to them in the popular legends.
Servius Tullius. especially, identified with a revolution so fa-
vorable to the classes lying under political disabilities, as to pro-
duce, by its very excess, a reaction, followed by two centuries of
perpetual struggle and contention to overcome it — made a great
figure in their Romancero.t To write the history of this period

* It. G. B. III. 135.

+ See the almost demagogical harangue put into his mouth by Dionysius, 1.
IV. c. 8. [Cf. CujaeiiObscrvat. 1. 111. c. 2.J

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 507

was to explain that of the following, as on the contrary, the
history of the following period confirms, by conformity, Nie-
buhr's views of this. His theory accounts for the phenomena,
and is the only one that will do so. For two centuries and a
half the people lived under the influence and the discipline of
a patriarchal and limited monarchy, or Archonship : the national
character was formed, — the great outlines of the constitution
were traced, — the spirit of the laws, and, no doubt, most of their
particular provisions, as they were afterwards recorded in the
XII Tables, were developed and settled, — in short, the future
destinies of Rome may be said to have been already decided
at the expulsion of the Tarquins. The Kings had governed
strenuously ; they had waged many and successful wars ; and
their grandeur is still attested by works unrivalled, even by those
of the Caesars.* Nothing could be more justly the subject of re-
gret, than the absence of all clear historical light (and satisfacto-
ry, though but conjectural) on so interesting and critical a period
of Roman annals. The childhood and youth of the heroic city,
like those of Mahomet, were hidden from our view, and lost to the
purposes of instruction, and nothing but what was fabulous and
distorted was known of her, until she sprang forth from behind
this veil of myths, full-grown and ready armed for the fulfilment
of her great mission, the conquest, the civilization, and, ultimate-
ly, the conversion of the world. By his account of the three dif-
ferent races which form this people, and especially of the connec-
tion with Tuscany — of the corporate existence, and exclusive priv-
ileges of the gentes, under a senate made up of their chiefs, and
a president elected for life (the King) — of the somewhat undefin-
ed, but certainly intimate and controlling relation of the patron
to his clients, retainers of the patricians to be carefully distin-
guished from the plebs — of the peculiar characteristics of that
plebs, the whole infantry of the legion, led by the Sicinii and the
Icilii, men as noble as the Claudii or the Quinctii, who denied
them, through constitutional disabilities, the fruits of their valor —
of the nexi, the ager publicus, the usury laws, and the influ-
ence, so inconceivably important, of the Augur and the Pontiff,
the auspices and the calendar,! we have problem after problem
of Roman history and legislation, solved in the most natural and
satisfactory manner.* Freed from the shallow and delusive com-
mon-places of monarchy and republic, of aristocracy and democ-
racy, of positive legislation, and governments arbitrarily adopt-
ed— ideas and language of what was called the philosophy of the

* Dionys. III. 67. [The Capitol. Tac. Hist. 3. 72. j

t See the speech of App. Claudius against opening the consulship to the Plebs,
on the single ground that they had no auspices. Liv. VI. 41.

t The coincidence of our own opinions on the subject of Niebuhr's services
with those of such a writer as Schlosser, not a little confirms our conviction of
their justness. See his admirable Geschichte der Alten Welt, Th. II. abth. I. C.
2. pp. 253, and especially 284, note f. (edit. Frankfort, 1828).

f>OR ORTCTN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

eighteenth century, indiscriminately and absurdly applied to the
institutions of all others — we now see the mixed constitution of
Rome rationally, that is to say, historically accounted for. We
see it, like that of England, under circumstances strikingly sim-
ilar, developing itself through perpetual (though not, as in the
case of England, bloody) conflicts, and successive compromises,
between diiferent, yet kindred, nations* inhabiting the same
territory, without being members of the same commonwealth —
the minority in possession of the state continually yielding some-
thing to their determined, persevering, multiplying, and yet sin-
gularly potent and moderate adversaries, until they are melted
into one body politic and one people. These struggles were a
discipline that fashioned both parties to stern virtues, and an ex-
citement that stimulated them to heroic exertion. They were
struggles for law and justice — for constitutional privilege on the
one side, and for natural rights on the other. In such a school,
the great legislators and conquerors of the world might well be
trained, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus has not failed to embel-
lish his account of contests so fruitful of good, with discussions
of public law, in orations imputed to the great names of those
times, profound and elaborate enough to satisfy a Greek, a phi-
losopher, and a rhetorician of the age of Augustus.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Hugo, among the
advantages which he mentions as calculated to animate the zeal
of the civilian in the present times, should give a decided promi-
nency to Niebuhr's history.f But the other helps to a more ac-
curate knowledge of the Roman law, than it was possible to ac-
quire a century ago, are neither few nor inconsiderable. Nie-
buhr himself seems to regard it as a sort of special providence for
the success of philology in this age, that, just as a new spirit of
inquiry had been awakened, the discovery of Cicero's republic,
and of the real Gaius, should have occurred to excite and to aid
it in its enterprises. But here, as in so many other analogous
cases, it is difficult to say whether this discovery stands in the
relation of cause or effect to the zeal which it furnishes so oppor-
tunely with a powerful instrument. It is now very well settled
that the Florentine copy of the Pandects had nothing to do with
the revival of the study of the Roman law, however effective it
was in promoting its progress ; but. on the contrary, nothing
seems to us more probable than that the revival of that study was
the means of bringing to light and preserving this solitary and pre-
cious manuscript. It is not at all surprising that a new school of
philology, pronouncing the knowledge of Antiquity still in its

* Ta ii&vr, is the very expression of Dionysius, X. 60. Speaking of the pro-
hibition of mixed marriages in the two last Tables of the Decemvirs.

t P. 55. Yet Hugo seems to us, more than once in the course of this work, to
"hint a fault, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer," when he speaks of
Niebuhr's ideas as more approved by jurisconsults than by historians, p. 5G.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 509

infancy,* examining dc novo all the evidence in relation to it, col-
lating more carefully than ever the manuscripts of classical au-
thors, and publishing editions of them so emended as almost en-
tirely to supersede the old,t should have found such a collabora-
tor as Mai, or that Mai should not have sought in vain, among
the improvements of modern chemistry, for means to disinter (so
to express it) from the Palimpsest the precious remains of ancient
genius. Cicero's Republic is by no means the only conquest of
the kind which the learned world owes to the celebrated libra-
rian of the Vatican. His palimpsests of Ulpian and other writers
are frequently quoted by Hugo, in the course of this work ; but
a still more important accession, in the opinion of that writer, to
the resources of the philologist, are the Turin leaves of the The-
odosian code, published by Peyron some fifteen or sixteeen years
ago. Without referring to other discoveries mentioned by the
same author, (pp. 21, 23,) it is sufficient to add that, what with
new readings of old books and the acquisition of new ones, and
what with a deeper study and more critical examination of those
long in the possession of civilians, an entirely new aspect has
been given to' the study of the Roman law. Hugo quotes a let-
ter from a friend, (p. 75,) in which, congratulating the present
generation upon the change, he declares, that he had taken his
degree of Doctor, before he knew who Gaius or Ulpian was —
writers now familiar to all his hearers ; and Hugo confesses as
much of himself, in regard to Ulpian and Theophilus. Our own
experience, fortunately for us, is not quite so extensive, and yet
it is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that which pre-
sents itself to us, in comparing this Lehr-Buch of Gottingen lec-
turer, with what we remember was the course of professor of the
Civil Law in the University of Edinburgh, just twenty years
ago. One who was initiated into this study, as we happened to
be, under the old plan of the eighteenth century, with Heineccius
for a guide, will find himself in the schools of the present day, in
almost another world — new doctrines^ new history, new meth-
ods, new text-books, and, above all, new views and a new spirit.
In the preface to the first volume of this Course — the Lehr-
Buch of a Juridical Encyclopedia — Hugo carries his reminis-
cences back to 1782. He made his debut, however, as an author,
in 1789, by translating into German, Gibbon's 44th chapter, in
which that great master has contrived to condense into a few
pages, a comprehensive, and, to the general reader, satisfactory
account of the history, the principles, and even the spirit of the
Roman law.§ The year afterwards he put forth a publication,

* Boeckh. Staats Haushaltung der Athener.

t Bekkers.

X Hugo gives a list of them, p. 57, note.

§ Gibbon is one of the very few historical writers of the eighteenth century, who

510 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

which he treats as the germ of the work at the head of this pa-
per, and which has been since gradually expanding, through
eleven successive editions, into its present form. Its title, when
given to the world in 1790, was "a Lehr-Buch" of the history of
the law up to our time, and contained only 170 or 180 pages.
It is now a goodly tome, indexes and all included, of upward of
1200. We have read, with a melancholy interest, the remarks
which, in the preface just referred to, the author makes in refer-
ence to his past successes and his present situation. His lecture-
room, a few years ago too small to contain his pupils, was in
1833-4 comparatively deserted. His books, once bought up as
soon as they were published, are, it seems, no longer very much
in demand. For the decay of his popularity as a professor, he
confesses, with a touching simplicity, that the infirmities of age
may, in some measure, account. But in publishing, as he in-
forms us, his fortieth Lehr-Buch, and as he has chosen to de-
clare his last, he is at a loss to imagine why many more should
not be called for by the reading public, who cannot, like his
pupils, be affected by the dulness of his hearing, or the dimness
of his sight. In what he has said of Gottingen's no longer giv-
ing the tone in legal studies, and the preference elsewhere mani-
fested for the system of "Outlines," (such as Haubold's) over
that of Lehr books, he has revealed to us at least one very pow-
erful cause of the change. We have found another in the style
of this work itself. It is thoroughly detestable — as bad as bad can
be in a didactic, and especially an elementary work — involved,
obscure, parenthetical, "cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." There
are sentences on important and difficult points, requiring the ut-
most possible precision and clearness, which run down a whole
page, winding their almost invisible course through capes and
shoals of qualifications, exceptions, obiter dicta, and so forth, that
are absolutely distracting, to a foreigner at least. Some of these
vices are, perhaps, inherent in the very nature of a Lehr -buck,
which is something between a book and a brief, meant to serve
for a text to lecture from in universities ; but we suspect that this
most profound of jurisconsults is not the most eloquent, and that,
since nothing more of novelty is to be expected from one whose
doctrines have been so fully given to the world, students natu-
rally seek those by whom they may hope to find new ideas
broached, or old ones embellished. Besides, the veteran profes-
sor must not forget that the lessons which he has successfully
taught, are become the arms of rivals in the hands of his pupils,
and that the maxim of Napoleon, that it is given to no general
to make war prosperously beyond a certain number of years, is

have stood before the criticism of the nineteenth. Niebuhr acknowledges "the
Decline and Fall" as auch fur den Philologen cin herrliches Meister-Work.—
Vorrede to R. G. IX.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 511

only a recognition of the inexorable law of succession and equal-
ity among the generations of men.

Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne
Peccet ad extremum ridendus.

He has lived, too, through a period which, more than any that
ever preceded it, has been, as we have seen, one of progress in
his particular pursuit. That he has greatly contributed to pro-
mote that progress — that he has been, in some sort, the harbinger
of a new era — that the great men, whose more recent glory has
eclipsed his own, were many of them brought up at his feet and
all of them enlightened by his wisdom — is a distinction which
cannot be denied, and ought to satisfy him.

As we confine ourselves, in this paper, as much as possible, to
the history and character of Roman legislation, and the study of
(he civil law, we will say little of the first and second volumes
of Hugo's "Cursus," one of which, as we have already had occa-
sion to observe, is only a sketch of a juridical Encyclopedia.
The other is much more interesting, being a Lehr-Buch of na-
tural law, in, which an attempt is made to produce something,
in that kind, that shall not be liable to the objections made, by
Bacon and Leibnitz, to the old way of treating this subject. In
this work he has embodied certain principles of political philoso-
phy which all will admit to be bold, and some may pronounce
paradoxical. The great dogma, for example, of the historical
school, that, in the matter of government, "whatever is, is right,"
for the time being, and nothing so for all times ; that positive in-
stitutions are merely provisional ; and that every people has,
ipso facto, precisely those which are best adapted to its charac-
ter and condition.* We recognise in these doctrines a great fun-
damental truth, without a distinct perception of which, history
becomes a riddle, and government impossible; but it is* easily
pushed to extravagance, and we are not sure that Hugo and his
school have not given to it too much the color of a dark and li-
centious fatalism. His idea, too, of the boundaries between the
jus publicum and the jus privatum, savors far too strongly of
the despotism of Dorian legislation for our tastes. We are for
making private property as exclusively as possible an affair of
meum and tuum, and, in the spirit of our own constitution,
would lean, in all imaginable circumstances, in favor of main-
taining its sanctity inviolate, against the pretended claims of
.state necessity, or the indefeasible sovereign power of society.

We have frequently, in the course of the preceding remarks,
had occasion to mention the discovery of the real Gaius as an
event of the highest importance to the study of the civil law.
We owe this accession to our literary treasures to the same great

* Civ. Curs. I. pp. 313-315.

512 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

man, whose work on the early history of Rome had already
done so much for philology, Niebuhr. It was fitting that he
who had made the best use of the old materials should have the
honor of making by far the most precious addition to them. This
palimpsest, (the darkest and most perplexed of any,) was found
by him at Verona, in 1816, and deciphered, says Hugo, by Gos-
chen, and Bethmann Holweg, with admirable success, in 1S17.
The existence of some such manuscript, at no very remote period,
had long been suspected. Bynkershoeck, in his treatise de Reims
Mancipi* after quoting the passage of Gaius preserved by Boe-
thius, in which mancipatio is defined, treats as erroneous the
common impression that that fragment, together with another, de
Jure Cessione, (neither of which was to be found in the Gothic
abridgment,) existed only in Boethius, and goes on to state that
he had recently read a treatise by Cynus, in which those very
fragments are cited, on the authority of P. J. de Ravini, as having
been copied out of Gaius by him. Schultingius, to whom Bynker-
shoeck pointed out this curious passage, made very light of the
allegation of the aforesaid Ravini, but Bynkershoeck himself saw
no reason for doubting it, and Heineccius subsequently assented
to that opinion, and assertst or intimates the probability that a
complete copy of Gains was extant in the fourteenth century,
when Ravini flourished. Be that as it may, no search was at that
time instituted, and it was only within the last twelve years that
civilians have enjoyed the light shed from this source on many
dark or doubtful points, especially in the history of the law so
imperfectly written by Pomponius.t As to Gaius himself, every
thing had conspired to awaken the liveliest curiosity in regard
to him. Just a century before Justinian undertook his compila-
tion, (A. D. 426,) Theodosius the younger, and Valentinian, in
order to correct, in some measure, the confusion arising out of a
vast multiplicity of laws, and to introduce into the administration
of justice, then in a deplorable condition, the science of a more for-
tunate era, addressed to the "Senate of the city of Rome" an Im-
perial Constitution, by which it was ordained that the judges
should be bound by the opinions of five illustrious jurisconsults
of an earlier age, Papinian, Paullus, Gaius, Ulpian, and Modesti-
nus ; that, if there were any difference in their opinions, those of a
majority should prevail ; and that, in case of equality of voices,
that should be ruled to be law which Papinian should have pro-
nounced to be so.§ We shall say nothing here of the other
names honored by this singular constitution, a more suitable
opportunity for doing so may hereafter present itself; but the

* Opuscul. Varia, 107.

t Histor. Jur. § CCCXIV.

I D. 1. 1. Tit. II.

§ Cod. Theodosian : 1. 1. Tit. IV. Se Responsis Prudentum.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 513

Gains thus distinguished was no other than he whose Institutes,
or, as they are described in the work itself, " Institutionum Com-
mentarii" are named in our rubric, and have been the subject of
our previous remarks. This, however, though an extraordinary,
was by no means a solitary distinction. Throughout the insti-
tutes of Justinian, Gaius is often referred to, and the epithet of
"noster" which always accompanies his name, and which led
some to think him a contemporary of Justinian, is now clearly
proved to express merely the very free use made of his work,
in that of Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus. The com-
missioners of Justinian are found to have largely adopted the lan-
guage, together with the arrangement of Gaius; but this fact was
not known, for they had taken no pains to distinguish what they
had borrowed from him, from what they had added of their own,
nor indeed had they given us any reason at all to imagine the
extent of their obligations to him. Another compilation, how-
ever, made a few years before, (A. D. 506) in quite a different
quarter, purported to contain — along with copious extracts from
Ulpian, and five books of the Sentential Receptee, of Paullus,
with abridgments of the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theo-
dosian codes, &c. &c. — an epitome in two books of the Institutes
,of Gaius. This is the "Gothic Gaius," as contradistinguished
from the real Gaius discovered at Verona. The epithet of Gothic
belongs to this collection as made under the auspices of Alaric
II. king of the Visigoths, at that time established in Gallia Nar-
bonensis, the very year before his defeat by Clovis. It was the
policy of the Teutonic barbarians to govern their Roman sub-
jects by the Roman law.* This personal, instead of a territorial
jurisdiction, was a novelty in the history of nations ; it served
at once to mitigate the severities of conquest, and to hasten
the union of the races under a new civilization ; and nowhere
were the effects of this policy more striking than in the south of
France, where the foundation of the titular kingdom of Aries,
in the ninth century, the early formation of the provencal dialect,
and the existence up to the time of the Revolution, of a pays de
droit ecrit, attest, in the most unequivocal manner, the influence
of Roman legislation, and the Latin language. This compila-
tion of Alaric was sometimes called the Breviarium Alaricianum,
and sometimes bore the more pompous title of Lex Romana,
with or without the addition of Visigothorum. We owe to it, it
is probable, the present mutilated condition of the Theodosian
code, which ceased to be copied in its integrity, because this
abridgment, especially after the legislation of Justinian, answer-
ed practically the same purpose. But to confine our observa-

* Among the texts to be found in the Corpus Juris Germanici Antiqui, to that
effect, one of the most striking is in the laws of Lothaire I. (XXXVII.) at page
1224 ol that collection.

vol. i. — 65

514 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

tions to what relates to our particular subject — Gaius is deformed
in it, as Oiselius expresses it, to suit the tastes or the wants of a
barbarous period. The epitome in two books contains some
twenty or thirty pages, octavo, in the Berlin edition, (omitting
the notes,) and deviates so entirely from the language of the
author, that it would be impossible for him to recognise in it
any resemblance or approach to his own work. Yet, imperfect
as it was in itself, this breviary had its mission, a high and
important one, and it was fulfilled. Of this, however, we shall
have more to say when we corne, (as we trust we shall,) on
some future occasion, to speak of what M. de Savigny has done
for the history of the civil law in the middle ages.

The discovery of Gains, we have said, is highly important
with a view to the history of Roman jurisprudence. It is an ex-
cellent remark of Hugo's,* that, in a system of law, half of what
is scientific, as contradistinguished from what is immediately
practical and so quite mechanical, belongs to its history, andean
be learned only through it. It is, however, just this part of ju-
risprudence, which alone reveals its true spirit without which
the most important statutes are scarcely intelligible, and the great-
est causes are but imperfectly argued, that is uniformly neglect-
ed in what they publish, by those best fitted to do justice to it,
leading advocates and learned judges, the sages and oracles of
the profession. It is so with our own common law ; it was so in
quite as remarkable a degree with the civil law. We have al-
ready adverted to the meagre outline of Pomponius embodied in
the Digest. There were few other fragments that might aid in
supplying what was defective in that. The volume before us
has added greatly to our stock of information in this particular.
It is an exposition — occasionally, though not often, with a retro-
spective glance at what the law had been — of the elements of the
law as it then stood. It is the work of one of the most illustri-
ous of the Roman Jurisconsults in the palmy day of the science,
the age of the Antonines, just bordering on that of the Severi.
Gaius was a contemporary of Q. Cervidius Scaevola. the master
of Papinian. His work, besides, has been adopted by Justinian
as the basis of his own Institutes. The difference, therefore,
between the original text and the text thus adapted to the purpo-
ses of education in the sixth century, is all history. Now it bap-
pens that this difference is very wide. Justinian was a mighty
innovator — we admit, in one sense, a great reformer — but at any
rate a mighty innovator. Those changes extend to every part
of the whole body of jurisprudence — to its most important provis-
ionsits, most pervading principles, its most characteristic features,
its genius, its maxims, and its policy. And this leads us to remark
what struck us the most forcibly in reading Gaius, title by titleT

* Introduction.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 515

with the Institutes of Justinian. You see in the former, the Ro-
man law in its highest theoretical perfection ; you see it in the
symmetry of an exact science and a rigid logic, pursuing its prin-
ciples without limitation and without reserve, to all their legiti-
mate consequences. Gaius speaks repeatedly ot what he calls
elegantia or inelegantia juris ; that is to say, of what is or is
not agreeable to the perfect harmony of its doctrines, and the
strict logical filiation of its reasonings. A stipulation to give
post mortem meam, or cum morieris, is void, because it is inele-
gans that a stipulation should begin only with the heir.* An-
other instance will be still more illustrative. By a senatus-con-
sultum which Claudius, at the instigation of his freedman Pal-
las, caused to be passed, a free woman cohabiting with a slave,
against his master's express prohibition thrice solemly pro-
nounced, was herself reduced to bondage ; yet she might, by a
special agreement with the master, retain her own liberty at the
expense of that of her offspring, who were to be born slaves.
But the Emperor Hadrian, says Gaius, t — iniquitate rex et inele-
gantia juris motus — restored the rule of the jus gentium upon
the subject, and ordained that the children should inherit the
status of the mother. Now Justinian would undoubtedly have
gone at least as far as Hadrian, as he in fact abolished the sena-
tus consultum of Claudius, not without denouncing it as unwor-
thy of the spirit of the age ; but he would have been quite satis-
fied with the former of the two reasons, the iniquitas rei, to the
correction of which he scrupled not, on every occasion, to sacri-
fice the mere symmetry of the law.J This we take to be the
true character of his legislation. His reforms are a perpetual sac-
rifice of law to equity, of science to policy or feeling, of jus civile
to jus gentium, of the privileges of the citizen to the rights of
man, of the pride and the prejudices of Rome to the genius of
humanity consecrated by the religion of Christ. There are those
who seem to imagine that the civil law has existed as a sci-
ence only since Justinian published it in the form of a code.
The very reverse is the fact : the civil law lost so many of its
peculiarities by his unsparing reforms, that it may be said, more
properly, to have ceased to exist at that time ; to have been com-
pletely transmuted into the law of nature, and the universal equi-
ty of cultivated nations, to which it had been, for a long time,
gradually approximating. It is this extraordinary change that is
brought before us, in a sudden and striking contrast, by collating
the text of Gaius with that of Justinian, — the Institutes of the

*P. 154, 155. t P. 22.

I A passage very much in point and highly illustrative of the sublilitas, as Jus-
tinian himself calls it, of the jurisprudentia media, contrasted with his own views
of the law, is to be found, Institut. 1. III. t. 2. § 3. Delegitima agnatorum succession.
He applauds the Praetor for his humane purposes, but thinks that the bon. possessio
unde cognati had not gone far enough.

516 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

Roman law, strictly so called, and the Institutes of that law,
purged of almost all that was Roman, that is since become, in the
hands of Domat and Pothier, of Voet and Vinnius, the "written
reason" of Christendom. "Populus itaque Romanus" says Ga-
ius, "partim suo proprio, partim communi omnium hominum
jure utitur ;" even so, but the proper has been merged in the
common, just as the text of Gains is in that Tribonian, to the ex-
clusion of res mancipi, actiones legis, and distinctions between
classes of legacies, and freedmen.

This view of the subject is so important in reference both to
the history of the civil law, and to the philosophy of jurispru-
dence in general, and has especially such a bearing on the ques-
tion, whether the former is likely "soon to be forgotten," that we
shall be excused for pursuing it somewhat farther.

D'Aguesseau, in a panegyric of unrivalled beauty, upon this
body of jurisprudence, as it was then studied and practised in
France, uses the following language :

"These rules, it is true, have almost all of them their founda-
tion in natural law ; but who, by a single effort of sublime spe-
culation, could go up to the origin of so many streams that are
now so far removed from their fountain ? Who could descend
from that fountain, as if by degrees, and follow step by step the
almost infinite divisions of all the branches that flow from it, to
become, as it were, the inventor and creator of a system of law ?

"Such efforts transcend the ordinary limits of human exertion.
But, fortunately, other men have made them for us ; a single
book which science opens at once to the judge, developes to him,
without any difficulty, the first principles and the remotest con-
sequences of the law of nature.

"The work of that people, whom heaven seems to have formed
to govern men, every thing in it breathes that high wisdom, that
deep sense, and, to sum up all in one word, the gift of that spirit
of legislation which was the peculiar and distinguishing charac
teristic of the masters of the world. As if the mighty destinies
of Rome were not yet fulfilled, she reigns throughout the whole
earth, by her reason, after having ceased to reign by her author-
ity. It might, indeed, be affirmed, that justice has fully deve-
loped her mysteries only to the Roman lawyer. Legislators
rather than jurisconsults, mere individuals in the shades of pri-
vate life, have had the merit, by the superiority of their intelli-
gence, to give laws to all posterity. Laws of a jurisdiction not
less extensive than durable, all nations, even now, refer to them,
as to an oracle, and receive from them responses of eternal truth.
It is, for them, but small praise, to have interpreted the XII.
Tables, or the Edict of the Praetor, they are the surest interpre-
ters, even of our laws ; they lend, so to express it, their wisdom
to our usages, their reason to our customs, and, by the principles

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 517

which they furnish us, they serve us as a guide, even when we
walk in ways which were unknown to them." (XIII. Mercu-
riale.)

We have before us a striking example of the truth thus elo-
quently expressed, and it is with unaffected pleasure, that we
turn from the virtuous and learned D'Aguesseau, to do homage
to one who has done honor to his country. Mr. Justice Story
has, in a series of valuable publications, not only enriched the
library, but enlarged the horizon of the American lawyer. He
has most fully verified by his success, an opinion we have long
cherished, as to the superiority of the civilians and those nurtur-
ed in their conversation, as elementary writers, over the lawyers
trained for practice in England. It is with surprise we find a
different opinion expressed by Mr. Cooper.* It will not be de-
nied that some English text writers, and indeed, most of them,
discover a thorough acquaintance with the subjects they treat,
considered as mere matters of business — that they carefully col-
lect all the decided cases, and critically distinguish the circum-
stances that ought to affect their authority as law, or their effect
as precedents in point — nor have we any doubt at all, but that
so far as these cases go, those compilers are as safe guides as can
be followed by counsellors or their clients.t But there arise
sometimes — and it is generally in things touching the highest
interests, public or private, and most calculated to excite the
minds of men, that there do arise — questions in which the file
affords no precedent, and the judge is compelled to make one by
the help of analogy, and by reasoning from principles. Now, it
is in such cases that an English text book hardly ever affords
the least assistance to an enquirer. They never think of the
elegantia juris of Gaius, of a scientific distribution of their sub-
ject, of genus or species, class or category ; the principle of a rule
is seldom stated as a theorem, and when a new case calls for its
application, the most trifling difference in accidental circum-
stances gives rise to embarrassing doubt. In short, there is a
total absence of all philosophical analysis, and systematic expo-
sition. Fearne's book is generally considered as one of the most
lucid and satisfactory treatises in the library of an English law-
yer— yet look at the summing up of his prolix discussion of the
rule in Shelley's case — what does he at last make the foundation
of that most startling, and yet best settled of all the canons of
English succession — to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the
Greeks foolishness? Does he agree with Mr. Justice Blackstone
in his "celebrated" argument in Perrin and Blake, which Lord
Thurlow thought proved nothing but Blackstone's ignorance of

* Lettres sur la Chancellerie d'Angleterre.
t See the remarkable case mentioned. Ibid.

518 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

the whole subject ? Does he agree with Lord Thurlow himself?
or does he subscribe to Mr. Hargrave's rather obscure opinion ?
Is it a rule of feudal descent, or is it merely a canon of interpre-
tation ? So, as to a remainder itself, where has he shown why
the law so inexorably required the vesting of a remainder, at the
death of the tenant for life, &c. &c. We might push this much
farther — but his non erat locus — we forbear.

There can not be, in our judgment, a greater contrast than
that which exists between such treatises, and those of Pothier.
What Cicero says, in an often quoted passage, of the superiority
of Servius Sulpicius to all his predecessors, in his exposition of
the doctrines of the Civil Law, is precisely applicable here. But
any one who wants an exemplification of our ideas upon the
subject, has only to compare Maddock's Chancery with Mr. Jus-
tice Story's excellent Commentaries on Equity, the best text
book, by far, ever yet published on that subject.

But it is not only in scientific method and arrangement, that
the civilians, of the last two centuries especially, excel as ele-
mentary writers. They have drawn their materials from a
longer and infinitely more diversified experience, than the Eng-
lish lawyers. The insular position of England, and the peculi-
arity of her institutions, have hitherto separated her, as it were,
from the family of nations, and shut her out from the disputatio
fori (if we may borrow a phrase from the civilians) of modern
international jurisprudence. She has been literally a law to
herself —

Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.*

So much the better, undoubtedly, for her own admirable pub-
lic law — but this circumstance accounts for chasms in her legal
system, such as that which Mr. Justice Story has just filled up
by his excellent book at the head of this article. Is it not pass-
ing strange — or rather would it not be so, but for the circum-
stance just alluded to, of her isolated position, political and phy-
sical— that it has been reserved for an American jurist, at this
time of day, to discuss for the first time in the vernacular, in a
manner worthy of such a subject, the principles which govern
nations in so important and delicate a matter, as a conflict of
laws? In his able and ample exposition of the subject, the
help which he has derived from Westminister Hall has been
comparatively little ; the Ecclesiastical and Scotch courts have
contributed more — but, after all, his principal reliance has been
upon the civilians, not forgetting some admirable discussions

* What light is to be derived from English books on such subjects as are
treated of by Struvius Corp. Jur., Germanici 1 Take the case of two states, se-
parated by a river ; where are their relative rights in the use of it, discussed by
English lawyers ?

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 519

from the courts of Louisiana* — and both this work and the pre-
vious one upon Bailments are fruits of his intercourse with them,
and most conclusive evidence that they are not "forgotten teach-
ers of a science that is likely" either soon or late, "to be forgotten."
But Mr. Hallam seems to imagine that these fountains of ever
living waters will be abandoned, because men have in these later
times hewn out to themselves broken cisterns that will hold no
water. "The new legal systems, (we quote another sentence
from the same paragraph,) which the moral and political revolu-
tions of the age have produced, and are likely to diffuse, will
leave little influence" to them. That is to say, the French Code,
and other systems formed or projected in imitation of it, are to
supersede for ever the Corpus Juris Civilis. It is really melan-
choly to hear a man of so much ability and information, uttering
an error as vulgar as any recorded by Tom Browne. It certainly
is not our present purpose to discuss, at large, the exploded folly
of Codification : it will be time enough to attack when any body
shall be found to defend it, under any other circumstances than
those, which rendered such, or indeed any means of producing
unity of legislation and judicature in France, desirable. But,
even in France, no body imagined before the formation of the
code, and certainly no body pretends since, that the collecting of
a few principles, in such an abridgment, is to dispense with the
most profound, comprehensive, diversified, and universally ap-
plicable body of juridical reason and natural equity, that the
world has ever known. None that have looked into the aDis-
cours et Expose dcs motifs" of Bonaparte's commissioners need
be told that they are rivals of Justinian, at least in one qualifica-
tion of a professed reformer, unbounded self-complacency, and
that, like Tribonian and his associates, they glorify their master
and themselves without scruple, and without stint. They repre-
sent all France, from the banks of the Rhine and the Meuse to
those of the Var and the Rhone, as in an ecstacy of wonder at the
work of sagacity and patience,t which their pregnant wits were
bringing forth — a patience, be it remembered by the way, dis-
played in preparing their projet within four months, and a saga-
city which determined them to use the labors of others instead of
their own, in doing so. Yet even these luminaries of this pri-
vileged age admit that their code is, at best, but a germ, round
which a body of unwritten law is yet to be formed by practice,
usage, and interpretation. As to dispensing with the study of
the Civil Law, they earnestly deprecate the very idea of it, and
no where, not even in the passage quoted just now from D'Agues-

* The case of Saul and his creditors is one of the best reasoned we ever met
with.

t See the tumid vauntings of the tribune Duveyrier, 18 Pluviose, sur le projet de
loi titre X. relatif. au contrat de marriage, Tome III.

520 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

seau, is there to be found a more studied and ample panegyric
upon its wisdom and equity, than fell from the lips of more than
one of them. "In this projet, (says the orator of the Tribunal
Garry, referring to the Title de Vusufruit, de Vusage et de F ha-
bitation,) as in all those which will be successively presented for
your approbation, you will remark with satisfaction the reli-
gious care with which all those who have been concerned in the
reduction of the code, have consulted the legislation of that peo-
ple, who, after having subjugated the whole earth by force of
arms, govern it still by the superiority and profoundness of their
reason. I shall be permitted, here, to advert to an error dissemi-
nated already by ignorance, and which nothing but indolence
could accredit, namely, that it will be hereafter sufficient for
those who are destined to the study of the law, to know the
Code Civil. We cannot too often repeat that, after the example
of our greatest magistrates, and our most celebrated jurisconsults,
they must study the law in its purest source, the Roman laws.
It is only by profound and incessant meditation upon that im-
mortal monument of wisdom and equity, that they can be formed
who aspire to the honorable occupation of enlightening their fel-
low citizens upon their interests, or of pronouncing judgment
upon their controversies.* Another, (and he is one of the most
distinguished of the counsellors of state,) M. Bigot-Preameneu,
when he comes to the Corps Legislatif, {Legislature, hardly
describes such an assembly,) with Title II. B. III. of the Code,
"on the various modes of acquiring property, and on contracts,
and conventional obligations in general," dwells still more at
large upon the merits of that vast body of doctrine, as he ex-
presses it, which will render the legislation of Rome immortal.
To have foreseen, he continues, by far the greatest number of
those covenants and agreements, to which the condition of man
in society gives rise ; to have weighed all the grounds of deci-
sion, between interests the most opposite and the most complica-
ted ; to have dispersed most of the clouds in which equity is too
often found involved ; to have gathered in one collection all that
is most sublime and most holy in morals and philosophy ; such
are the results achieved in that immense and precious depository,
which will never cease to deserve the respect of mankind, which
will contribute to the civilization of the whole globe, and whicli
all cultivated nations rejoice to acknowledge as written reason.
After adding that all further progress in legislation, except what
may be implied in a better order and method, seems out of the
question, and after some just remarks upon the defects of the
Justinian Collection, in this respect, which are of course correct-
ed in the projet presented by him, he proceeds to add, emphati-
cally, that it is no part of their purpose, in digesting, according
• Discours, &c. T. III. p. 93.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 521

to a more lucid arrangement, the principles involved in the title,
to supersede the study of the Roman law on the subject of con-
tracts. It will no longer, he observes, have in France the au-
thority of municipal legislation ; but it will exercise the com-
manding influence which reason confers in all nations. "Rea-
son is their common law."* The provisions of the code, in rela-
tion to contracts, would be very much misunderstood if they
were regarded in any other light than as elementary rules of
equity, of which all the ramifications are to be found in the Ro-
man laws. It is there that the full development of the science
of the just and the unjust is to be sought : from that source they
must draw who would wish to make any progress in the French
code, or who shall be charged with the preservation and the ex-
ecution of the laws deposited in it.

Such acknowledgments as these, frankly made by the authors
of this extravagantly vaunted collection, ought, one should think,
to have obviated, not merely such an error — scarcely excusable
in any point of view — as that pointed out in Mr. Hallam's work,
but many other opinions in regard to that code, and to the vir-
tues of written, or more properly, positive law in general, just as
false, but far more mischievous and troublesome to society.
They saw the great fundamental truth thus expressly enunciated
by one of them. uLes codes des peuples sefont avec le temps ;
metis proprement on ne les fait pas." Subsequent experience
has fully justified these anticipations. Mr. Cooper mentions, in
his Lettres sur la chancellerie U AngleterreJ that the Bulletin
des Lois, which is just as necessary to the French public as the
five codes themselves, and which, at the time he wrote, compre-
hended the legislation of only thirty-five years, already contained
more than a hundred volumes ; while the Recueil de Cassa-
tion— that is the collection of the decrees of the Cour de Cassa-
tion up to 1826 — was just twenty-six goodly tomes. The same
writer has furnished, from a bookseller's advertisement, in the
titles of two new works, a curious proof, how impossible it is for
a great nation, even after passing through a revolution more un-
sparingly subversive than any recorded in history, and legisla-
ting literally upon the ruins of the past, to get rid of its previous
laws.t But an observation from the same source, still more to
our immediate purpose, is, that no one can read the avertisse-
ment of the 11th volume of the works of M. Dupin, without at
once perceiving how necessary and profitable it is, after having
looked into any article in the codes, to turn to what Pothier has

* Even this aphorism is borrowed from the Civilians, who teach ratio natumlis
lex quccdam tacita.

t P. 128 (ed. of Brussels.)

X P. 155. Recueil general des Ordonnances, Edits, Declarations. Lettres-Pa-
tentes, Arrets du Conseil, Arrets de reglements, &c, qui ne sont pas abroge's,
&c. &c.

vol. i. — 66

522 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

written upon the same subject. The truth of this assertion is
established, and the reason explained, by a fact stated by this
very M. Dnpin, a witness above all exception. "The works of
Pothier," saye he, "have not been received by us as laws, but
they have obtained a similar honor ; for more than three fourths
of the Code Civil are literally extracted from his treatises.
The truth is the redacteurs of that Code, convinced that they
could not possibly imagine an order more perfect than that which
Pothier had adopted for his various treatises, and that they could
no where else find sounder principles, or more equitable deci-
sions, had the praiseworthy good sense, to confine themselves to
an analysis of his works."* What a commentary is this upon
the. boasted "sagacity and patience" of those rtdactenrs ! It
only remains for us, in order to complete the view which we
have endeavored to present, of the influence of Roman legisla
tion, to mention that Pothier — worthy, as we admit him to be, of
all honor and reverence — is but a commentator upon the doc-
trines gathered by Justinian into his heterogeneous collection,
and that the great bulk of these doctrines is to be found in the
Pandects, of which one third is made up of literal extracts from
Ulpian, one sixth from Paulus,t and the remainder from other
celebrated jurisconsults from Scevola to Modestinus. It is thus
demonstrated that the science which they taught, is likely to pass
away when Euclid's elements shall be forgotten, but not till
then.

If the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz, who shivered to pieces
the throne of the German Caesars, and blotted out for ever the
name of the Roman Empire, consoled himself, in that last exile,
with the assurance that his work of peace, the Code, was inden-
tified with the constitution of society, and would live when his
victories should be no more than those of Timour or Alexander —
what honor shall we not ascribe to those who were really the
authors of that work, and the trophies of whose wisdom are thus
preferred before all the glory of the earth.

And why should they not be preferred to the perishable gran-
deur which they have survived ?

Strange, but striking, and impressive destiny ! This body of
morality and reason, rescued from beneath the ruins of the first
Roman Empire, of whose civilization it was the proudest monu-
ment, and whose majestic image is impressed upon its whole
face, was used as a most powerful instrument to build up the se-
cond; and the treaty of Luneville had scarcely sealed the fate of
that second, when the founder of a domination, more haughty
than either, adopted it as the basis of a new order of things. But

* Dissertation sur la vie et les ouvrages de Pothier, par M. Dupin (apud
Cooper, Lettres, &c).
t Hugo L.B. eines C. C. B. I. S. 116.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 523

a few years — scarcely more than a generation of men — are passed
away, and behold ! that throne, too, is mouldering, with the oth-
ers, in the dust, while a combination of favorable circumstances
has given a renovated youth, and seems to insure an uncontested
dominion to the immortal spirit of the Roman Law !

We have said that the Civil Law was made use of to build
up the Holy Roman Empire, and in appreciating and account-
ing for its influence over modern society, that circumstance must
not be overlooked. About fifty years after the revival of the
study of it under Irnerius, it attracted the attention of the Em-
peror Frederic Barbarossa, whose penetration it could not escape,
how profound a respect for its authority was entertained in the
Italian cities, and to what profitable account it might be turned
in extending the prerogatives of the crown. On a second visit
to Italy, (in 1158,) he surrounded himself with professors of law,
conferred upon their school the privileges of a University, and
had their co-operation at Roncaglia in multiplying his regalia,
and clothing him as far as possible in the sovereignty conferred
by the real or imaginary Lex Regia — a new pretension in feudal
Europe. From this epoch, the Emperor began to be familiarly
spoken of among the doctors of Italy, as the successor of the
Caesars, and the Civil Law to be regarded as an Imperial Com-
mon Law, binding upon all Christendom, because unity of faith
and allegiance, under one head, was supposed to be exacted by
the Divine Founder.* But it was long before the slavish maxims
of the Byzantine Court could make their way into the tribunals
of Germany. At length, however, as the progress of civilization
called for a better legislation, the superiority of the Civil Law in
all that relates to meum and tuum, began to be more and more
felt. It was favored by the example of Charles IV., by the in-
fluence of the numerous universities founded between the middle
of the fourteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century,
and by the establishment of the Imperial Chamber; so that under
the reign of Maximilian I. it was fairly installed, within limits
or on conditions, as it appears, not very perfectly defined, as a
part of the common law of Germany.t In France the pays de
droit ecrit extended from the Mediterranean to the Loire, and in
all the other kingdoms of Europe, the legislation of Rome "com-
manded the respect or obedience of independent nations." This
part of the subject, however, we must reserve for a future occa-
sion. But its influence, in another sphere, was too commanding
and universal to be omitted here. The compilations of the Ca-
non Law, which began to be made as early as the middle of the
twelfth century, gave it more form and consistency, and the au-
thority of the church, and the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical

* Eichhorn Deutsche Staats and Rechts-Geschichte. II. Th. § 269.
t Id. III. Th. § 440f

524 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

courts, co-operated in extending and perpetuating the dominion
of Paullus and Papinian, of Ulpian and Gaius over the human
mind.

But whatever the authority of the Empire or the Church may-
have done to facilitate the diffusion of the Civil Law in modern
Europe, we have said enough to show that the day must, at all
events, have come, when its intrinsic excellencies would have
recommended it to the respect and the acceptance of mankind.
Its connection with those institutions was essentially transitory —
her light dwelt in them, only until the social condition of Europe
should be fully prepared, to receive it in a proper form and in its
true brightness and purity, —

Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not, she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while.

An old chronicler, quoted by Eichhorn, asks and answers the
question, why the whole earth should be subjected to the laws
of a single city.* He ascribes to the necessity of maintaining
the unity of faith, what we explain by more profane reasons :
but whatever solution be given of that problem, there is another
question naturally suggested by the facts brought to the view of
our readers, in the preceding pages, which we beg leave ourselves
to propose and to answer: Was there any thing in the original
character of the Roman law, that fitted it to become thus uni-
versally applicable, or by what causes, and through what process,
was it ultimately rendered so?

It is laid down as a fundamental maxim, by Montesquieu,t
that laws ought to be so peculiarly adapted to the people for
whom they are made, that there is but a remote chance of their
being found suitable for any other.

This, like so many other of that brilliant writer's best thoughts,
can be received only with qualifications and distinctions. So
far as it goes to preclude all merely arbitrary legislation a la
Joseph II. — all those theories, so much in vogue, and so prolific
of disorder in the latter half of the eighteenth century, of systems
of universal public law, and of the power of the lawgiver to cut
out society, as if it were made of parchment or paper, into what-
ever shape he might judge most eligible, and to make it in that
shape a living, moving, and an effective thing — the experience
of Europe, for the last sixty years, has abundantly confirmed his
opinion. t Undoubtedly if there be any thing very peculiar in

• Otto Frising. Chron. lib. 3. Hoc jam solvendum puto, quare unius urbis
imperio totum crbem subjici, univs urbis legibns, &c. Scilicet, ut his modis unitas
commendaretur fidei.

t Esprit des Lois, 1. i. c. 3.

1 See the excellent remarks of Eichhorn D. S. u. R. G.4. Th. p. 708, and seqq
especially as to the failure of the legislation of the eighteenth century in Prussia
and Austria.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 525

the condition, the character, or the opinions of a people, its law,
hoth public and private, must conform to it, on pain of being
otherwise wholly inoperative ; and this is the reason why, as we
have seen, the authors of the French Code, themselves, think,
and think justly, that by far the greater part of every system
must grow up gradually in the shape of common or customary
law. In this point of view we heartily concur with Montes-
quieu ; but we have seen, in the case of the Civil Law, that in-
finitely the largest and most important portion of it — that re-
lating to meum and tuum — is suitable, not only to other coun-
tries, but to all other countries — that it is as applicable at Boston
as at Paris, and has served equally to guide the legislation of
Napoleon, and to enlighten the judgment of Story. This is a
fact not to be disputed, but accounted for — a fact which will
excite our curiosity the more, when we come to look at the use
which Lord Mansfield made of the science of the Civilians, in
his own masterly administration of justice, and to discover, as
Mr. Evans has shown, that he often applies not only their doc-
trines, but their very words, to the action for money had and
received. This example is the most striking that can possibly
be imagined — for certainly if there ever were two bodies of
jurisprudence apparently irreconcilable with one another, they
were the old common law of Plowden and Coke, and the Jus
Civile of Rome in earlier times.

We have thus answered the question we propounded just now,
as to the original character of the Roman law. It was as far as
possible from being the "written reason" it afterwards became;
but to explain how it underwent so entire a revolution, is to
write its history, and we purpose devoting the remainder of this
paper to some remarks on its origin and progress down to the
time of Justinian.

We will premise, however, that in what we had occasion to
say in characterizing the Institutes of Gaius, we anticipated, in
a few words, the results of our present inquiry. Considering
that book as the mirror of the old Roman law in its highest state
of perfection, after six centuries (for so many were elapsed since
the Decemvirs had promulgated their tables) of experience and
cultivation, we contrasted it with the form it had assumed in the
hands of Tribonian. You see at a glance, that in the interval
of nearly four hundred years, between the reign of M. Aurelius
and that of Justinian, some mighty revolution has occurred in the
opinions of mankind, for laws are the shadow of opinions. This
contrast becomes, of course, still more violent, if, laying down
Gaius, you take up what remains of the Twelve Tables, and the
literature that illustrates it — but of that by and by. And there
had occurred in that interval a mighty revolution, — the mightiest
of all moral revolutions. Constantine had ascended the throne,

526 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

and had established Christianity in the Empire. The law, which
his despotism enforced, became, under him and his successors,
more and more impressed with the spirit of the gospel. He had
built himself a Christian capital undefiled, and abandoned, as he
thought, the seven-hilled city — the seat of pagan superstition —
to her old gods, with their pontiffs, their flamens, and their sooth-
sayers— though, in truth, we may just remark, en passant, that,
by thus preparing the independence of the popes, and facilitating
and almost inviting the establishment of the Teutonic races in
the west, he was signally contributing to hasten the formation of
the Christendom of modern times, of which he was. at the same
time, erecting on the Bosphorus the most effectual bulwark
against the approaching invasions of Islam.* From his acces-
sion, Christianity became the jus gentium of Europe, or the ba-
sis of its jus gentium, according to the definition of the civilians
themselves. In the copiousness and scientific completeness of
their vocabulary, they distinguished, as we have seen, in the code
of every nation, what was peculiar to itself, from those princi-
ples that prevailed in the jurisprudence of the rest of the civilized
world. They called the former jus civile, they designated the
latter as jus gentium, which they considered as in all cases sy-
nonomous with reason and natural law.t In a rude state of
society, the jus civile covers, so to express it, nearly the whole
orb of legislation ; and the maxim just cited from Montesquieu is
applicable to it, in all its rigor. It is local and exclusive. But,
in the progress of civilization, the other element — natural law,
or the principles of general equity and reason — gradually occu-
pies and illumines a larger and larger surface, until at length the
differences which separate the legal system of foreign states, al-
most wholly disappear. It is impossible not to perceive this ten-
dency in the actual condition of Christendom. The spirit of a
religion, which we consider as the source of the highest and most
refined civilization, and as a bond of union among modern na-

* We do not know that these effects of the division of the empire have been
even yet fully developed. To let in the German raee was quite as desirable in
that condition of the world, as to keep out the Saracen or the Turk.

t The jus naturale of the Institutes is a third ingredient of every law. Ii respects
man, not as a reasonable being but as a mere animal. Jt is quod natura omnia
animalia docuit. In this sense, jus naturale is sometimes opposed to jus gentium.
Thus, for instance, it is said, belia enim orta sunt, et capitivitates secutce et servilities,
qua suntjuri naturali conlraria. Hugo has well explained this to apply to the nature
of man considered only as an animal, not to man as a reasonable creature and
member of society. — Lchr-Buch des Natur-Rechts, tyc, 189. For in reference to
the rights and liabilities of men living in society, jus natures and jus gentium
are uniformly considered as synonymous. As, for instance, Instit. II. 1, § 11 :
dominium nanciscimar jure naturali, quodsicut diximus, appeUalur jus gentum. lb.
§ 41 : jure gentium, id est, jure naturali. So Cicero, deOffic. Ill, 5: nequevero
hoc solum natura, id est, jure gentium, sed etiam legilms populorum, fyc. It is im-
portant to bear the above distinction in mind, or we shall ascribe to the civilians
opinions as to war and slavery which they certainly did not entertain. They
never question the moral rectitude of either.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 527

tions — which, never interfering directly with the policy of any
government, never fails in the long run to influence that of all —
of a religion essentially catholic and comprehensive, breathing
mercy, justice, equality, fraternity among men — unfavorable to
all partial advantages, all exclusive privilege, all marked nation-
ality,— clearly manifests itself in the advances of modern legisla-
tion, just as it did in that of Constantine and his successors,
especially in that of Justinian. Democracy, in the high and only
true sense of that much abused word, is the destiny of nations,
because it is the spirit of Christianity. It is written in the French
code, in the article which denies to the father all power of dispo-
sing, by testament, of more than a child's portion. It is seen in
the whole body of our legislation ; but in nothing more than in
our returning to the simplicity of the civil law, by abolishing all
distinction between land and personal property, and distributing
them indiscriminately among the next of kin. The 118th novel
of Justinian is substantially our law of successions, as it is that
of France. It effaced the inequalities of the old Roman law ; it
has effaced, in the same way, those of feudal Europe : no primo-
geniture, no preference of one sex to the other, no distinction
between agnati and cognati, none between goods moveable and
and goods immoveable.*

To show that what we have done in this country is not acci-
dental, it is not necessary to seek authority for it in the codes of
antiquity, or in those of foreign countries : there is a still more
striking, and, as it were, domestic proof, that we have only de-
veloped the germs, and given scope to the tendencies of our own
race. There are few subjects of more curious and instructive
speculation, than a comparison of the reforms projected under the
Commonwealth of England, with those accomplished, without
an effort by its scions in a new world. Almost all that we have
done to simplify and equalize, was shadowed forth to the eyes of
Whitelocke and Cromwell. The same principles will one day
produce the same effects in England, and, deposited in the
French codes, they are not confined, on the continent, within the
territories of France. They have taken root else where, and ga~
ira.

When we speak of the influence of Christianity upon the civil
law, and especially of its having had much to do with adapting
it to serve, as it does, for the jus gentium of modern nations,
we would not by any means be understood as excluding or un-
derrating the co-operation of other causes to the same end. We
have said that it had been long approximating by degrees to that
consummation ; in the lapse of a thousand years from the De-
cemvirs to Justinian, experience and science had brought forth

* Montesquieu, l'Esprit des Loix, 1. 26, c. 6, referring to these changes, seems
too much disposed to sacrifice the jus gentium to the^'ws civile.

528 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

their fruits. Thus, for instance, the Edict of the Praetor, which,
like the English chancery, built up, in a long lapse of time, a
vast body of equitable jurisprudence commented by Ulpian, in
the great work so freely used in the Pandects, gave a bonorum
possessio to the next of kin, on principles almost identical with
those of the 118th novel. The same observation applies to many
other branches of the law : but still much was left to be done,
and much was done by Justinian, and generally by the Christian
emperors, which may be distinctly traced up to the influence of
their religious opinions — the religio temporum meorum* — the
castitas temporum^ familiarly referred to in the legislation of
Tribonian. One has only to glance over the constitution of those
emperors, to be convinced of this.t To say nothing of those
which fall under the head of ecclesiastical law, such as those
touching legacies to pious uses, the observance of Sunday as a
festival of the church, and the functions, rights, and conduct of
the clergy, we find Constantine prohibiting the atrocious exhibi-
tions of the amphitheatre, and the selling of children, except in
cases of extreme want, and that in earliest infancy — a horrid ex-
ception made in deference to the "hardness of their hearts," and
the inveterate usage of the heathen world — infanticide — and
superseded by subsequent provision for the support of both off-
spring and parents. We see the spirit of Christianity gradually
taking possession of the seat of the family affections, blessing
home with holy charities, mitigating the despotism of the father,
consecrating and protecting infancy by baptism, and crowning
all with the perfect emancipation of woman. In short, the boast
of Eusebius. that Constantine aimed at giving sanctity to the
laws, may be safely made for his successors in general, and
Heineccius adds, after other writers, to sanctity, simplicity —
thus freeing jurisprudence from the intricacy of forms and the
snare of a mere technical chicanery. §

Such was the end of the civil law — let us now turn for a mo-
ment to its beginning.

The history of the law, properly considered, is the most im-
portant part of the annals of every country. We mean not the
law as it is written, but the law as it is applied and executed—
not the letter, but the spirit — not the statute, but the interpreta-
tion— not the pompous and hollow bill of rights, but the daily
practice of the courts in regard to such things as habeas corpus^
trial by jury, and the liberty of speech and of the press. The
law, in this only practical sense of the word, reveals the inward
life and true character of a people. It is that very life and char-

* Cod: VII. 24, De Scto Claudiano tollendo.
t Institut. I. 22.

i The whole Theodosian code bears witness to this. It is a collection of the
constitutions of Christian Emperors.
§ Hist. Juris. § ccclxxiii.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 529

acter, and a deputy sheriff may know more about them than a
De Lolme or a Montesquieu. It is true that the history of the
law, in this way of considering it, has very seldom been written ;
and that of the civil law, especially, as Eichhorn affirms, until
the last ten years of the last century, least of all. A dry series
of enactments, outlines of mere positive legislation, were record-
ed in chronological order, and some book of antiquities used
as a succedaneum to fill up the skeleton or solve the riddles it
presented. And yet the history of Roman legislation is the most
interesting of all such histories, not only because it regards the
most perfect and the most influential of all systems of law, but
because that system is incontestably the great intellectual monu-
ment of the conquerors of the world. Roman literature, pro-
perly so called, is, in comparison of Greek or our own English,
absolutely mean. The very language, except in the matter of
politics and law, where it is richer even than the Greek,* is the
poorest of all — without flexibility, variety, or copiousness. It is,
indeed, impressed with the majesty which belongs to dominion
and superiority long established and directed by a grave wisdom,
and the love of order and civilization. So far, we assent to what
Count Joseph de Maistre has said of it,t and we acknowledge
its fitness to be the language of the Church and the State, of
archives and monuments. It is, too, in possession — it is, empha-
tically, as he calls it, le signe European — the language which
medals, coins, trophies, tombs, primitive annals, laws, canons,
which every thing in short, dear and venerable to the modern
man, speaks, and a familiar knowledge of which is quite indis-
pensable to many other kinds of knowledge, that of the civil
law, for example. But in every department except that of legisla-
tion, and (if they be worth adding) agriculture and satiric poetry,
Roman genius was stamped with a marked inferiority ; it was
tame, servile, and imitative, even to plagiarism — no depth, no pa-
thos, no originality — nothing national, spontaneous, and awaken-
ing. The numerisque fertur Lege solutis, is not for it — it walks
forever as in the bonds of the law, and under the yoke of disci-
pline. Their historians we consider as falling properly within
our exception. Tacitus, a leading advocate, certainly does — so
does Sallust, as his proemes show — even Livy, their great epic
poet, (history is their true and only Epopee,) with his native, kind-
ling unaffected eloquence, and his matchless gift of picturesque
description, is thoroughly Roman, formed, as it were, in the Fo-
rum and the Campus Martius, and glorying in the Republic as a

* For populus and plebs, the Greek has only Sy^os ; for lex and jus, only
vo/jloj:, &c.

t Du Pape, v. 1. 199. Let any one who doubts our general proposition only-
read Cicero's philosophical works.

vol. i. — 67

530 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

government of laws, not men.* But in art and poetry, strictly so
called — we do not speak of mere elegance or urbanity, wit or
delicacy of sentiment — they have nothing to match with the
mighty minds of other times — no Dante, no Milton, no Shaks-
peare, no Homer, no Pindar, no Plato, no Sophocles. None felt
this truth more sensibly than the most exquisite of critics as of
writers, Horace. Perhaps Lucretius and Catullus ought to be
excepted, but we fully subscribe to Niebuhr's equally just and
original estimate of the genius of Virgil, to whose learning, how-
ever, he does homage, and whose great poem is one of his au-
thorities for the antiquities of Italy.t But in law and govern-
ment, no less than in arms, the Romans were, as we have seen,
the mighty masters of the art and of mankind. Cicero declares,
that the contrast between their legislation and that of every other
people, made the latter appear positively ridiculous ;t and if he
could say so at so early a period, when his contemporary Ser-
vius Sulpitius had, for the first time, given something like a phi-
losophic cast to jurisprudence, what pomp of eulogy would he
have thought too labored for the perfect science of Paullus and
Ulpian ? He that wishes to know what Roman genius was,
must study the Corpus Juris Civilis, and the remains of the
great jurisconsults, with Cicero (our best guide here) and the
historians : he that wishes to know what it was not, may take
the whole body of literature besides, beginning with Plautus,
and ending with Pliny the younger. He will see all the wisdom
if not the poetry of Virgil, in the fine lines so often quoted, clos-
ing with,

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.

If the laws of Rome were not the spontaneous growth of her
own peculiar civilization, if they were not the unaided work of
her own wisdom, then never was seed sown in a more congenial
soil, or a loan paid with such usurious interest. But they un-
questionably were so. Her philosophy and eloquence were
formed by Greek sophists and pedagogues, as is evident from
their character and physiognomy ; her legislation, both in its
origin and in its perfection, was all her own.

In the volume at the head of this article, Hugo, in tracing the
history of that legislation from the earliest times to the reign of
Justinian, divides the intervening space of thirteen centuries
into four nearly equal periods. The first extends from the build-
ing of the city, to the laws of the XII Tables, A. U. C. 303.

♦Legum poiius quam hominum imperium. 1. ii. 1.

t R. G., v. i., pp. 207. 529. 580.

X He confines his panegyric principally to the XII Tables, De Orator, I. 44. a
well known passage, Fremant omnes licet, &c. Including Solon's, Incredibileesl
quam sit omne jus civile, prseter hoc nostrum, inconditum ac pene ridicv.lum.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 531

From this epoch until the year of the city 650, is the second.
The third, brings us down to the reign of Severus Alexander —
A. U. C. 1000 — and the last closes all with the legislation of
Justinian, A. U. C. 1300. It is scarcely fanciful to liken them
to the four analogous periods of human life, and to call them
the infancy, the youth, the manhood, and the old age of the
Roman Law. The history of each of these periods is considered
in three different aspects. Two of them, the original sources or
acts of legislation, (Quellen,) and the development given to them
in treatises, etc., (Bearbeitung,) constitute its external history,
The third is the state of the law itself, with its maxims, princi-
ples, and spirit, at the close of each period ; and this is its internal
history. The order pursued is that of the Institutes of Justinian,
borrowed from those of Gaius, beginning with Persons, then
proceeding to Things, and concluding with Obligations and
Actions. We can easily imagine that a course of lectures, fully
developing all the matters treated of here, would leave very little
to be desiderated by a student of the Roman Law ; but the reader
of this Lehr-buch, if he wishes to understand the true spirit of
that legislation, must come prepared with the knowledge of what
Niebuhr, Creuzer, and others, have done, to illustrate the antiqui-
ties of Rome.

We shall address our observations, in the first place, to the
legislation of the first five centuries of the city, including the
first and a considerable portion of the second of the periods
above mentioned.

But it will be necessary to premise a few words concerning
the source of all that legislation, the primitive constitution of
Rome.

That constitution, like those of the other two great branches
of the Indo-Germanic race— the Teutonic and the Greek — was
founded on the sovereignty of the tribe, or the nation, with this
difference, that in Italy the principle of a hereditary chief seems
to have been unknown. He was elected for life, by a community
made up of a confederacy of clans* or gentes, and united, as in
the old patriarchal state, the functions of judge, general, and
pontiff. His title was king; but his power, which was in theory
excessively limited, varied with the measure of his abilities or
popularity. Thus, the elder Tarquin contrived (as may happen
in the best regulated commonwealths) to secure the election of a
creature of his own to succeed him ; and the second made him-
self, by means familiar to the history of usurpation, a downright
tyrannus, according to the most approved models of ancient
Greece or modern Italy. The king was surrounded — as in all

* We use the word clans for want of a better. Gibbon translates gens "lineage;"
but that word suggests no precise idea of corporate unity. Gens was a collection

532 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLULTSCE

the other states of those early times — with a council of chief-
tains, called a senate, originally no doubt the heads of the clans
or gentes, who received this, with other badges of a conceded
superiority, according to the established usages, and from the
common consent of the clan. Originally, the Roman people
consisted of but one tribe — the Ramnenses. By the treaty with
the Sabines, under Tatius, they admitted another — the Titenses—
and these two constituted the major es gentes. Subsequent events,
probably some war, made the addition of a third necessary —
the Luceres— but this, until the time of the XII Tables, was
considered as inferior to the other two, denied certain privileges,
and called the minores gentes. These three tribes, thus united,
composed the whole people, (populus,) which was divided into
thirty curiae, ten to each tribe, and these curiae again were sub-
divided each into a hundred gentes, clans, or lineages, compre-
hending under them families more or less numerous, subject to
the authority of their several p aires familias — not fathers simply,
but fathers emancipated from the power of their own. The king,
when at the head of his army in the field, had an absolute com-
mand ; the authority of a senate of three hundred chiefs of
gentes or clans, was of course, very great, in a patriarchal state
of society ; but the sovereign legislative as well as judicial power,
in the last resort, resided in the general assembly of the Curies
or wards, called the comitia cnriata, to which none could be
admitted but as a member of a gens or lineage. By continual
wars, however, the Romans, according to their original and con-
stant policy, made great accessions to their population, there
formed itself, it is believed, under Ancus Martins, a distinct
community, excluded of course from the privileges of the gentes,
and standing towards them in precisely the same relation as
the nobles of terra-firma, under the constitution of Venice, to
the patricians of the city. This community constituted the
plebs — whom we do not call plebeians, because the present ac-
ceptation of that word suggests false ideas of the composition of
the Roman commons, shut out by this Serratura del consiglio.
They were, many of them, rich and noble — all of them a robust
yeomanry— and not, as has been thought, an ignorant, depraved,
and rapacious rabble, led by ambitious and Jacobinical adven-
turers.

In the nature of things, the numbers of the three tribes would,
in the lapse of ages, have dwindled into a miserable oligarchy,
had it not been for three institutions of very great political im-
portance at Rome. These were, adoptions, the emancipation of
slaves, and the relation of patron and client. By the first, a
childless parent was enabled to perpetuate his family ; and it was
the haughty, perhaps the singular boast of the Claudii, that no
such mixture had ever contaminated their blood. By the second,

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 533

the freedman assumed the name and enjoyed the privileges of
the gens or lineage of his benefactor ; and the third, although
left by Niebuhr still clouded with some obscurity, certainly
clothed the chief to whom fealty was due in attributes and se-
cured to him rights, strikingly analogous to those of the feudal
lord. Hugo is of opinion that the importance of the second of
those institutions has not even yet been sufficiently appreciated ;
and we may fairly set down the distinction between the clients
of the chiefs of gentes and the independent and high-minded
plebs to whom they were constantly opposed, and by whom they
were cordially detested, as one of the discoveries of Niebuhr.
That the emancipation of the slave should make him at once a
citizen, (especially where the plebeian was excluded,) might strike
us as a singular exception from that pride of privilege and that
bigotry of race which were the peculiar characteristics of the
ancient world. But besides that Rome has always been celebra-
ted for her comparative liberality in this respect, there were two
considerations that predisposed the patrician master to admit into
the bosom of the state, the servant whose conduct in the family
had deserved his esteem or his gratitude. The first was that, in
those early times, his bondmen were generally of the same race
with himself — the Sabine, the Latin, the Tuscan captive — brave
men, placed at his mercy by the chances of war, to which he
was himself subject, and accustomed to eat at his table and labour
by his side in his rural occupations — very different from the dis-
solute and barbarous rabble who were let loose, in later times,
by thousands, upon the city, and whose manumission was re-
strained, or whose rights as freedmen were limited, by the legis-
lation of Augustus* and Tiberius.t The other, and doubtless
the stronger motive, was to preserve the political importance of
the gens or clan. This motive became every day more active
in proportion to the rapid increase of the plebs, who were, at the
end of two centuries, numerous enough to demand and obtain
admittance into the state. This was effected, if we are to be-
lieve the traditions, by Servius Tullius ; and it was effected by
that very measure which has generally been regarded as a clever
contrivance to cheat the poorer classes out of their relative influ-
ence in society. The truth is, as we have said, that he destroyed
the aristocracy as such — -.or what is the same thing, he changed
entirely its principle. The distinction of race and clan was
abolished — the Curice, except for some religious or what we
should call ecclesiastical purposes, were superseded, and gradually
sank into a sham meeting of thirty lictors — the plebs had a voice
in the legislature — and wealth, in whatever hands it might be

* By the Lex iElia Sentia, A. TJ. C. 757, and the Lex Fusia Caninia, A. U. C.
761, both repealed by Justinian,
t By the Lex Junia Norbana, A. TJ. C. 772.

534 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

found, gave, in the comitia centuriata, more weight to its pos-
sessor just in the ratio of his contributions to support the state.*
Practically, it is true, the change was not a complete revolution.
The patricians, now associated with the leaders of the plebs,
being by far the most opulent part of the community, and having
a command of all the means necessary to continue so, main-
tained their ascendant, with the exception of some rare intervals,
to the very last. Sail list declares, in the seventh century, that
he selects the Jngurthine War for a subject, because (among
other reasons) then, for the first time, resistance was made to
the insolent domination of the aristocracy ;t in spite of the seven
elections of Marius, the consulship was considered as defiled by
a novns homo when Arpinum was again honored in the person
of Cicero ; and the nobility, patrician and plebeian, entirely en-
grossed the direction of public affairs, until Caesar — himself one
of the proudest of them — smote them with the edge of his vic-
torious sword at Pharsalia, and prepared for their shattered bands
a yet darker day and more irreparable doom at Philippi.

After the expulsion of the Tarquins — as in England, after
that of the Stuarts — the aristocracy, who were really the govern-
ment, became more haughty and exclusive than ever, but, at the
same time, more simple in life, more severe in morals, and more
stern in discipline. The power of the kings, and the insignia of
royalty, descended scarcely diminished, though divided, upon
the consuls ; and the patricians, as a class, gained as much as
their temporary chiefs lost, by this rapid rotation in office. The
plebs, now the democracy, was decidedly less favored than it
had been under the monarchy, and very naturally inclined to re-
store it in the person of Sp. Cassius. At length, however, they
secured the election of their tribunes by the comitia tributa ; and
it was not long before the resolves of that assembly were declared
to be, as much as those of the comitia centnriata, the supreme
law. In the former, the people met and voted per capita,
and not in classes arranged according to property: they were
convened by a plebeian magistrate, who had the initiative and
presided over them ; and they were not at the mercy of the au-
gur and his birds, for the time or the duration of their meetings.
Armed with the veto of their tribunes for defence, and with the
vote of their assembly for attack, and constituting an immense
majority of the whole nation, it might have been supposed that
they would soon have taken undisputed possession of the repub-
lic. But, as we have seen, this was very far from being the case.

* Yet the influence which the patricians derived from the votes of their clients
in the centuries, is shown by the first Publilian rogation, and explained by Nie-
buhr. The plebs were husbandmen, attending the comitia only at intervals : the
freedmen, &c, were always in town.

t Bellum Jugurthinum, C. 5.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 535

It is beside our present purpose to explain this singular phenom-
enon, which would be, indeed, to write the history of Rome ; but
we cannot do justice to our subject, without touching upon two
of the causes which most powerfully contributed to maintain, for
four centuries together, a mixed government, and to insure to it
a more extended dominion and a more permanent influence, over
the destinies of the world, than any other people ever exercised.
The first of these causes was the constitution and the author-
ity of the senate, now made up of all the notability plebeian*
as well as patrician, who had held curule offices. It is generally
supposed that this august body had, until the age of Tiberius, no
legislative power ; but whatever may have been the theory of
the constitution, it was most certainly otherwise in practice.
But, even had its attributes as a legislature, in all ordinary cases,t
been less clearly defined, the immense variety and importance of
its functions, as the supreme executive council, could not fail to
give it a controlling influence over the affairs of the common-
wealth, and make it, in effect, the sovereign power. No one can
look at the working of our own federal government, or at that
of the French monarchy in the hands of Louis Philippe, with-
out perceiving that, if the legislative body have no means of
changing the ministry — as the house of commons always has
had — in other words, if that body do not to a certain extent par-
ticipate in the exercise of the executive power, it must and will
be controlled by it, and become subordinate to it. Now, the
Roman Senate was a permanent and independent ministry, with
every thing in its constitution and its composition to clothe it in
the most imposing authority, and vested with all the powers best
fitted to enslave to its will the ambitious aud leading spirits ot
the commonwealth. It had power to declare war and conclude
peace, to raise armies, to judge of the necessity of proclaiming a
dictator, to levy taxes, to take charge of and lease the public
lands, to farm out the revenues, to give up to the soldiers or to
withhold from them the booty taken by their armies in war. In
later times it exercised, though under the nominal control of the
people, the superintendence of religion and its ceremonies, the
distribution of the governments of the provinces and of the com-
mand of armies, the keeping and appropriation of the public
moneys. It exercised jurisdiction over all Italy, it had the admin-
istration of all foreign affairs, the receiving and sending of am-
bassadors, the conferring of the title of king upon meritorious
allies. It determined the time of holding assemblies of the peo-
ple, and prepared the business to be discussed and disposed of
there. It could grant or refuse the triumph to the victorious

* The majority of the illustrious historical names of the later times of Rome,
are of plebeian race, though of noble families — Decii, Domitii, Catos, &c.
tDionys. 1. II. 14, and cf. Hugo, p. 410.

536 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

general, and could, by means of the terrible dent operant — ne
quid, etc., (their suspension of habeas corpus,) clothe the consuls,
praetors, and tribunes, with absolute power.* Added to all this,
and more by far than any single prerogative, the judicial power
was, until the time of the Gracchi, vested exclusively in them.
The selecti judices, answering to our juries, were drawn from
their order. The importance of this union of the executive with
the judicial power need not be dwelt upon ; but it is worth men-
tioning that Tacitus expressly declares it to have been the great
issue between Marius and Sylla.t

But another source of influence for the patricians, and check
upon the power of the democracy, is to be found in the fact that,
among a people of all others most governed by their religion,
(such as it was,) and by the love of order and law, that class
were the hereditary priests and jurists ot the Republic, until the
fifth century of its history. They were its Ulema, a power be-
hind the throne, greater than the throne itself.

The legislation and history of Rome are altogether unintelli-
gible, without a distinct apprehension of the causes, the extent,
and the consequences of this extraordinary influence. Whatever
is most characteristic in the old law is intimately connected with
it. The very definition of jurisprudence in the beginning of the
Institutes bears testimony to its importance^ All nations are
governed more by manners and opinions than by laws, and the
Romans above all other nations. But their manners and opin-
ions were formed and directed by this caste of lawyer-priests, an
institution quite oriental, transmitted to them through Tuscany,
at once by inheritance and by education. The Greek writers of
Roman history, without being at all aware of the cause, are
unanimous in their views of the fact, and of its incalculable ef-
fects upon the whole system of the life, the legislation, and the
government of the "People-King." In every part of their annals,
from the earliest struggles of the plebs, in the freshness and
vigor of youthful health and enthusiasm, under their immortal
tribunes, down to periods of degeneracy and servitude, the same
spirit is every where visible. Religion, law, subordination, or
all these names in one, discipline, civil and military, at home
and abroad — "this was their sorcery." Created to teach the law
to all coming time, they regarded it with instinctive awe, ap-
proached its oracles as those of their Gods, and yielded to it a
devoted, yet magnanimous and enlightened obedience. Hence
it was that revolution after revolution occurred ; that the assem-
blies of the Curiae were superseded by those of the Centuries,
and these in turn overshadowed by those of the Tribes ; that the
veto of a single tribune, clothed himself in no armor but that of

* Schlosser. t Tac Ann. 1. XII, 61,

; Jurisprudentiaestdivinarum et humanarum rerum notitia, &c.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION, 537

religion,* could bring on universal anarchy by preventing all
elections, and leaving every office vacant; that repeated seces-
sions of the plebs to the mountain appropriately called sacred, or
to the Janiculum, took place ; that for centuries together the story
of Roman politics, omitting the wars altogether, is, in the hands
of Livy, and even of Dionysius, by far the most thrilling and
sublime of historical romances, and yet that in the midst of so
many elements of disorder and violence, not one drop of blood
was shed in civil war, and the glorious commonwealth,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent Glueen, unveiled her peerless light.

When we come to speak of the union of races out of which the
Roman people sprang, we shall have a better opportunity of de-
veloping the influence of this most striking of all their character-
istics ; but we may add here a single illustration of it. It is the
use made, in their domestic contentions, by the old consuls, of
the rgariurixog bgxoc; the oath which bound the soldiers to obey the
generals, and to follow and defend the eagles of Rome. Cincin-
natus opposed, it with success, to the veto of the tribune,t and one
of the weakest of those adventurers, who disgraced the purple of
the Csesars, could still speak of it, as "the holy and august mys-
tery of the Roman Empire."}: To attach all the importance that
is due to the effect of such ideas, we are to remember that the
whole character of the state, and the very organization of the
classes and centuries, were purely military.

We proceed, now, to make some remarks upon the legislation
more strictly so called, of the same period.

The laws of the XII Tables are recommended to our most
profound attention, or rather, as things stand, to our special
curiosity, by the exalted, if not extravagant, encomiums passed
upon their wisdom and morality, by the very first writers of the
best period of Roman literature, — Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus.
But they have, in our eyes, an attraction more powerful, if pos-
sible, than the respect which they commanded in subsequent
times — it is their connection with the preceding. We regard
them, as we have already observed, as evidence of what the law
was under the government of the kings, and from the very
foundation of the city. They were evidently, what Lord Coke
pronounces Magna Charta to be, simply declaratory.§ The idea
and the tradition, that they were fashioned upon the model of
Solon's, are refuted — so far as we now have any means of judg-
ing— by the fact that there is no resemblance at all, but, on the

* He was inviolable, sacromnctus.
f Dionysius, X. 18.

| Herodian, 1. vi. 7, sub fin. hg (hpxog) sp 4% Pojjaaiwv a^% Cs/avov (xug-^iov.
§ Montesquieu's views on this whole subject of the Decemviral legislation are
excessively unphilosophical and unsound. Esp. des Lois, 1. vi. 11.
vol. i. — 68

539 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

contrary, almost a perfect opposition between them in all the
most characteristic features of legislation — in the "Rights of Per-
sons" as well as the "Rights of Things." Even Dionysius of
Haliearnassus, Greek as he is, does not pretend to more than an
engrafting of some foreign laws upon the established customs
of Rome.* He expressly ascribes too, and we have no doubt
at all, ascribes with truth, to Romulus, that is to say, to imme-
morial usage, some of the most important principles of the law —
the patria potestas, for example, and the convent io in manum
of the wife — of both of which he speaks in terms of unqualified
admiration. No one can read the second book of his Antiquities
without clearly perceiving that, when he records these elements
of the domestic life of Rome, he expects to excite in his reader
the incredulous surprise which he has himself felt in regard to
them. But we do not stand in need of evidence like this. Be-
lieving, as we do, that no such thing as a code of laws, arbitrarily
adopted for a country, a code, we mean, that has lived through
a single generation, or, indeed, has lived at all, is to be found in
the (profane) history of mankind — that Locke's constitution for
Carolina, and Citizen Sieves' litter of Constitutions for the "Re-
public One and Indivisible," are types of them all — we should,
a priori, venture to reject all such stories as false or exaggerated.
The thing has never happened elsewhere — it is not in the nature
of man that it should happen anywhere — therefore, it did not
happen there. But the argument, strong as it would be in the
general, is irresistible in its particular application to Roman
manners and legislation. If ever there was a people that adhered
to establishments ; that revered the past, and used it, at once, to
awe and to protect the present ; that had faith in the wisdom of
their ancestors, and none at all in the pretensions of political
quacks of all sorts — it was they. Their fundamental maxim,
as Hugo remarks after Appian, was melior est conditio prohibentis.
Their constitution was one net-work of checks and counter
checks. A reformer was not exactly required to propose his bill
with a cord round his neck, as Charondas ordered it, but unless
things were clearly ripe for its adoption, he might not think of
carrying it out without a struggle, that would shake the Forum
and the Campus Martins — perhaps the state. In reading Cicero,
one is fatigued with the citing of precedents from the purer days
of the republic, and with the perpetual recurrence of such phrases
as more majomm — veteri consuetudine institutoque majorum.
In this respect, also, as in so many other points of Roman his-
tory, we are irresistibly reminded of England and the English
race. Niebuhr, indeed, goes so far as to say, that the Romans
never abolished any thing — that their institutions were all suf-

* Ex rs <rcjv ira<r£jwv sdwv, says he. 1, x. 55.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 539

fered to live out their time, and were only laid aside or disused,
when there was no longer any vitality or strength in them.*
Perhaps our readers will see, when we come to speak of the
influence of Tuscan manners and religion on the character and
destinies of Rome, how it was that the state was thus, as it were,
consecrated — that it was regarded with a sort of Jewish reverence,
and that it was deemed sacrilege to touch, were it but by accident,
the ark of the covenant, with unhallowed hands. This aversion
to all merely speculative innovation, is perfectly irreconcilable
with their constant readiness to adopt improvements, tried by
experience, or imperatively called for by the circumstances of
the times, which was equally a distinguishing characteristic of
Rome. No people ever knew better how to follow Time, the
mighty reformer, or that a fro ward retention of customs, as Bacon
profoundly remarks, is itself a sort of innovation. Accordingly
this trait of their national character has not escaped the observa-
tion of Niebuhr, and there are few passages in his work more
vigorously and earnestly written, than that in which he contrasts
their docile wisdom, with the bigotry that resists all progress,
and, as it were, murders improvement in the womb.f

The same writer has shown, indeed, that the occasion of
adopting the XII Tables, was a much more extraordinary one
than has been commonly imagined. He makes it out very
clearly to have been a political revolution^ and that the aim and
the issue of the struggle, which led to the appointing of the De-
cemvirs, was not merely to restrain what was arbitrary in the
judicature of the counsels, or to reduce their customs to a written
code, but to bring about a perfect equality among the different
classes of society.* According to his masterly exposition of the
history of that period, as well as from the tenor of Livy's narra-
tive, it is very manifest to us that the patricians, whose numbers
had been fearfully reduced by pestilence some years before these
events, never afterwards recovered their ground ; that, on the
contrary, the spirit of the plebs were raised, and their way to
the consulship, which they attained through a series of triumphs
in the course of the century, made clear and comparatively
smooth. But even this does not alter the case. The probability
is that the reforms ascribed to Servius Tullus — such as the abo-
lition of the nexus — which had been defeated, or neglected in
practice, were at least as extensive as these. Nay, he actually
did effect a most fundamental revolution in the state. He con-
verted an aristocracy into a timarchy, as Solon and Cleisthenes,
did, and considering the tradition of his relation to the elder
Tarquin, and of the Corinthian extraction and connections of the
latter, it is not improbable, from this perfect coincidence in so re^

* R. G. I. p. 2, 3. t lb. II. p. 509.

t With some few exceptions, they effected this.

540 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

markable a point, that Greek ideas may have had some effect in
suggesting the form of classes and centuries. Yet, we do not
hear of any other change in the law at that time ; and still less,
of a new and an imported code.* Admitting, therefore, as we
do, that the laws of the XII Tables were a magna charta — a
treaty between parties in arms against one another — a compro-
mise between real powers, and so a constitution, in the only pro-
per sense of the word — still it does not follow, us we have seen
in that memorable case, that there was any material alteration of
the laws, beyond the particular abuses that provoked the struggle,
and were redressed by it. The revolution of 1688 in England
and our own revolution are additional examples of the same
kind. In short, we consider the XII Tables as a statute decla-
tory of the old common law of Rome, and say of it, as Livy says
of the supposed obligations of Numa to the philosophy of Pytha-
goras, that they were due not to foreign wisdom, but to the stern
and rude discipline of the old Sabines.t The legislation of
Rome was, we repeat it, entirely peculiar and indigenous — as
much so as the organization and the discipline of the Legion.
Certainly in thatnge when Athens was in all her glory, under
the administration of Pericles — only thirteen years before the
Peloponnesian war, and in the midst of a constant intercourse
between Greece and her numerous colonies in Italy — no one can
doubt, as Niebuhr insists, that they had every means of learning
what was the legislation of her renowned lawgivers. But there
is nothing but the loosest tradition to show that they turned
those means to any practical account, while all internal evidence
is against it. To us one fact alone is decisive of the whole ques-
tion. It is the very one adduced by that great man to show that
the laws of the two last of the XII Tables, savage and strange
as they appear to us, could not have struck the Romans in the
same way, because they were never repealed. Not only so, but
they were, for centuries together, the object not merely of rever-
ential obedience, but of studied panegyric. Now we go farther :
we affirm that this fact is conclusive to show that those provi-
sions were such as the people had been accustomed to from time
immemorial : more especially, if we consider the laws themselves,
as we have just remarked, in the light of a compromise, extorted,
by the body of the plebs, from a decayed and enfeebled, though
not dispirited, oligarchy. Montesquieu long ago observed, of the

* See the speech of Servius Tullus, Diunys. IV. p. 10, which is a programme
of all future reforms — public lands— debtor and creditor, &c. The expression
for the Nexi is well chosen, fuj^e'va davs^siv z*\ tfwjxatfiv eXsvGsgoig. The
historian makes him refer to the legislation of foreigners — with a view —
not to the dsufax&sia of Solon — but to his classification of citizens accord-
ing to taxable property.

tDisciplina tetrica et tristi veterum Sabinorum, 1. 1. c. 18.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 541

laws limiting the rate of interest, that the Decemvirs — the
haughtiest of aristocrats — never wrote any such law. He was,
without knowing how, right to a certain extent. They wrote it
only on compulsion. The day — the ineluctabile tempus — was
come, when it must be written. It was already passed into law
in men's minds, and it took its place naturally, by the side of the
immemorial usages and maxims recorded with it, on those tables
of brass or ivory. But it is utterly inconceivable that the XII
Tables should have been, in the main, more than a declaratory
act, when we consider that the overthrow of those odious tyrants,
and the popular vengeance, justly exercised upon them, had no
effect whatever in suspending the execution or impairing the
authority of their laws. The abolition, some years after, and
not without a vehement struggle, by the Canuleian rogation, of
the clause prohibiting marriages between patricians and plebei-
ans, is an exception that proves the rule. We cannot doubt but
that such marriages were unlawful from the beginning, as incon-
sistent with the first principles and whole economy of the Roman
constitution, in its primitive state.*

Whether we consider the XII Tables as showing what the
law had been from the beginning of the first, or what it con-
tinued to be, with no very important changes, until towards the
end of the second period of its history, according to the distri-
bution of Hugo — whether we look upon them, with Tacitus, as
the last act of equitable legislation, or with Livy, as the source
of all the subsequent jurisprudence public and private of Rome —
we must equally regret that this precious monument is come
down to us a mere fragment. Thirty-five precepts, contained in
not many more lines, are all the remains of it that learned in-
dustry has been able to glean from the whole field of ancient
literature. To these must be added the substance of some others
preserved by writers who had occasion to refer to them. This
is, indeed, miserably unsatisfactory, for the curiosity naturally
inspired by a relic of such capital importance. Yet there is
enough left of it or about it, to reveal the spirit of the ancient
law of Rome, and to show how remarkably contrasted it is with
the body of jurisprudence collected by Justinian. We see the
rude forms of process, and the cruel modes of execution. We
see the despotic authority of the father over the son, who stands
to him in the relation of a chattel, of which he has the most ab-
solute disposal, and which does not cease to be his, until he has
alienated it three several times. We find libels punished with
death, and the lex talionis enforced for a broken limb. That
most terrible of all the scourges of the poor plebeian, the power of

* See the speech of the consuls, Liv. 1.4. c. 2. Niebuhr, R. G. I. 419. Canu-
leius, in his harangue, declares that it was an innovation of the Decemvirs. Livy
follows Dionysius 1. x, c. 60.

542 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

the creditor over his insolvent debtor is maintained in its utmost
rigor. The latter is still allowed (and it seems to be the only
form of contract yet in use) to mortgage his life, his liberty, his
children, to the lender; and if the Equi and Volsci, in their
eternal inroads, lay waste his little farm, or he is compelled, by
being enrolled to resist those enemies, to leave his ground un-
tilled, or his crop to perish for want of tendance, so that he is
unable to meet his engagements, he is loaded with chains, drag-
ged to the market-place to see, perchance, if others will have
more mercy for him than his remorseless master, and, in case
charity or friendship do not enable him to satisfy the demand,
may be put to death, or sold beyond the Tiber. The case of
many creditors having liens upon the same bankrupt body oc-
curs, and provision is made for an equitable distribution of the
assets except that a clumsy dissection is excused before-hand by
the law, with an indulgence for unintentional, because unprofita-
ble inequality, which would have ravished Shylock into ccstacy.*
The most tender, and the most important of the domestic
relations, is regulated in the same stern spirit of absolute dominion
in the father of the family. The husband acquires his wife like
any other property, by purchase in market-overt, (coemptio,) or
by a statute of limitations, (usu,) after a possession of one year,
not interrupted for three nights together at any one time. There
is still another form, consecrated by religion, and having mystic
reference, says Creuzer.t to agrarian hieroglyphs of a remote an-
tiquity. This was marriage by confarreatio, or the eating of the
salt rice-cake from the hands of the pontiff, in the presence of
witnesses. The nuptials of the patricians, as a caste of priests,
were originally celebrated in this way. The plebeian, and, gen-
erally, most usual rite, was the coemptio. The legal effects,
however, of the three forms were the same, (conventio in mu-
rium ;) the wife became the husband's property, and inherited of
him only as one of his children. Woman was condemned by
this old law to perpetual incapacity; as a daughter, she was the
slave of the paternal, as a wife, of the marital authority ; and the
death of the father or the husband only subjected her to the tu-
telage of a kinsman. This tutelage, which is at best one of the
less understood points of jurisprudence, was of course mitigated
by the progress of civilization, and the influence of the sex, and
ceased entirely during the fourth period of our history. To be,
in the eye of the law, the bond-slave of her husband, the sister
of her son, is a theory so paradoxical and shocking, that nothing

•As to this celebrated questio vexata, Hugo concurs with Bynkershoeck, that
the language is metaphorical. Niebuhr, on the contrary, is equally positive that
the literal sense is the proper one, R. G. ii. 670; so Gibbon thinks, or seems to
think. We humbly concur with the latter.

t Symbolik, B. ii, 100. We follow Gibbon in interpreting far, rice.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 543

but evil and disorder might be anticipated from it ; yet Dionysius
of Halicarnassus is enraptured with its effects in practice, and
they were unquestionably good. In a corrupt age, when Au-
gustus endeavored by the severe provisions of the Julian laws,
and the lex Papia-Poppcea, to restore purity of morals, and to
bring marriages again into fashion, it is amusing to read the sage
lamentations of the libertine Horace, himself a bachelor, over
the sanctity of the marriage bed, and the fruitful chastity of
those happy times, so entirely obsolete in his own.* That, in
spite of all that the law could do, nature asserted for the sex the
influence that belongs to it in civilized society, is clear, from the
traditions adopted and adorned by the genius of Livy. The
question of the wise old Spanish monarch, quien es ella, would
not have been asked in vain among those stern warriors, for,
from the rape of the Sabines to Theodora's conquest of Justinian,
woman seems to have been at the bottom of almost all the mem-
orable events of Roman story. Lucretia, Virginia, Veturia, Fabia
the wife of Licinius, who became at her instigation the first
plebeian consul, are illustrious examples of this ; and whatever
may be the changes of manners and opinions, as Hume has well
remarked, all nations, with one accord, point for the ideal of a
virtuous matron to the daughter of Scipio and the mother of
the Gracchi. The extraordinary, and Montesquieu thinks in-
credible, fact, that it was not until upwards of five centuries
were elapsed, that a divorce was heard of at Rome, is evidence
either of signal purity of manners, or that the laws were wonder-
fully accommodated to the manners, such as they were.

The Roman seemed to think nothing his own (except acqui-
sitions jure belli) but what he might call, in biblical phrase, "his
money." He bought his wife, he bought his child by adoption —
his property in his own son could be lost only by repeated sales;
his last will, which he was authorized by the XII Tables to
make, was in the shape of a transfer, inter vivos, and for a val-
uable consideration, to a nominal purchaser, like the conveyance
to a use for that purpose before the statute 32 Henry VIII. This
reveals one of the most important traits of the Roman character,
its avarice — or it may be only an overweening sense of commu-
tative justice. They exacted inexorably a quid pro quo, and
held no sale complete until the price was received. But to ac-
quire the property of a Roman — to hold, as they termed it, not
by natural law, but ex jure Quiritium — the transfer was required
to be made with the solemnities of a regular mancipatio, in all
cases where the thing was important enough to be classed with
res mancipi. Since the real Gaius has been opened to us, com-
pared with Ulpian and Mai's palimpsests, we are better informed
what this description comprehends, and as to the several con-

* Od. iii. 6. 24. Epod.

544 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

veyances which alone were effectual to divest the Roman of his
privileged proprietorship. The chief of those was the mancipa-
tion just mentioned, a symbolical sale, in the presence of at least
five witnesses, all Roman citizens, and representing, it may be,
the five tax-paying classes, under the authority of a pontiff or
some other public officer, whose presence gave solemnity to the
act, and whose business it was to weigh the copper (there was
as yet no coin) paid as the price {per aes et libram). This sale,
however, though it were regular in every particular, of course
transferred no property, unless there were, in the purchaser, a
capacity to take, and that capacity none but a Roman citizen
could have, or the few foreigners who were favored with the
rights of denizens (Commercium). It is our purpose, in alluding
to these principles of this ancient law, only to show how strictly
it was then entitled to be called jus civile, and how very far re-
moved it was from the catholic and comprehensive system which
has served for the basis of modern jurisprudence. We here
see that the very property of a Roman was peculiar and exclu-
sive, and we shall be still more struck with its privileged charac-
ter, if we consider what Niebuhr has brought to view, as to the
solemn ceremonies with which the soil of the ager Romanus
was laid out and limited by the augurs.* It was all holy ground,
and a trespass upon it was sacrilege.

Other heads of the XII Tables regard inheritance ab intestate,
and the appointment of tutors. None could be heir to a Roman
but his agnatL (including his wife in manu and his daughter,)
and no inheritance could be transmitted through females. If
there were no agnati, or persons of the same family tracing their
consanguinity through the male line, the estate descended to the
gentiles, or members of the clan or lineage. The tutorship was
a burthen, or a privilege, that accompanied the right of inherit-
ance, and that inheritance, once accepted by him that was free to
refuse, and in other cases, whether accepted or not, bound the
heir, with or without his assent, to all the liabilities of the de-
ceased— a stern doctrine, subsequently modified in practice and
by legislation.

Penal jurisprudence was never a very important part of the
Roman Law. Several causes conspired to produce this effect,
but certainly one of the most important was the domestic juris-
diction of the father of the family. Thus we find, in the XII
Tables, that theft is made in some cases a matter of private ac-
tion, as it continued ever after. But the few provisions in regard
to the punishment of crimes, that are to be found among these
fragments, are in the true spirit of Roman discipline, typified, as
Dionysius remarks with complacency, in the lictor always at the
consul's beck, ready armed with the rod and the axe, to inflict

• R. G. ii. 695. Anhang.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 545

summarily the two punishments most familiar to the old law.
But these" laws prohibited the staking of the life of a Roman
except by the sentence of the people met in the great assembly
of the Centuries, and his person was in a later age made invio-
lable by the Portian and Sempronian laws.* Sternness and even
cruelty in the execution of penal laws, and in enforcing civil and
military discipline, continued through all periods to characterize
these masters of mankind. For a breach of that discipline, whole
legions were sometimes scourged and decapitated,t and he that
has seen by the light of history Ruben's master-pieces, — espe-
cially the "Elevation of the Cross," and the "Breaking of the
Legs," at Antwerp — has come away with his imagination impres-
sed forever with ideas equally just and frightful of the muscular
and mighty strength, the colossal proportions, and the barbarous
hard heartedness of Roman domination— especially as contrasted
with the meek type of Christian civilization on the Cross.

But amid provisions like these, the voice, at once, of political
wisdom and of everlasting justice speaks in the interdiction of
all privilegia, or bills of attainder and ex post facto laws — of all
laws, in short, made for a particular case. The fidelity of the
client is encouraged by the curse pronounced upon the unjust
patron (sacer esto !) The Libripens, or attesting witness, who
refuses to give testimony before the Judge, is declared for ever
infamous and incompetent (improbus et intestabilis.)t In a ques-
tion involving the liberty of one of the parties, the presumption
is in favor of it. It is from such precepts that we ought, in fair-
ness, to judge of the opinions, as we have seeij, passed upon the
legislation of the XII Tables by Tacitus and Cicero. There
were doubtless many things in them calculated to excite the ri-
dicule (if philosoph}^ ever ridicules what has been venerated by
a past age) of a more refined era ; as we may learn from a well
known passage in Aulus Gellius.§ Of this sort are the sumptuary
precepts, relating to the burying of the dead, which are still
extant, and one of which permits the body of the deceased to be
burnt, or interred, even with the gold that had been used to bind
his teeth together.

Such were the XII Tables ; but the character of this early
jurisprudence is, of course, very imperfectly learned from the
mere letter of the law. The important question how it was in-
terpreted and enforced, remains to be answered.

In the first period, the Kings, and afterwards the Consuls, ex-
ercised the functions of judges, with an appeal, in capital cases,

* There is something hideous in the very title of the Lex Portia, pro tergo civi-
um lata. A. TJ. C. 452.
t Dionysius XX. 7-

; The words are & formula and untranslateable. See Calvin's Lexicon.
§ Aul. Gell. 20. 1.
vol. i. — 69

546 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

to the people ; but a form of judicature, extremely analogous to
our trial by jury, was, in process of time, established at Rome.
After the office of Prastor was instituted, (A. U. C. 387,) the func-
tions o( the magistrate became more and more separated from
those of the judge of the facts. This admirable system of a sin-
gle judge, charged under an undivided responsibility with main-
taining the uniformity of the rule, while the application of it to
the circumstances of the case was left, under his instruction, to
the sound discretion of others, is, no doubt, one of the causes of
the gradual improvement and great superiority of the Roman
law. Of the edict of the Praetor, properly so called, it is not yet
time to speak ; but as our observations apply to the first, and a
great part of the second period of Hugo's division, we could not
avoid this allusion to the selecti judices.* We have already
mentioned, that they were drawn from the senatorial] order, until
the rogation of C. Gracchus (A. U. C. 630) transferred the judi-
cial power to the Knights.

The XII Tables, although they contained many provisions on
what would be called among us points of practice, still left, in
the main, much to be done by the courts themselves, in building
up a system of procedure and pleadings. Accordingly, it has
been generally thought that the patricians, combining, as we
have seen, the priest and the lawyer, and transmitting their
knowledge, as an occult science, to their successors in their
caste, contrived, by way of indemnity to their own order, on
losing the exclusive legislative power, (in which the plebs were
now allowed to share,) what were called Legis actiones. This
subject is, for the first time, placed in a clear light by Gains,
who treats of it at considerable length in the fourth book of his
Institutes, (p. 190, seqq.) Unfortunately there are several chasms
in the MS., which render even his account of it less perfect than
could be wished. It is not necessary to our purpose, to enter
into any detailed analysis of the different species of these ac-
tiones legis, but simply to mention, that Gaius suggests as one
reason why they may have been called so, that, like our indict-
ments upon penal statutes, they were required to conform, with
the strictest exactness, to the very words of the law. For exam-
ple, the XII Tables gave a remedy, in general terms, against a
trespasser, for cutting down the trees of another. It was under-
stood as nomen generalissimum, and yet in an action for such
an injury to a vineyard, the allegation being for vites, instead of
arbores, it was held bad. The result was, that in process of

* On this, as indeed most other subjects of Roman legislation, Beaufort may be
consulted with profit. Republique Romafne, 1. v. c. 2., or Noodt (on whom he
relies,) de Jurisdict. The latter thinks the division between the magistrate, (king
or consul,) and the judge, with the formula, existed before the XII tables, lb. J. I.
c. 6.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION, 547

time these forms of pleadings all fell into such odium, that by
the iEbutian and the two Julian laws, they were entirely abol-
ished, and formula, of a more convenient kind, substituted for
them. It is easy to perceive what an immense control an entire
monopoly of this precious science of special pleading (and it
extended to matters of voluntary jurisdiction, as well) must have
given to the patricians over all the business of the people. But
their advantages did not stop there. There were from the time
of Numa, in the Roman calendar, a great number of dies nefasti,
or dies non, as we believe they are called for shortness in our
courts. These were known to the pontiffs only, and to add to
the embarrassment of the uninitiated, that calendar was itself so
imperfect as to require frequent intercalations to make the civil
year agree with the course of the sun. The Tuscans, from
whom the Romans had learned all the little astronomy they pos-
sessed, had taught them results without explaining the reasons,
and the pupils were, of course, liable to commit blunders, in the
application of their rules. But besides errors of that sort, Nie-
buhr scruples not to impench their integrity, and to impute to
their intrigue's a still greater confusion in the "times," already
sufficiently "out of joint." A more fearful disorder in a well-
regulated society can scarcely be imagined — the case was still
harder with the plebs, the majority of whom were honest farm-
ers, coming to town only on market days, and not having much
time to spare. To be without an almanac under such circum-
stances were bad enough ; what must it have been to have a
false one ?*

The patricians, it is true, gave the information and advice
needed by the ignorant in such matters, gratis. They thought
themselves abundantly compensated in the influence conferred
upon them by their black art. But their "forensic royalty," as
Heineccius calls it, was not to last long. A fellow of the name
of Cn. Flavius, a scrivener, son or grandson of a freedman, had
been employed by the renowned Appius Claudius, the Blind, as a
clerk or secretary. This gave him an opportunity, of which he
availed himself, to copy all the forms, together with the fasti, and
to publish them for the benefit of mankind. The people were so
grateful to him for the unexpected service, that he was created
Edile. This is the Jus Flavianum.

It is an ungracious thing to spoil a good story ; and yet there
is, it appears to us, a great deal of force in Hugo's objections to
this. (p. 450.) But this strictness in pleadings, so strikingly
analogous to that of our old common law, may possibly have
proceeded from similar causes. Besides the influence ascribed

*Put the case of a title by prescription, or by the statute, as it is called; it
would manifestly depend in some measure on the pontiff's intercalation. R. G.
I. 289.

548 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

to the subtlety of Norman clerks, and to the school logic intro-
duced by those celebrated churchmen, Lanfranc and Anselm, it
is certain that jury trial does call for precision of statement, and
simplicity in the issue. Now, the Romans, as we have seen, had
a sort of jury trial, of uncertain origin, it is true ; but the pre-
sumption is, as Noodt supposes, that it was almost as old as their
law itself. If that was the case, Montesquieu may, on the whole,
be right in his manner of accounting for this strictness of forms
in the early judicature of the republic. In treating the question
under what governments and in what cases, judges ought to
conform most strictly to the letter of the law, he remarks, that
in monarchies, judges are like arbitrators ; they deliberate to-
gether, they communicate their ideas to one another, they con-
ciliate and compromise. At Rome and in the Greek cities, in
conformity, as he affirms, (though we do not exactly perceive it,)
with the spirit of republicanism, every judge gave his own opi-
nion categorically — i;I acquit," :'I condemn," "I am not con-
vinced." "It is because the people judged, or was supposed to
judge. Now the people are no jurisconsults ; all these tempe-
raments and modifications of arbitrators are not for them ; it is
necessary to present to them a single object, a fact, a single fact,
&c." He then goes on to remark, that the Romans, after the
example of the Greeks, introduced forms of action, and required
that every cause should be carried on in the appropriate form.
It was necessary to ascertain and fix the issue, in order that the
people should have it steadily in view ; otherwise, in the course
of a prolonged inquiry, the state of the question would be contin-
ually changing, and great confusion would ensue. The Prae-
tors invented, in later times, more accommodating forms, and
more, as he supposes, in the spirit of monarchy.

There is undoubtedly — making the usual allowance for some
radically false notions of Montesquieu — a good deal of force in
this observation ; and we will just add here, that the idea is strik-
ingly illustrated by the difference between the two sects of ju-
risconsults, of which it is our purpose, if our space admit of it,
to say something more. Labeo, the republican, adhered, with
his followers, to the rigid logic of the law — Capito, the creature
and the tool of an insidious despotism, always favored equity,
' and dealt in temperaments and modifications.*

But the Romans did not, as Montesquieu supposes, imitate the

* Lest we should not have another opportunity, we adduce as an illustration
the following from Gaius himself, one of the Sabiniani or Cassiani. Suppose a
son delivered up ex noxali causa, i. e. for any damages done another's property,
for which his father would otherwise be liable, must he be emancipated three
times, as in other cases, or only once 1 Three times ; because the law makes no
exception, say the Proculiani— once, says Cassius and Sabinus. — Gai. Inst. p.
218. This tendency began with Augustus, and prevailed, as we have seen, ever
after,

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 549

Greeks in this respect. If they were not led to it by motives
growing out of their situation, as he aims to show they were,
they followed those masters in whose school their intellectual
character was mainly formed and that superstitious adherence to
forms learned, with every other sort of superstition. We al-
luded just now to the effect of Norman manners and character
in England, and mentioned the subtlety of a scholastic clergy as
sharpening the acumen of the special pleader, and infecting the
common law with the spirit of chicane. The mixture of races
in that island, was attended with consequences of the greatest
importance, not in this respect alone, but in many others which
it would be easy to point out.* But the sluggish, though firm,
enduring, and robust Anglo-Saxon, did not gain more by a union
with the subtle, crafty, rapacious, and adventurous Norman, than
did the city of Romulus and Tatius — the Latin and the Sabine
of the Palatine and the Capitol — from the superior civilization of
that mysterious, unfathomable Tuscany — darker, says Niebuhr,
than Egypt — which we know only by ruins, or through Rome.

We have the casual testimony of antiquity to the fact that the
Roman people was composed of the Etrurian or Tuscan, Latin,
and Sabine or Sabellian races.t This city grew up on the con-
fines of three considerable confederacies, under the names just
mentioned, varying, according to times and circumstances, in
relative strength and importance, and still more in character and
institutions. The Latin element, although judging from lan-
guage, the basis of the whole, was, with a view to moral effects,
the least prominent ; and we need only add, that there is every
reason to believe that that tract of country, for so many centu-
ries laid waste by malaria, and now so desolate, was, in these
remote times, extremely populous and flourishing — much more
so than under the dominion of Rome. But it is in the union of
the fierce, rude, and warlike mountaineers of Samnitic origin,
with the Tuscan lucumon, or patrician priest, that we are to
seek for a solution of the great problem of Roman civilization.

The whole constitution of society among the Samnites and
Sabines reposed, as it did in Tuscany, upon aristocracy and re-
ligion ; but their aristocracy was not, as in Tuscany, surrounded
with multitudes of slaves ; and their religion, instead of depend-
ing on the memory and traditions of a patrician caste, was re-
corded in written precepts.* The country was in the highest
state of cultivation ; flourishing fields or rich pastures were seen
upon the very tops of their mountains : and numerous villages,
instead of cities, were the abode of an immense rural population.

* We believe Herder was the first to make this important remark. See Philo-
sophic der Geschichte, &c., IV., 161.
t Floras, 1. III. 18.
t Schlosser, 2 Th. 1. abth. 270.

550 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

The aristocracy were not oppressive, because their lives were in-
nocent and their manners simple ; with few or scarcely any
slaves, they tilled their own grounds and fed their own flocks.
Marriages were early contracted and publicly solemnized, and
their wives, chaste, industrious, and above all, obedient, were
helps meet for them in their rustic labors, or in their quiet house-
hold. Above all, they were devoted to agriculture practically
and theoretically, as the priesthood of the Fratrcs Arvales, de-
rived to Rome from thence, sufficiently shows. Creuzer thinks,
that woman had a hard lot there, as well as in the primitive
Latium.

This element of the Roman character is illustrated in some of
the most remarkable passages of the early history of the Repub-
lic, and was more and more developed during the Italian wars,
when Rome, under Papirius Cursor and his successors, began to
conquer without being corrupted. The Sabines were the warrior
caste of the new state ; they were soon united in it, as in the east,
to a caste of priests.

That Rome borrowed from Tuscany some of the external
pomp and bravery of her costume and ceremonial, has often been
repeated. The toga prsetexta, the golden crown, the sceptre
with the eagle, the curule chair, the axts and fasces of the lictors,
ensigns of power that passed from the kings to the consuls, and
even the triumph itself, was derived from them. But the inward
influences from the same source were not so generally perceived,
or not sufficiently appreciated. Nobody saw them so distinctly
as to affirm, before Niebuhr. that the phenomena could be ex-
plained on no other hypothesis than that Rome had derived her
Tuscan forms of all sorts from a Tuscan prince, and was at one
time the great and splendid capital of a powerful Tuscan state.*
The great philologist repeats this opinion in the latest edition of
his work, with the utmost emphasis and deliberation, at the same
time that he indirectly retracts some of the views on this subject
when he was much younger, which he admits were false or ex-
aggerated. The Roman writers whom we possess, are not blind
to the fact, that the Tuscans had taught their ancestors much ;
but they thought it was merely teaching. They did not know,
(with some casual and unimportant exceptions.) that by an ac-
tual mixture of races, it was become nature, and that the warlike
spirit and frugal manners of the conquerors of the Samnites,
were not more surely descended to them from those very Sam-
nites with the blood of their mothers in the Legend of the Rap,
than their deep reverence for the mysteries of soothsaying, the
influence of the augur and the pontiff, with their occult science,
the scrupulous attachment to forms, the very shape of a caste, (so
important to the preservation of traditional principles,) which

* R. G. i. 402.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 551

the patricians had given to their gentes, their reluctance to make
a change, struggling with their readiness to receive admitted im-
provement ; in short, the oriental color that so deeply tinges the
early Roman character, and left its impress upon it long after the
warlike Sabine propensities had, by extinction of families and
other causes, obtained the mastery in their conduct ; that these
traits so very peculiar and distinguishing, we say, were also the
voice of blood, and the testimony of a common origin. It was
recorded, because it could not be dissembled, that the opulent
youth of the city were educated by Tuscan masters, in all the
wisdom of those Egyptians, and the Libri Rituales were there
to show many Roman practices of the highest importance in
their eyes, were borrowed from them ; but these very facts, the
evidence of an intimate and hereditary connection, were regarded
as proof only of a comparatively slight and superficial intercourse.
The libri rituales, as described by Festus, speak for them-
selves. They remind us of the Mosaic ritual : "they teach the
rites with which cities are to be founded, and altars and temples
dedicated ; the holiness of the walls of towns ; the law relating
to their gates'; how tribes, wards, (curia,) centuries, are to be
distributed ; armies organized and arrayed /and other the like
things relating to peace and war." We call the attention of our
readers to the comprehensiveness and importance of all this —
it goes to the very bottom of the whole body of public law, civil
and military. We see the same influence, as we have already
had occasion to remark, extending itself over the very soil of the
Roman territory, and making, in the technical language of their
augury, one vast temple of it. It was consecrated by the aus-
pices ; it could become the property only of one who had the
auspices, that is, a patrician or Roman, properly so called : once
set apart and conveyed away, it was irrevocably alienated, so
that sales of the domain were guaranteed by religion, and it was
sacrilegious to establish a second colony on the place dedicated
to a first. Auspices could be taken no where else but on some
spot which they had rendered sacred. The city, by its original
inauguration, was also a temple — its gates and walls were holy;
its pomoerium was unchangeable, until higher auspices had su-
perseded those under which it was at first marked out. Every
spot of ground might become, by the different uses to which it
was applied — sacred, (sacer,) holy, (sanctus,) religious, (religio-
sus.) To the assembly of the Curice, the presence of the augurs
was, of course, indispensable ; that of the Centuries could not be
held, unless the augurs and two pontiffs assisted at it,* as it was
dissolved instantly, at their bidding, on the occurrence of any
sinister omen, were it but the flight of an obscene bird, (si bubo

* Niebuhr, R. G. ii. 253.

ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

volasset.) The first agrimensor} says Niebuhr,* was an augur,
accompanied by Tuscan priests or their scholars. From the
foundation of the city, the sacredness of property was shadowed
forth in the worship of the god Terminus, and that of contracts
protected by an apotheosis of Faith. In short, the worthy Ro-
man lived, moved, and had his being, as the Greek writers ob-
serve, in religion — a religion, too, as peculiar as every thing else
in his situation.

There is a noted passage of Dionysius, wherein he makes
this remark.t He is charmed to find in the (primitive) worship
ot Rome, noue of those prodigious, and humanly speaking, ob-
scene and abominable things, which disgusted the Greek philos-
opher in the mythology of his fathers — no corybantes with their
clashing cymbals and frantic convulsions,^ — no howlings for the
loss of Proserpine — no mutilations of Caelum or Saturn. The
priests, also, were a sort of magistracy, not drawn by lot, but
elected by the Curiae, two to each, men fifty years old and up-
wards, distinguished for high birth and exemplary lives. The
Romans, says Creuzer, embraced and long retained the primitive
Pelasgic religion, that once prevailed generally in Italy — the
worship of those old gods, still carried round in the Circensian
pomps. These, with the augurs, extispices, <fcc, were long ago
forgotten in Greece. There, he continues, instead of primeval
faith and reverence, there had sprung up out of the mythology
of Homer and Hesiod the splendors of a sensual anthropomor-
phism. In Etruria and Rome, the poetical element was always
subordinate to the mystical ; for bards and artists never exercised
the same control over a religion established by the state, and
superintended by ancient and serious priests. They looked be-
yond Olympus, into the depths of the heavens and the earth.
The pious and worthy fathers of the calm and thoughtful La-
tium, did not suffer themselves to be transported by the gay fan-
cies of the Greek aoi<5ai, beyond the homely circle of the religion
of their fathers. The pious old Roman adored and served his
god for one hundred and seventy years together, without an
image. § Even after idols stood in the sacred niches, the worship
of the High Vesta savored of that primitive simplicity. Ever
after he was satisfied, in her still holy house, with the bright
flame of the pure fire without an image. And when in the earth-
quake, the mysterious influence of dark powers made itself felt,
the Romans still adored and believed without examining, and

* Niebuhr, R. G. ii. 703. 19

t L. ii. c. 19.

t Creuzer, Symbolik. ii. 980, remarks that the Salii are an oriental institution.

§ Plutarch in Numa, 8. p. 65, 6. Heyne doubts, but see the learned note of
Creuzer, Symbolik. ii. 993, and what Posidonius, (ibi. laudat.) says of the excel-
lent character of old Rome.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 553

prayed to no ascertained or known God.* Had he never gone
astray after false and foreign gods, had he not ambitiously given
to its exterior the polished air and forms of Greece, there might
have sprung" up out of this old, mysterious, nature-exploring,
serious and moral religion — as a great writer observes! — from
the deep roots of this nationality founded on religion — an art, a
tragic muse, that would have diffused their peculiar spirit and
worth over other times and peoples, instead of the imperfect and
imitative efforts on a foreign soil, which we must now rather
deplore than admire.

Thus predisposed by original complexion, as well as by re-
ligious discipline and opinions, to mysticism, the Latin fathers
of Rome were prepared to receive the deepest impressions from
the admixture of the Tuscan race, with its singular civilization,
impressed with an oriental character. Religion was the life of
that civilization; but not in the form of a natural sentiment
merely, or an easy and obedient faith. It was become a regular
science, though still a mysterious one — its priesthood was a
political privilege — in short, it was the very basis of the whole
constitution of society. Unfortunately the language of Tuscany
was so entirely peculiar, that even in an age which has found a
key for the hieroglyphics of Egypt, it is almost given up in des-
pair. But the most remarkable social phenomenon by far —
with the exception of Rome — which the history of ancient Italy
presents, (for so the existence of Tuscany is,) could not pass
away without leaving many traces behind it. The genius of
the people seems to have been inclined to melancholy and super-
stition. The volcanic nature about them, produced all mon-
strous, all prodigious things ; they looked with anxious curiosity
into the signs of the future — they sought and studied them, es-
pecially, in lightning and thunder, in the bowels of animals, and
in the flight, the feeding, and the voices of birds. They had
digested systematically what Creuzer calls a "sacred ornitholo-
gy"— and it was in their schools only that the augurs and aus-
pices of Rome could be taught their science Tuscany thus be-
came as renowned as Egypt for her superstitions, and a father of
the church describes her as the great mother and nurse of them.t
But in reducing the primitive religion of Italy to a system, she
corrupted its simplicity. A ritual abounding in forms, and pre-
cise in enforcing them, altered the genius of the people. Their
worship, and indeed their whole life, became full of gorgeous
pomps and mummeries, and the word ceremony, derived from

* Aul. Gell. ii. 28. credere quam scire, as Tacitus, (de Morib. Germ.) has it.
t We refer -with pleasure to the admirable remarks of M. le Baron (as we hear)
A. W. von Schlegel. Dramatische Kunst und Litteratur. ii. 2L
X Arnobius apud Creuzer, Symb. ii. 954.

vol. i, — 70

554 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

Caere, one of their cities, will attest, to the latest times, their taste
for what was formal, studied, stately, and mysterious.

The union then of the elements, which we have thus attempted
to develop, formed the character of the Roman people, and the
body of maxims, doctrines, and opinions, that constitutes their
law, public and private. It is thus, for instance, that the Tuscan
love of symbols, and punctilious observance of forms, are im-
pressed, as we have seen, upon the ancient practice of her tribu-
nals and modes of conveyancing.*

We trust that this view of the subject will not have been un-
interesting or uninstructive to the philosophical reader, to whom
such studies may be new. But we must hasten to a conclusion,
after adding in a few words by way of recapitulation, an ideal
portraiture of the Pater Romanus, or full Roman citizen, under
the old law. It was thus that Niebuhr correctly translates the
phrase in the lines of Virgil :

Dum domus Mneds, Capitoli immobile saxum.
Accolet imperiitmque Pater Romanus habebit.t

The Roman legislator, according to Dionysius of Halicarnas-
sus, built the state upon the family, or more philosophically
speaking, the state grew up of itself out of the family, and fa-
ther of a family is synonymous with him who enjoyed, without
any diminution, all the jura Quiritium. Patricians, patres,
were the whole caste of those entitled to such rights, each, when
sui juris, or not in the power of any other, being a paterfami-
lias.

This image of patriarchal authority was preserved with care,
and only enlarged, as we have said, in the constitution of the
state itself. The law, in its turn, clothed the Roman father, at
home, with her own majesty. Seated upon his domestic throne,
or tribunal, he exercises without appeal, and beyond even the
veto of the tribune, a despotic authority in his family. He has
power of life and death over his wife, his child, his slave, his
debtor — they are his money, as we have seen. Three terrible
words of the law sum up his imperium, in these four relations,
potestas, manus, mancipium. It is not by way of implying
any restraint upon his dominion, that the XII Tables expressly
authorize or enjoin the making away with deformed infants. No
office, no virtue, no power in the state, no glory in arms, releases
his son from this natural, and unless his master will it otherwise,
eternal allegiance. He may marry a wife, by permission, but he
shall not be capable of holding property to maintain her ; he

* See the picturesque description in Gibbon's 44th chap., and what we have said
of the adiones legis.
t The text is to be found, JEneid, ix. 448, 9, and the commentary, R. G. 344, a.

OP ROMAN LEGISLATION. 555

may beget children, but they shall be bondmen born of his own
lord. As for the slave, he may be cut up to feed the fish in his
ponds, and both he and the child, if they commit any trespass,
may be abandoned to the arbitrary discretion of the injured party,
in order to release their owner from liability. The fate of the
poor debtor we have just read, in that horrendum carmen, as it
was well called. This relation (as money has been at the bottom
of most revolutions) gave rise to unceasing contests between the
ruling caste and the plebs. The patriarchs obstinately, and, for
centuries together, successfully maintained the principle and the
practice of the nexus. The house of our Pater Romanus is
not only his own castle, it is the dungeon of enslaved debtors
toiling under the lash. Livy's words are quoted by Niebuhr,
whose commentary is powerfully written, and presents a fright-
ful picture of oppression. The eloquent Roman informs us, that
men "adjudged according to their 'bond' to slavery, were seen
daily, by troops, dragged from the forum to their ergastula ; that
the houses of the nobles were filled with debtors in chains, and
that wherever a patrician dwelt, there was a private prison."*

Towards the foreigner, he is altogether without sympathy.
Stranger and enemy are the same, in his old language. With
the consciousness or the instincts of his high destinies, he con-
siders every means consecrated by such an end as the aggran-
dizement of Rome : and wo to those who stand in the way of it.
He pleads, when made prisoner in battle, and released to pro-
cure a peace, that he may be sent back to certain torture or ser-
vitude— if he have saved an army under his command, by an
unauthorized treaty, he begs to atone for his officiousness with
his life — he puts his son to death, if he gain a victory at the ex-
pense of discipline — how shall he feel for enemies, created, pre-
destined to become his slaves ? Accordingly, he destroys without
compunction — ravages whole tracts of country, sacks and burns
cities, fills his camp with plunder, and sells (where it is not more
politic to spare and colonize) into bondage, to traffickers who
follow his bloody footsteps like vultures, all — man, woman, and
child — whom the sword has not cut off. The bravest and finest
of his captives shall one day be reserved for the nameless horrors
of the amphitheatre, the only pastime that really interests him —
a pastime fit for a horde of cannibals, such as a demon of hell
might invent for the amusement of fiends.

Our Pater Romanus, however, does not always oppress the
poor and the weak ; he sometimes, nay, frequently, serves them,
from motives of policy especially. His own clients and retain-
ers are under his guardian care, of course ; it is the condition

* T. Li v. vi. 36. Gregatim quotidie de foro addictos duci, &c. Niebuhr's
manner of treating the subject of the next, is in the last degree masterly. R. G,
I. 600.

556 ORIGIN, HISTORY AND INFLUENCE

and the reward of their fealty. But he emancipates his slave
readily, and so makes him one of his own gens or lineage, bear-
ing a patrician name, and entitled to all the privileges of a citi-
zen. He sits in the forum, upon a sort of throne, or walks up
and down among the people, glad to give legal advice gratis to
whoever will ask for it. Even his most destructive conquests
are made in the spirit of civilization, and directed to perpetual
possession, regular administration, and unity of government —
and hence his admirable colonial system — by which subjugated
nations are adopted as his subjects, rather than extirpated as ene-
mies ; and his laws and his language are diffused over the whole
earth.

Every thing inspires him with ideas of superiority ; and his
self-esteem is immense, but calm, enlightened, and majestic.
He is a fatalist ; but his fatalism too, as always happens, is self-
conceit in disguise. He never dreams of being vanquished in
the end, though he frequently is at the beginning of a war, and
bears it with perfect composure. He has no faith in impulses ;
he works by system, and relies on general laws in every thing —
in war especially, — he has "organized victory," as they said of
Carnot, and is deliberately brave by calculation. If he will
deliver up his own consuls to an enemy, stripped and pinioned
for a sacrifice, what will he not do with their great men ? He
will expose them in his cruel triumph to the "rabble's curse"
and scoffs, and then murder them ; he will make the title of king
a jest ; they shall be his vassals ; one of them shall puta liberty-
cap upon his shorn head, and glory in being his freedman ; an-
other he will scourge and crucify like a bond-slave.

In private life, he is grave and austere, simple, sober, indus-
trious, patient of toil, hardship, and pain. His conjugal love is
none of the most rapturous, and his marriage is therefore of the
kind called "good," not "delicious,"* — yet he is perfectly satis-
fied with it — for this whole period of five centuries passes away
without a single change of wives. Yet he would almost as wil-
lingly adopt a child as have one of his own, and does not like
too many of them on any terms. He looks with contempt on
all arts, trades, and professions, which he abandons to his freed-
men, reserving to himself war and agriculture alone ; but he is
very frugal, and decidedly avaricioust — though as yet his ava-
rice takes the shape rather of parsimony than rapacity ; but the
day is coming when he shall be as insatiable as the grave, and
alieni appetens sui profusus will be the device of his degenerate
order. He is deeply religious, in his own way, controlled even
in the weightiest matters by the most grovelling superstition —

* La Rochefoucault.

t See Cato de R. R., and his Life, in Plutarch. The old censor, in point of
good husbandry, was a Roman Franklin.

OF ROMAN LEGISLATION. 557

faithful to oaths and to promises made in proper form, and pro-
foundly impressed with reverence for the law, which he is sel-
dom persuaded to break, although he is apt to evade it by fraud-
ulent interpretation. So, if ever he violates the faith of treaties
it is by sophistry and not by force ; special pleading is the great
instrument of his policy ; and he thinks the gods satisfied, if men
are only argued out of their rights with decent plausibility.* His
whole history shows that his courage is equalled by his conduct,
and his strength by his cunning.

In politics, he is strenuously conservative ; he adheres to es-
tablished institutions as long as they will hold together and work
well ; but he is not a bigot, and abandons them as soon as he
perceives that the time is really come ; neither does he scruple
to adopt from his enemies weapons and methods which experi-
ence has shown him to be better than his own. One thing is
most remarkable in his history : he never seeks a treaty, nor
even comes to terms, with a foreigner successful in arms, and
still threatening war or resistance — he always does so with his
plebeian brethren, who drive him from post to post until he fairly
opens the door of the city to them all. He loves power by the
instinct of his nature, and for its own sake — not for the pomps
and vanities that surround it — this simplicity distinguishes him
from the kings of the barbarians.

Long protected by an appeal to the people, his person is at
length rendered inviolable by the Portian and Sempronian laws.
But it is not himself only that is sacred : he consecrates the
state ; he consecrates the city with its walls and gates ; he conse-
crates the territory around it. Every thing about him is sancti-
fied to his use, and his very property is not like other peoples' ;
he holds it ex jure Quiritium. Thus descended, thus constitu-
ted, thus disciplined, with such a character, and under such laws,
he has from God the grandest mission that was ever confided to
merely human hands. He is trained up for centuries in civil
broils and border warfare, that he may learn to conquer the
world, and in disputes about rights that he may know how to
give it laws. The day is coming, when those laws, converted
as it were to Christianity, shall breathe a higher, a purer, and a
holier spirit ; and when the cross, which is now the instrument
of his most terrific despotism, shall be the earnest of a new order
of triumphs in Constantine, and the symbol of the most perfect
civilization that has ever blessed mankind— a civilization found-
ed upon peace on earth, good will to men, and equality before
the law.

* See the whole case of the Caudine Forks, and especially the words put into
the mouth of the Consul Posthumius by Livy, 1. IX. c. 9. — though they were
right in the main question. — See Vattel.

558 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OP ROMAN LEGISLATION.

We have thus accomplished one of the objects we proposed to
ourselves when we began this paper. We have brought into
immediate contrast the Roman Law as it originally stood, with
the same law as it has been transmitted to us in the collection of
Justinian — the jus civile of the XII Tables, and the period im-
mediately after that, with the jus gentium of Paullus and Ulpian,
and still more of Domat and D'Aguesseau — in a word, the code
fashioned by the Tuscan priest, with the same code remodelled
by Christian potentates. It has been our purpose, as more suit-
able to such a work as this, to speak rather of the spirit of the
law, than of the law itself.

But, in consequence of the inordinate length of this article, we
are constrained to omit — perhaps to reserve for a future occa-
sion— all that we proposed saying of the progress of Roman juris-
prudence towards that consummation, from the time it first became
matter of public instruction and scientific cultivation, up to the
reign and the labors of Justinian. That investigation would
have comprehended some of the most interesting and difficult
questions in the history of the law — as the Lex iEbutia, and
the origin of the Edict of the Prsetor, in its most extensive ap-
plication— both of them unfortunately still problematical — there-
sponsa prudentum — and the origin and difference of the Sects,
with the characters of Labeo and Capito — of Nerva and Sabi-
nus — the legislation of the republic against bribery, extortion,
and peculation, and the Cornelian laws — the legislation of Au-
gustus in the Leges Juliae and Papia-Poppaea — Salvius Julia-
nus and the Perpetual Edict — some notice of the great lights of
the third period, or the Augustan age of the law, the five juris-
consults of the Theodosian constitution, who have been well
characterized as "the last thinkers of antiquity ;" and finally of
the merits of Justinian and his commissioners, who certainly im-
proved the spirit of the law, and as certainly hurt its forms by a
most slovenly compilation.

We will only add, with regard to Mr. Schrader's new edition
of the Corpus Juris Civilis, that we have found great conveni-
ence in the use of his Institutes, and heartily bid him God-speed
for the yet unpublished part of the work.

[END OF VOL. I.]

-J

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Full text of "Writings of Hugh Swinton Legaré ... consisting of a diary of Brussels, and journal of the Rhine; extracts from his private and diplomatic correspodence; orations and speeches; and contributions to the New-York and Southern reviews"

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