Theological Essays and Other Papers v2

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His moral were yet greater than his territorial conquests: In the
eloquent language of his present historian, 'he snatched from darkness
all the lands he conquered; and may be said to have added the whole
of Germany to the world.' Wherever he moved, civilization followed his
footsteps. What he conquered was emphatically the conquest of his own
genius; and his vast empire was, in a peculiar sense, his own creation.
And what, under general circumstances, would have exposed the hollowness
and insufficiency of his establishment, was for him, in particular,
the seal and attestation of his extraordinary grandeur of mind. His
empire dissolved after he had departed; his dominions lost their
cohesion, and slipped away from the nerveless hands which succeeded;
a sufficient evidence--were there no other--that all the vast resources
of the Frankish throne, wielded by imbecile minds, were inadequate to
maintain that which, in the hands of a Charlemagne, they had availed
to conquer and cement.

NOTES

NOTE 1.

_In part_ we say, because in part also the characteristic differences
of these works depend upon the particular mode of the narrative. For
narration itself, as applied to history, admits of a triple
arrangement--dogmatic, sceptical, and critical; dogmatic, which adopts
the current records without examination; sceptical, as Horace Walpole's
Richard III., Laing's Dissertation on Perkin Warbeck, or on the Gowrie
Conspiracy, which expressly undertakes to probe and try the unsound
parts of the story; and critical, which, after an examination of this
nature, selects from the whole body of materials such as are coherent.
There is besides another ground of difference in the quality of
historical narratives, viz. between those which move by means of great
public events, and those which (like the Caesars of Suetonius, and the
French Memoirs), referring to such events as are already known, and
keeping them in the background, crowd their foreground with those
personal and domestic notices which we call anecdotes.

NOTE 2.

Leibnitz, (who was _twice_ in England,) when walking in Kensington
Gardens with the Princess of Wales, whose admiration oscillated between
this great countryman of her own, and Sir Isaac Newton, the
corresponding idol of her adopted country, took occasion, from the
beautiful scene about them, to explain in a lively way, and at the
same time to illustrate and verify this favorite thesis: Turning to
a gentleman in attendance upon her Royal Highness, he challenged him
to produce two leaves from any tree or shrub, which should be exact
duplicates or facsimiles of each other in those lines which variegate
the surface. The challenge was accepted; but the result justified
Leibnitz. It is in fact upon this infinite variety in the superficial
lines of the human palm, that Palmistry is grounded, (or the science
of divination by the hieroglyphics written on each man's hand,) and
has its _prima facie_ justification. Were it otherwise, this mode of
divination would not have even a _plausible_ sanction; for, without
the inexhaustible varieties which are actually found in the combinations
of these lines, and which give to each separate individual his own
separate type, the same identical fortunes must be often repeated; and
there would be no foundation for assigning to each his peculiar and
characteristic destiny.

NOTE 3.

According to the general estimate of philosophical history, the _tenth_
century (or perhaps the tenth and the eleventh conjointly) must be
regarded as the meridian, or the perfect midnight, of the dark ages.

NOTE 4.

It has repeatedly been made a question--at what era we are to date the
transition from ancient to modern history. This question merits a
separate dissertation. Meantime it is sufficient to say in this
place--that Justinian in the 6th century will unanimously be referred
to the ancient division, Charlemagne in the 8th to the modern. These
then are two limits fixed in each direction; and somewhere between
them must lie the frontier line. Now the era of Mahomet in the 7th
century is evidently the exact and perfect line of demarcation; not
only as pretty nearly bisecting the debatable ground, but also because
the rise of the Mohammedan power, as operating so powerfully upon the
Christian kingdoms of the south, and through them upon the whole of
Christendom, at that time beginning to mould themselves and to knit,
marks in the most eminent sense the birth of a new era.

NOTE 5.

Or, in fact, than is likely to manifest itself to an unlearned reader
of Mr. James's own book; for he has omitted to load his margin with
references to authorities in many scores of instances where he might,
and perhaps where he ought, to have accredited his narrative by those
indications of research.

NOTE 6.

'Arabice loquutum esse Aigolando Saracenorum regulo, Turpinus (the
famous Archbishop) auctor est; nec id fide indignum. Dum enim in
expeditione Hispanica praecipuam belli molem in illum vertit, facile
temporis tractu notitiam linguae sibi comparare potuit.' FRANTZ. _Hist.
Car. Mag._ That is, he had time sufficient for this acquisition, and
a motive sufficient.

NOTE 7.

Not having the French original of Bourrienne's work, we are compelled
to quote from Dr. Memes's translation, which, however, is everywhere
incorrect, and in a degree absolutely astonishing; and, where not
incorrect, offensive from vulgarisms or ludicrous expressions. Thus,
he translates _un drole_, a droll fellow--wide as the poles from the
true meaning, Again, the verb _devoir_, in all tenses, that eternal
stumbling-block to bad French scholars, is uniformly mistranslated.
As an instance of ignoble language, at p. 294, vol. I., he says,
'Josephine was delighted with the disposition of her _goodman_,' a
word used only by underbred people. But of all the absurdities which
disfigure the work, what follows is perhaps the most striking:--'Kleber,'
he says, 'took a _precognition_ of the army,' p. 231, vol. I. A
precognition! What Pagan ceremony may that be? Know, reader, that this
monster of a word is a technical term of Scotch law; and even to the
Scotch, excepting those few who know a little of law, absolutely
unintelligible. In speaking thus harshly, we are far from meaning any
thing unkind to Dr. M., whom, on the contrary, for his honorable
sentiments in relation to the merits of Bonaparte, we greatly respect.
But that as nothing to do with French translation--the condition of
which, in this country, is perfectly scandalous.

NOTE 8.

Some people may fancy that this scene of that day's drama was got up
merely to save appearances by a semblance of discussion, and that in
effect it mattered not how the performance was conducted where all was
scenical, and the ultimate reliance, after all, on the bayonet. But
it is certain that this view is erroneous, and that the final decision
of the soldiery, even up to the very moment of the crisis, was still
doubtful. Some time after this exhibition, 'the hesitation reigning
among the troops,' says Bourrienne, 'still continued.' And in reality
it was a mere accident of pantomime, and a clap-trap of sentiment,
which finally gave a sudden turn in Napoleon's favor to their wavering
resolutions.

NOTE 9.

We have occasionally such expressions as--'When wild in woods _the
noble savage_ ran.' These descriptions rest upon false conceptions;
in fact, no such combination anywhere exists as a man having the
training of a savage, or occupying the exposed and naked situation of
a savage, who is at the same time in any moral sense at liberty to be
noble-minded. Men are moulded by the circumstances in which they stand
habitually; and the insecurity of savage life, by making it impossible
to forego any sort of advantages, obliterates the very idea of honor.
Hence, with all savages alike, the point of honor lies in treachery--in
stratagem--and the utmost excess of what is dishonorable, according
to the estimate of cultivated man.

NOTE 10.

Shakespeare's Sonnets.

NOTE 11.

Or perhaps the _right_, for the Prussian cavalry (who drew their custom
from some regiments in the service of Gustavus Adolphus; and they again
traditionally from others) are always trained to mount in this way.

NOTE 12.

It is painful to any man of honorable feelings that, whilst a great
rival nation is pursuing the ennobling profession of arms, his own
should be reproached contemptuously with a sordid dedication to
commerce. However, on the one hand, things are not always as they seem;
commerce has its ennobling effects, direct or indirect; war its
barbarizing degradations. And, on the other hand, the facts even are
not exactly as _prima facie_ they were supposed; for the truth is,
that, in proportion to its total population, England had more men in
arms during the last war than France. But, generally speaking, the
case may be stated thus: the British nation is, by original constitution
of mind, and by long enjoyment of liberty, a far nobler people than
the French. And hence we see the reason and necessity that the French
should, with a view to something like a final balance in the effect,
be trained to a nobler profession. Compensations are every where
produced or encouraged by nature and by Providence; and a nobler
discipline in the one nation is doubtless some equilibrium to a nobler
nature in the other.

NOTE 13.

_In council_, we say purposely and in candor; for the only pleas in
palliation ever set up by Napoleon's apologists, are these
two--_necessity_, the devil's plea, in the first place; secondly, that
the guilt of the transaction, whether more or less, was divided between
the general and his council.

NOTE 14.

And from the fact of that corps in Charlemagne's army, which effected
the passage, having been commanded by his uncle, Duke Bernard, this
mountain previously known as the _Mons_ Jovis, (and, by corruption,
Mont le Joux,) very justly obtained the name which it still retains.

MODERN GREECE.

'Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Ionian Islands.' By WILLIAM MURE,
of Caldwell.

[1842.]

What are the nuisances, special to Greece, which repel tourists from
that country? They are three;--robbers, fleas, and dogs. It is
remarkable that all are, in one sense, respectable nuisances--they
are ancient, and of classical descent. The monuments still existing
from pre-Christian ages, in memory of honest travellers assassinated
by brigands of klephts, (Kleptai,) show that the old respectable calling
of freebooters by sea and land, which Thucydides, in a well-known
passage, describes as so reputable an investment for capital during
the times preceding his own, and, as to northern Greece, even during
his own, had never entirely languished, as with us it has done, for
two generations, on the heaths of Bagshot, Hounslow, or Finchley. Well
situated as these grounds were for doing business, lying at such
convenient distances from the metropolis, and studying the convenience
of all parties, (since, if a man were destined to lose a burden on his
road, surely it was pleasing to his feelings that he had not been
suffered to act as porter over ninety or a hundred miles, in the service
of one who would neither pay him nor thank him); yet, finally, what
through banks, and what through policemen, the concern has dwindled
to nothing. In England, we believe, this concern was technically known
amongst men of business and 'family men,' as the 'Low Toby.' In Greece
it was called [Greek: laeseia]; and Homericaliy speaking, it was perhaps
the only profession thoroughly respectable. A few other callings are
mentioned in the Odyssey as furnishing regular bread to decent men--viz.
the doctor's, the fortune-teller's or conjurer's, and the armorer's.
Indeed it is clear, from the offer made to Ulysses of a job, in the
way of hedging and ditching, that sturdy big-boned beggars, or what
used to be called 'Abraham men' in southern England, were not held to
have forfeited any heraldic dignity attached to the rank of pauper,
(which was considerable,) by taking a farmer's pay where mendicancy
happened to be 'looking downwards.' Even honest labor was tolerated,
though, of course, disgraceful. But the Corinthian order of society,
to borrow Burke's image, was the bold sea-rover, the buccaneer, or,
(if you will call him so) the robber in all his varieties. Titles were,
at that time, not much in use--honorary titles we mean; but had our
prefix of 'Right Honorable' existed, it would have been assigned to
burglars, and by no means to privy-councillors; as again our English
prefix of 'Venerable' would have been settled, not on so sheepish a
character as the archdeacon, but on the spirited appropriator of church
plate. We were surprised lately to find, in a German work of some
authority, so gross a misconception of Thucydides, as that of supposing
him to be in jest. Nothing of the sort. The question which he represents
as once current, on speaking a ship in the Mediterranean--'Pray,
gentlemen, are you robbers?' actually occurs in Homer; and to Homer,
no doubt, the historian alludes. It neither was, nor could be conceived,
as other than complimentary; for the alternative supposition presumed
him that mean and well-known character--the merchant, who basely paid
for what he took. It was plainly asking--Are you a knight grand-cross
of some martial order, or a sort of costermonger? And we give it as
no hasty or fanciful opinion, that the South Sea islands (which
Bougainville held to be in a state of considerable civilization) had,
in fact, reached the precise stage of Homeric Greece. The power of
levying war, as yet not sequestered by the ruling power of each
community, was a private right inherent in every individual of any one
state against all individuals of any other. Captain Cook's ship, the
Resolution, and her consort, the Adventure, were as much independent
states and objects of lawful war to the islanders, as Owyhee, in the
Sandwich group, was to Tongataboo in the Friendly group. So that to
have taken an Old Bailey view of the thefts committed was unjust, and,
besides, inefectual; the true remedy being by way of treaty or
convention with the chiefs of every island. And perhaps, if Homer had
tried it, the same remedy (in effect, regular payments of _black-mail_)
might have been found available in _his_ day.

It is too late to suggest _that_ idea now. The princely pirates are
gone; and the last dividend has been paid upon their booty; so that,
whether he gained or lost by them, Homer's estate is not liable to any
future inquisitions from commissioners of bankruptcy or other sharks.
He, whether amongst the plundered, or, as is more probable, a
considerable shareholder in the joint-stock privateers from Tenedos,
&c., is safe both from further funding and refunding. We are not. And
the first question of moment to any future tourist is, what may be the
present value, at a British insurance office, of any given life risked
upon a tour in Greece? Much will, of course, depend upon the extent
and the particular route. A late prime minister of Greece, under the
reigning king Otho, actually perished by means of one day's pleasure
excursion from Athens, though meeting neither thief nor robber. He
lost his way: and this being scandalous in an ex-chancellor of the
exchequer having ladies under his guidance, who were obliged, like
those in the Midsummer Night's Dream, to pass the night, in an Athenian
wood, his excellency died of vexation. Where may not men find a death?
But we ask after the calculation of any office which takes extra risks:
and, as a basis for such a calculation, we submit the range of tour
sketched by Pausanius, more than sixteen centuries back--that [Greek:
Pansapachae periodos], as Colonel Leake describes it, which carries
a man through the heart of all that can chiefly interest in Greece.
Where are the chances upon such a compass of Greek travelling, having
only the ordinary escort and arms, or having _no_ arms, (which the
learned agree in thinking the safer plan at present,) that a given
traveller will revisit the glimpses of an English moon, or again embrace
his 'placens uxor?' As with regard to Ireland, it is one stock trick
of Whiggery to treat the chances of assassination in the light of an
English hypochondriacal chimaera, so for a different reason it has
been with regard to Italy, and soon will be for Greece. Twenty years
ago it was a fine subject for jesting--the English idea of stilettos
in Rome, and masqued bravos, and assassins who charged so much an inch
for the depth of their wounds. But all the laughter did not save a
youthful English marriage party from being atrociously massacred; a
grave English professional man with his wife from being carried off
to a mountainous captivity, and reserved from slaughter only by the
prospect of ransom; a British nobleman's son from death or the
consequences of Italian barbarity; or a prince, the brother of Napoleon,
from having the security of his mansion violated, and the most valuable
captives carried off by daylight from his household. In Greece
apparently the state of things is worse, because absolutely worse under
a far slighter temptation. But Mr. Mure is of opinion that Greek robbers
have private reasons as yet for sparing English tourists.

So far then is certain: viz. that the positive danger is greater in
poverty-stricken Greece than in rich and splendid Italy. But as to the
valuation of the danger, it is probably as yet imperfect from mere
defect of experience: the total amount of travellers is unknown. And
it may be argued that at least Colonel Leake, Mr. Dodwell, and our
present Mr. Mure, with as many more as have written books, cannot be
among the killed, wounded, or missing. There is evidence in octavo
that they are yet 'to the fore.' Still with respect to books, after
all, they may have been posthumous works: or, to put the case in another
form, who knows how many excellent works in medium quarto, not less
than crown octavo, may have been suppressed and intercepted in their
rudiments by these expurgatorial ruffians? Mr. Mure mentions as the
exquisite reason for the present fashion of shooting from an ambush
first, and settling accounts afterwards, that by this means they evade
the chances of a contest. The Greek robber, it seems, knows as well
as Cicero that 'non semper viator a latrone, nonnunquam etiam latro
a viatore occiditur'--a disappointment that makes one laugh exceedingly.
Now this rule as to armed travellers is likely to bear hard upon our
countrymen, who being rich, (else how come they in Greece?) will surely
be brilliantly armed; and thus again it may be said, in a sense somewhat
different from Juvenal's--

Et _vacuus_ cantat coram latrone viator;

_Vacuus_ not of money, but of pistols. Yet on the other hand, though
possibly sound law for the thickets of Mount Cithaeron, this would be
too unsafe a policy as a general rule: too often it is the exposure
of a helpless exterior which first suggests the outrage. And perhaps
the best suggestion for the present would be, that travellers should
carry in their hands an apparent telescope or a reputed walking-cane;
which peaceful and natural part of his appointments will first operate
to draw out his lurking forest friend from his advantage; and on closer
colloquy, if this friend should turn restive, then the 'Tuscan artist's
tube,' contrived of course a double debt to pay, will suddenly reveal
another sort of tube, insinuating an argument sufficient for the
refutation of any sophism whatever. This is the best compromise which
we can put forward with the present dilemma in Greece, where it seems
that to be armed or to be unarmed is almost equally perilous. But our
secret opinion is, that in all countries alike, the only absolute
safeguard against highway robbery is--a railway; for then the tables
are turned; not he who is stopped--incurs the risk, but he who stops:
we question whether Samson himself could have pulled up his namesake
on the Liverpool railway. Recently, indeed, in the Court of Common
Pleas, on a motion to show cause by Sergeant Bompas, in Hewitt v.
Price, Tindal (Chief-Justice) said--'We cannot call a railway a public
[Footnote 1] security, I think,' (_laughter:_) but _we_ think otherwise.
In spite of 'laughter,' we consider it a specific against the Low Toby.
And, _en attendant_, there is but one step towards amelioration of
things for Greece, which lies in summary ejecting of the Bavarian
locusts. Where all offices of profit or honor are engrossed by needy
aliens, you cannot expect a cheerful temper in the people. And,
unhappily, from moody discontent in Greece to the taking of purses is
a short transition.

Thus have we disposed of 'St. Nicholas's Clerks.' Next we come to fleas
and dogs:--Have we a remedy for these? We have: but as to fleas,
applicable or not, according to the purpose with which a man travels.
If, as happened at times to Mr. Mure, a natural, and, for his readers,
a beneficial anxiety to see something of domestic habits, overcomes
all sense of personal inconvenience, he will wish, at any cost, to
sleep in Grecian bedrooms, and to sit by German hearths. On the other
hand, though sensible of the honor attached to being bit by a flea
lineally descended from an Athenian flea that in one day may possibly
have bit three such men as Pericles, Phidias, and Euripides, many quiet
unambitious travellers might choose to dispense with 'glory,' and
content themselves with the view of Greek _external_ nature. To these
persons we would recommend the plan of carrying amongst their baggage
a tent, with portable camp-beds; one of those, as originally invented
upon the encouragement of the Peninsular campaigns from 1809 to 1814,
and subsequently improved, would meet all ordinary wants. It is
objected, indeed, that by this time the Grecian fleas must have
colonized the very hills and woods; as once, we remember, upon
Westminster Bridge, to a person who proposed bathing in the Thames by
way of a ready ablution from the July dust, another replied, 'My dear
sir, by no means; the river itself is dusty. Consider what it is to
have received the dust of London for nineteen hundred years since
Caesar's invasion.' But in any case the water cups, in which the
bed-posts rest, forbid the transit of creatures not able to swim or
to fly. A flea indeed leaps; and, by all report, in a way that far
beats a tiger--taking the standard of measurement from the bodies of
the competitors. But even this may be remedied: giving the maximum
leap of a normal flea, it is always easy to raise the bed indefinitely
from the ground--space upwards is unlimited--and the supporters of the
bed may be made to meet in one pillar, coated with so viscous a
substance as to put even a flea into chancery.

As to dogs, the case is not so easily settled; and before the reader
is in a condition to judge of our remedy, he ought to know the evil
in its whole extent. After all allowances for vermin that waken you
before your time, or assassins that send you to sleep before your time,
no single Greek nuisance can be placed on the same scale with the dogs
attached to every _menage_, whether household or pastoral. Surely as
a stranger approaches to any inhospitable door of the peasantry, often
before he knows of such a door as in _rerum natura_, out bounds upon
him by huge careering leaps a horrid infuriated ruffian of a
dog--oftentimes a huge _moloss_, big as an English cow--active as a
leopard, fierce as a hyena but more powerful by much, and quite as
little disposed to hear reason. So situated--seeing an enemy in motion
with whom it would be as idle to negotiate as with an earthquake--what
is the bravest man to do? Shoot him? Ay; that was pretty much the
course taken by a young man who lived before Troy: and see what came
of it. This man, in fact a boy of seventeen, had walked out to see the
city of Mycenae, leaving his elder cousin at the hotel sipping his
wine. Out sprang a huge dog from the principal house in what you might
call the High street of Mycenae; the young man's heart began to
palpitate; he was in that state of excitement which affects most people
when fear mingles with excessive anger. What was he to do? Pistols he
had none. And, as nobody came out to his aid, he put his hand to the
ground; seized a _chermadion_, (or paving-stone), smashed the skull
of the odious brute, and with quite as much merit as Count Robert of
Paris was entitled to have claimed from his lucky hit in the dungeon,
then walked off to report his little exploit to his cousin at the
hotel. But what followed? The wretches in the house, who never cared
to show themselves so long as it might only be the dog killing a boy,
all came tumbling out by crowds when it became clear that a boy had
killed the dog. '_A la lanterne!_' they yelled out; valiantly charged
_en masse_: and among them they managed to kill the boy. But there was
a reckoning to pay for this. Had they known who it was that sat drinking
at the hotel, they would have thought twice before they backed their
brute. That cousin, whom the poor boy had left at his wine, happened
to be an ugly customer--Hercules _incog_. It is needless to specify
the result. The child unborn had reason to rue the murder of the boy.
For his cousin proved quite as deaf to all argument or submission as
their own foul thief of a dog or themselves. Suffice it--that the royal
house of Mycenae, in the language of Napoleon's edicts, ceased to
reign. But here is the evil; few men leave a Hercules at their hotel;
and all will have to stand the vindictive fury of the natives for their
canine friends, if you should pistol them. Be it in deliverance of
your own life, or even of a lady's by your side, no apology would be
listened to. In fact, besides the disproportionate annoyance to a
traveller's nerves, that he shall be kept uneasy at every turn of the
road in mere anxiety as to the next recurrence of struggles so
desperate, it arms the indignation of a bold Briton beforehand--that
a horrid brute shall be thought entitled to kill _him_; and if he
_does_, it is pronounced an accident: but if he, a son of the mighty
island, kills the brute, instantly a little hybrid Greek peasant shall
treat it as murder.

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