Page images
PDF
EPUB

milder aspect. The penal laws which | those who followed her were likely to had been framed for the protection of learn the art of managing untractable the established church were abolished. subjects. If, instead of searching the But exclusions and disabilities still records of her reign for precedents remained. These exclusions and dis- which might seem to vindicate the abilities, after having generated the mutilation of Prynne and the imprisonmost fearful discontents, after having ment of Eliot, the Stuarts had atrendered all government in one part of tempted to discover the fundamental the kingdom impossible, after having rules which guided her conduct in all brought the state to the very brink of her dealings with her people, they ruin, have, in our times, been removed, would have perceived that their policy but, though removed, have left behind was then most unlike to hers, when to them a rankling which may last for a superficial observer it would have many years. It is melancholy to think seemed most to resemble hers. Firm, with what ease Elizabeth might have haughty, sometimes unjust and cruel, united all conflicting sects under the in her proceedings towards individuals shelter of the same impartial laws and or towards small parties, she avoided the same paternal throne, and thus with care, or retracted with speed, have placed the nation in the same every measure which seemed likely to situation, as far as the rights of con- alienate the great mass of the people. science are concerned, in which we at She gained more honour and more last stand, after all the heart-burnings, love by the manner in which she rethe persecutions, the conspiracies, the paired her errors than she would have seditions, the revolutions, the judicial gained by never committing errors. If murders, the civil wars, of ten genera- such a man as Charles the First had tions. been in her place when the whole naThis is the dark side of her cha- tion was crying out against the moracter. Yet she surely was a great nopolies, he would have refused all woman. Of all the sovereigns who redress. He would have dissolved the exercised a power which was seem-Parliament, and imprisoned the most ingly absolute, but which in fact de- popular members. He would have pended for support on the love and called another Parliament. He would confidence of their subjects, she was have given some vague and delusive by far the most illustrious. It has promises of relief in return for suboften been alleged as an excuse for the sidies. When entreated to fulfil his misgovernment of her successors that promises, he would have again disthey only followed her example, that solved the Parliament, and again imprecedents might be found in the trans-prisoned his leading opponents. The actions of her reign for persecuting the country would have become more agiPuritans, for levying money without tated than before. The next House of the sanction of the House of Commons, Commons would have been more unfor confining men without bringing manageable than that which preceded them to trial, for interfering with the it. The tyrant would have agreed to liberty of parliamentary debate. All all that the nation demanded. this may be true. But it is no good plea for her successors; and for this plain reason, that they were her successors. She governed one generation, they governed another; and between the two generations there was almost as little in common as between the people of two different countries. It was not by looking at the particular measures which Elizabeth had adopted, but by looking at the great general principles of her government, that

He

would have solemnly ratified an act abolishing monopolies for ever. He would have received a large supply in return for this concession; and within half a year new patents, more oppressive than those which had been cancelled, would have been issued by scores. Such was the policy which brought the heir of a long line of kings, in early youth the darling of his countrymen, to a prison and a scaffold.

Elizabeth, before the House of Cora

mons could address her, took out of again murmuring one of his sweet lovetheir mouths the words which they songs too near the ears of her Highness's were about to utter in the name of the maids of honour, and soon after poring nation. Her promises went beyond over the Talmud, or collating Polybius their desires. Her performance fol- with Livy. We had intended also to lowed close upon her promise. She say something concerning the literature did not treat the nation as an adverse of that splendid period, and especially party, as a party which had an interest concerning those two incomparable opposed to hers, as a party to which men, the Prince of Poets, and the Prince she was to grant as few advantages as of Philosophers, who have made the possible, and from which she was to Elizabethan age a more glorious and extort as much money as possible. important era in the history of the Her benefits were given, not sold; and, human mind than the age of Pericles, when once given, they were never with- of Augustus, or of Leo. But subjects drawn. She gave them too with a so vast require a space far larger than frankness, an effusion of heart, a we can at present afford. We therefore princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, stop here, fearing that, if we proceed, which enhanced their value. They were our article may swell to a bulk exceedreceived by the sturdy country gentle-ing that of all other reviews, as much as men who had come up to Westminster Dr. Nares's book exceeds the bulk of full of resentment, with tears of joy, all other histories.

and shouts of "God save the Queen." Charles the First gave up half the prerogatives of his crown to the Commons; and the Commons sent him in return the Grand Remonstrance.

We had intended to say something
concerning that illustrious group of
which Elizabeth is the central figure,
that group which the last of the bards
saw in vision from the top of Snowdon,
encircling the Virgin Queen,
"Many a baron bold,

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty."

We had intended to say something
concerning the dexterous Walsing-
ham, the impetuous Oxford, the grace-
ful Sackville, the all-accomplished
Sydney; concerning Essex, the orna-
ment of the court and of the camp, the
model of chivalry, the munificent patron
of genius, whom great virtues, great
courage, great talents, the favour of his
sovereign, the love of his countrymen,
all that seemed to ensure a happy and
glorious life, led to an early and an
ignominious death; concerning Ra-
leigh, the soldier, the sailor, the scholar,
the courtier, the orator, the poet, the
historian, the philosopher, whom we
picture to ourselves, sometimes review-
ing the Queen's guard, sometimes giv-
ing chase to a Spanish galleon, then
answering the chiefs of the country
party in the House of Commons, then

WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN
SPAIN. (JANUARY, 1833.)

History of the War of the Succession in
Spain. By LORD MAHON. 8vo. London:
1832.

THE days when Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by a Person of Honour, and Romances of M. Scuderi, done into English by a Person of Quality, were attractive to readers and profitable to booksellers, have long gone by. The literary privileges once enjoyed by lords are as obsolete as their right to kill the king's deer on their way to Parliament, or as their old remedy of scandalum magnatum. Yet we must acknowledge that, though our political opinions are by no means aristocratical, we always feel kindly disposed towards noble authors. Industry, and a taste for intellectual pleasures, are peculiarly respectable in those who can afford to be idle and who have every temptation to be dissipated. It is impossible not to wish success to a man who, finding himself placed, without any exertion or any merit on his part, above the mass of society, voluntarily descends from his eminence in search of distinctions which he may justly call his own.

The historians and philosophers have quite done with this maxim, and have abandoned it, like other maxims which have lost their gloss, to bad novelists, by whom it will very soon be worn to rags.

It is no more than justice to say that the faults of Lord Mahon's book are precisely the faults which time seldom fails to cure, and that the book, in spite of those faults, is a valuable addition to our historical literature.

This is, we think, the second appear-prince." This remark might have ance of Lord Mahon in the character seemed strange at the court of Nimof an author. His first book was cre- rod or Chedorlaomer; but it has now ditable to him, but was in every respect been for many generations considered inferior to the work which now lies as a truism rather than a paradox. before us. He has undoubtedly some Every boy has written on the thesis of the most valuable qualities of a his- “ Odisse quem læseris." Scarcely any torian, great diligence in examin- lines in English poetry are better ing authorities, great judgment in known than that vigorous couplet, weighing testimony, and great impar-" Forgiveness to the injured does belong: tiality in estimating characters. We But they ne'er pardon who have done the are not aware that he has in any in- wrong." stance forgotten the duties belonging to his literary functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He does no more than justice to his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stanhope's enemies and rivals. His narrative is very perspicuous, and is also entitled to the praise, seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern writers, of being very concise. It must be admitted, however, that, with many of the best qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of the faults of a literary novice. He has not yet acquired a great command of words. His style is seldom easy, and is now and then unpleasantly stiff. He is so bigoted a purist that he transforms the Abbé d'Estrées into an Abbot. We do not like to see French words introduced into English composition; but, after all, the first law of writing, that law to which all other laws are subordinate, is this, that the words employed shall be such as convey to the reader the meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot is the head of a religious house; an Abbé is quite a different sort of person. It is better undoubtedly to use an English word than a French word; but it is better to use a French word than to misuse an English word.

Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of uttering moral reflections in a style too sententious and oracular. We will give one instance: "Strange as it seems, experience shows that we usually feel far more animosity against those whom we have injured than against those who injure us: and this remark holds good with every degree of intellect, with every class of fortune, with a prince or a peasant, a stripling or an elder, a hero or a

Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of governments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble and wretched, should study the history of Spain. The empire of Philip the Second was undoubtedly one of the most powerful and splendid that ever existed in the world. In Europe, he ruled Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands on both sides of the Rhine, Franche Comté, Roussillon, the Milanese, and the Two Sicilies. Tuscany, Parma, and the other small states of Italy, were as completely dependent on him as the Nizam and the Rajah of Berar now are on the East India Company. In Asia, the King of Spain was master of the Philippines and of all those rich settlements which the Portuguese had made on the coast of Malabar and Coromandel, in the Peninsula of Malacca, and in the Spice-islands of the Eastern Archipelago. In America his dominions extended on each side of the equator into the temperate zone. There is reason to believe that his annual revenue amounted, in the season of his greatest power, to a sum near ten times as large as that which England yielded to Elizabeth. He had a standing army of fifty thousand ex

cellent troops, at a time when Eng- with great dread on the maritime Land had not a single battalion in con- power of Philip. "The King of Spain," stant pay. His ordinary naval force said the Lord Keeper to the two consisted of a hundred and forty Houses in 1593, "since he hath galleys. He held, what no other usurped upon the kingdom of Portuprince in modern times has held, the gal, hath thereby grown mighty, by dominion both of the land and of the gaining the East Indies: so as, how sca. During the greater part of his great soever he was before, he is reign, he was supreme on both ele- now thereby manifestly more great : ments. His soldiers marched up to .. He keepeth a navy armed to the capital of France; his ships me- impeach all trade of merchandise from naced the shores of England. England to Gascoigne and Guienne It is no exaggeration to say that, which he attempted to do this last vinduring several years, his power over tage; so as he is now become as a Europe was greater than even that of frontier enemy to all the west of EngNapoleon. The influence of the French land, as well as all the south parts, as conqueror never extended beyond low- Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of water mark. The narrowest strait was Wight. Yea, by means of his interest to his power what it was of old believed in St. Maloes, a port full of shipping that a running stream was to the sor- for the war, he is a dangerous neighceries of a witch. While his army bour to the Queen's isles of Jersey entered every metropolis from Moscow and Guernse ancient possessions of to Lisbon, the English fleets blockaded this crown, and never conquered in the every port from Dantzic to Trieste. greatest wars with France." Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey, The ascendency which Spain then enjoyed security through the whole had in Europe was, in one sense, well course of a war which endangered deserved. It was an ascendency which every throne on the Continent. The had been gained by unquestioned supevictorious and imperial nation which riority in all the arts of policy and of had filled its museums with the spoils war. In the sixteenth century, Italy of Antwerp, of Florence, and of Rome, was not more decidedly the land of the was suffering painfully from the want fine arts, Germany was not more deof luxuries which use had made ne- cidedly the land of bold theological cessaries. While pillars and arches speculation, than Spain was the land were rising to commemorate the French of statesmen and of soldiers. The chaconquests, the conquerors were trying racter which Virgil has ascribed to his to manufacture coffee out of succory countrymen might have been claimed and sugar out of beet-root. The in- by the grave and haughty chiefs, who fluence of Philip on the continent was surrounded the throne of Ferdinand as great as that of Napoleon. The Em- the Catholic, and of his immediate sucperor of Germany was his kinsman cessors. That majestic art, regere France, torn by religious dissensions, imperio populos," was not better underwas never a formidable opponent, and stood by the Romans in the proudest was sometimes a dependent ally. At days of their republic, than by Gonthe same time, Spain had what Na- salvo and Ximenes, Cortes and Alva. poleon desired in vain, ships, colonies, The skill of the Spanish diplomatists and commerce. She long monopolised was renowned throughout Europe. In the trade of America and of the Indian England the name of Gondomar is Ocean. All the gold of the West, still remembered. The sovereign naand all the spices of the East, were re-tion was unrivalled both in regular and ceived and distributed by her. During irregular warfare. The impetuous many years of war, her commerce was chivalry of France, the serried phalanx interrupted only by the predatory en-of Switzerland, were alike found wantterprises of a few roving privateers. ing when brought face to face with the Even after the defeat of the Armada, Spanish infantry. In the wars of the English statesmen continued to look New World, where something different

66

the general and something different from ordinary discipline in the soldier, where it was every day necessary to meet by some new expedient the varying tactics of a barbarous enemy, the Spanish adventurers, sprung from the common people, displayed a fertility of resource, and a talent for negotiation and command, to which history scarcely affords a parallel.

from ordinary strategy was required in war of Arauco, which he afterwards celebrated in one of the best heroic poems that Spain has produced. Hurtado de Mendoza, whose poems have been compared to those of Horace, and whose charming little novel is evidently the model of Gil Blas, has been handed down to us by history as one of the sternest of those iron proconsuls who were employed by the House of Austria to crush the lingering public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armada; Cervantes was wounded at Lepanto.

The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what the Roman, in the days of the greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The conqueror had less ingenuity, less taste, less delicacy of perception than the conquered; but far more pride, firmness, and courage, a more solemn demeanour, a stronger sense of honour. The subject had more subtlety in speculation, the ruler more energy in action. The vices of the former were those of a coward; the vices of the latter were those of a tyrant. It may be added, that the Spaniard, like the Roman, did not disdain to study the arts and the language of those whom he oppressed. A revolution took place in the literature of Spain, not unlike that revolution which, as Horace tells us, took place in the poetry of Latium: " Capta ferum victorem cepit." The slave took prisoner the enslaver. The old Castilian ballads gave place to sonness in the style of Petrarch, and to heroic poems in the stanza of Ariosto, as the national songs of Rome were driven out by imitations of Theocritus, and translations from Menander.

In no modern society, not even in England during the reign of Elizabeth, has there been so great a number of men eminent at once in literature and in the pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the sixteenth century. Almost every distinguished writer was also distinguished as a soldier or a politician. Boscan bore arms with high reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, the author of the sweetest and most graceful pastoral poem of modern times, after a short but splendid military career, fell sword in hand at the head of a storming party. Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in that

66

It is curious to consider with how much awe our ancestors in those times regarded a Spaniard. He was, in their apprehension, a kind of dæmon, horribly malevolent, but withal most sagacious and powerful. They be verye wyse and politicke," says an honest Englishman, in a memorial addressed to Mary, "and can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell theyr owne natures for a tyme, and applye their conditions to the maners of those men with whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe; whose mischievous maners a man shall never knowe untyll he come under ther subjection: but then shall he parfectlye parceyve and fele them: which thynge I praye God England never do: for in dissimulations untyll they have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyrannye, when they can obtayne them, they do exceed all other nations upon the earthe." This is just such language as Arminius would have used about the Romans, or as an Indian statesman of our times might use about the English. It is the language of a man burning with hatred, but cowed by those whom he hates; and painfully sensible of their superiority, not only in power, but in intelligence.

But how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations! If we overleap a hundred years, and look at Spain towards the close of the seventeenth century, what a change do we find! The contrast is as great as that which the Rome of Gallienus and Honorins presents to the Rome of Marius and Cæsar. Foreign conquest had begun to eat into every part of that gigantic

« PreviousContinue »