The International Monthly Magazine Volume V to No II

V >> Various >> The International Monthly Magazine Volume V to No II

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

"Of all the characters of antiquity Cicero is undoubtedly that
with which we are most intimately acquainted; for he alone has
left to us the record of his thoughts and actions for more than
half his public career in a voluminous mass of familiar as well as
political correspondence. No public character probably could pass
unscathed through the fiery ordeal to which he has thus subjected
himself. Cicero, it must be avowed, is convicted from his own
mouth of vanity, inconstancy, sordidness, jealousy, malice,
selfishness, and timidity. But on the other hand no character,
public or private, could thus bare its workings to our view
without laying a stronger claim to our sympathy, and extorting
from us more kindly consideration than we can give to the mere
shell of the human being with which ordinary history brings us in
contact. Cicero gains more than he loses by the confessions he
pours into our ear. We read in his letters what we should vainly
search for in the meagre pages of Sallust and Appian, in the
captious criticism of Dion, and even in the pleasant anecdotes of
his friendly biographer Plutarch, his amiableness, his refined
urbanity, his admiration for excellence, his thirst for fame, his
love of truth, equity, and reason. Much indeed of the patriotism,
the honesty, the moral courage he exhibited, was really no other
than the refined ambition of attaining the respect of his
contemporaries and bequeathing a name to posterity. He might not
act from a sense of duty, like Cato, but his motives, personal and
selfish as they in some sense were, coincided with what a more
enlightened conscience would have felt to be duty. Thus his
proconsulate is perhaps the purest and most honorable passage in
his life. His strict and rare probity amidst the temptations of
office arrests our attention and extorts our praise: yet assuredly
Cicero had no nice sense of honor, and was controlled by no
delicacy of sentiment, where public opinion was silent, or a
transaction strictly private. His courting his ward Publilia for
her dower, his caressing Dolabella for the sake of getting his
debt paid, his soliciting the historian Lucceius to color and
exaggerate the merits of his consulship, display a grievous want
of magnanimity and of a predominant sense of right. Fortunately
his instinct taught him to see in the constitution of the republic
the fairest field for the display of his peculiar talents; the
orator and the pleader could not fail to love the arena on which
the greatest triumph of his genius had been or were yet, as he
hoped, to be acquired. And Cicero indeed was not less ambitious
than Caeesar or Pompeius, Antonius or Octavius. To the pursuit of
fame he sacrificed many interests and friendships. He was not less
jealous of a rival in his chosen career than any of the leaders of
party and candidates for popular favor. He could not endure
competition for the throne of eloquence and the sceptre of
persuasion. It was on this account perhaps that he sought his
associates among the young, from whose rivalry he had nothing to
fear, rather than from his own contemporaries, the candidates for
the same prize of public admiration which he aimed at securing for
himself. From his pages there flows an incessant stream of abuse
of all the great masters of political power in his time; of Caesar
and Pompeius; of Crassus and Antonius, not to mention his coarse
vituperation of Piso and Gabinius, and his uneasy sneers at the
impracticable Cato. We may note the different tone which his
disparagement assumes towards these men respectively. He speaks of
Caesar with awe, of Pompeius with mortification, with dislike of
Crassus, with bitter malice of Antonius. Caesar, even when he most
deeply reprobates him, he personally loves; the cold distrust of
Pompeius vexes his self-esteem; between him and Crassus there
subsists a natural antipathy of temperament: but Antonius, the
hate of his old age, becomes to him the incarnation of all the
evil his long and bitter experience of mankind have discovered in
the human heart. While we suspect Cicero of injustice towards the
great men of his day, we are bound also to specify the gross
dishonesty with which he magnifies his own merits where they are
trivial, and embellishes them where they are really important. The
perpetual recurrence to the topic of his own political deserts
must have wearied the most patient of friends, and more than
balanced the display of sordidness and time-serving which Atticus
doubtless reflected back in his share of the correspondence
between them.

"But while Cicero stands justly charged with many grave
infirmities of temper and defects of principle, while we remark
with a sigh the vanity, the inconstancy, and the ingratitude he so
often manifested, while we lament his ignoble subserviencies and
his ferocious resentments, the high standard by which we claim to
judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledgment of his
transcendent merits. For undoubtedly had he not placed himself on
a higher moral level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we
should pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his
pretensions to our esteem to pass almost unchallenged. But we
demand a nearer approach to the perfection of human wisdom and
virtue in one who sought to approve himself the greatest of their
teachers. Nor need we scruple to admit that the judgment of the
ancients on Cicero was for the most part unfavorable. The
moralists of antiquity required in their heroes virtues with which
we can more readily dispense: and they too had less sympathy with
many qualities which a purer religion and a wider experience have
taught us to love and admire. Nor were they capable, from their
position, of estimating the slow and silent effects upon human
happiness of the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the
severe judgments we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must
acknowledge that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his
character and noble in his teaching beyond all ancient example.
Cicero lived and died in faith. He has made converts to the belief
in virtue, and had disciples in the wisdom of love. There have
been dark periods in the history of man, when the feeble ray of
religious instruction paled before the torch of his generous
philanthropy. The praise which the great critic pronounced upon
his excellence in oratory may be justly extended to the qualities
of his heart, and even in our enlightened days it may be held no
mean advance in virtue to venerate the master of Roman
philosophy."

LORD MAHON'S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Incomparably the best history of our struggle for independence that has
been written by a foreigner is that of which we have the larger portion in
the just-published fifth and sixth volumes of Lord MAHON'S _History of
England from the Peace of Utrecht_, comprising the period from 1763 to
1780--from the commencement of the popular discontents until the virtual
conclusion of the war.

The character of Lord Mahon as a historian has long been established. When
Sismondi, in 1842, had brought his History of France down to the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, he lamented that he could no longer be guided by Lord
Mahon, and expressed a hope that his "brilliant labors" would be
continued. The portion of his work on which the illustrious Frenchman thus
set the seal of his approval has been reprinted in this country by the
Appletons, in two large volumes (embracing the first four of the original
impression), carefully and judiciously edited by Professor Henry Reed, of
Philadelphia. It well indicates the right of its author to a place with
the best British writers in this department. History was never before
written so brilliantly or profoundly as in the last half century. Germany
in this period has boasted her Schiller, Niebuhr, Von Hammer, Heeren,
Ranke, and two Mullers; France her Sismondi, Barrante, Thierrys, Michelet,
Mignet, Guizot, and Thiers; England her Mitford, Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote,
Napier, Hallam, Mackintosh, Macaulay, Palgrave, and Mahon; and we have
ourselves the noble names of Bancroft, Prescott, and Irving, to send to
the next ages. Of the English authors we have mentioned, we regard Lord
Mahon as in many respects the first; Hallam is a laborious and wise
critic; Thirlwall and Grote, in their province, have greatly increased the
fame of British scholarship; and Macaulay, brilliant and picturesque
beyond any of his contemporaries, has an unprecedented popularity, which
will last until the worthlessness of his opinions and the viciousness of
his style are more justly appreciated than they are likely to be by the
mobs of novel readers who in this generation have preferred him to James
and Ainsworth. Lord Mahon is the most legitimate successor of the greatest
historian of his country, David Hume.

Although the chief subject of these new volumes is the American war, the
general political history of England, from the decline of the fortunes of
Bute through the administration of Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham, the
Duke of Grafton, and Lord North, is illustrated and commented on as
largely as the special purpose of the author permitted; and we have many
striking passages respecting Wilkes and his various persecutions, the
Letters of Junius and their authorship, and the common intellectual and
material progress of the British empire. The spirit in which he regards
our Revolution is illustrated by the following paragraph, on the
rejection, by the House of Peers, of the conciliatory Bill by which Lord
Chatham hoped, in 1775, to prevent the threatened separation of the
colonies:

"It may be proper, or at least pardonable, here to pause for an
inquiry, what probable issue might have attended an opposite
decision in the British Parliament? If the ministers had been
defeated on this Bill, if, in consequence, they had resigned, and
it had in other hands been carried through, would the Americans
have accepted the measure cheerfully and readily--would it for a
long time to come have closed the breach, and cemented the union
with the Mother Country? From all the facts and testimonies then
or since made public, I answer without hesitation that it would.
The sword was then slumbering in its scabbard. On both sides there
were injuries to redress, but not as yet bloodshed to avenge. It
was only a quarrel. It was not as yet a war. Even the boldest
leaders of that war in after years, whether in council or the
field, were still, in January, 1775, the firm friends of colonial
subordination. Washington himself (and he at least was no
dissembler--from him, at least, there never came any promise or
assurance that did not deserve the most implicit credit) had only
a few months before presided at a meeting of Fairfax County, in
Virginia. That meeting, while claiming relief of grievances, had
also at his instance adopted the following Resolve:--'That it is
our greatest wish and inclination, as well as interest, to
continue our connection with, and dependence upon, the British
Government.' But further still, although the first Congress was
praised by Chatham for its moderate counsels, and although the
calmer voice of history has ratified the praise, we learn that
these moderate counsels did not lag behind, but rather exceeded
and outran the prevailing sentiment in many of the colonies. To
this fact we find an unimpeachable testimony in the letters of
President Reed, who, writing to a friend in strict confidence,
laments that 'The proceedings of Congress have been pitched on too
high a key for some of those middle provinces.' With such
feelings, how gladly, how gratefully would they have welcomed the
hand of reconciliation stretched out by the Parliament of England!
It may be true, indeed, that such feelings as these did not
prevail in all, or nearly all, the colonies. It may be true,
especially, that no amount of good government, of forbearance, or
of kindness, would have won back Massachusetts. But herein lay, as
I think, the especial force and efficacy of Lord Chatham's scheme,
that it did not refer the questions of parliamentary supremacy and
colonial taxation to the decision of any one province; but, as the
Americans themselves desired, to the decision of a Congress
composed from all the provinces, so that disaffection, however
firmly rooted here and there, would of course be overpowered by a
loyal and large majority. Nor do I believe that the proposal of a
new grant to the Crown, and the consequent necessity of increased
taxation to the people, would have interposed any serious
obstacle. The load of taxation on the colonies was at this period
light indeed: according to a calculation made by Lord North in
that very year, each inhabitant of England paid in taxes, upon an
average, not less than twenty-five shillings annually; but each
inhabitant of British America no more than sixpence. The
experience of the closely-following Revolutionary war proves how
easily and readily, when their feelings were involved, the
Americans could raise far greater supplies. And surely had Lord
Chatham's scheme prevailed, their feelings would have been
involved. They would have been pleased and proud to show that
their previous refusal to pay taxes sprang from principle, and not
from inability or disaffection; and that, when once their views of
principle had been complied with, they could contribute with no
sparing hand to the exigencies of their countrymen, and to the
service of their king."

The opinion of Lord Mahon that, even after Burgoyne's surrender, and the
treaty of alliance between France and America, the colonies might have
been preserved, had Lord Chatham lived and returned to office, we think
entirely erroneous. Our separation from England, though there had been no
stamp act or tea tax, was inevitable.

Lord Mahon is exceedingly fond of personal portraiture, in which he is
sometimes very successful. One of his most carefully-elaborated
performances in this way has for its subject Washington, and in the dozen
pages he devotes to the analysis of the character of the great chief he
has displayed his best abilities, though, we confess, without suggesting
any thing very novel. He dislikes Franklin, and loses no opportunity of
imputing to him personal dishonesty. We think the influence of Mr. William
B. Reed's Life of President Reed is traceable in almost every allusion
made by Lord Mahon to our philosopher. Without further observation upon
the qualities of the work, we avail ourselves of the possession of an
early copy of it to present our readers with some of the most striking
passages pencilled in a hasty reading.

WASHINGTON.

During many years did Washington continue to enjoy the pleasures
and fulfil the duties of an independent country gentleman.
Field-sports divided his time with the cultivation and improvement
of his land, and the sales of his tobacco; he showed kindness to
his dependents, and hospitality to his friends; and having been
elected one of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, he was,
whenever that House met, exact in his attendance. To that
well-regulated mind nothing within the course of its ordinary and
appointed avocations seemed unworthy of its care. His ledgers and
day-books were kept by himself: he took note of all the houses
where he partook of hospitality, so that not even the smallest
courtesies might pass by unremembered; and until his press of
business in the Revolutionary War he was wont every evening to set
down the variations of the weather during the preceding day. It
was also his habit through life, whenever he wished to possess
himself perfectly of the contents of any paper, to transcribe it
in his own hand, and apparently with deliberation, so that no
point might escape his notice. Many copies of this kind were after
his death found among his manuscripts.

We may observe, however, that in the mind of Washington
punctuality and precision did not, as we often find them, turn in
any degree to selfishness. On the contrary, he was rather careless
of small points where only his own comfort was concerned. Thus he
could seldom be persuaded to take any remedy, or desist from any
business, whenever he caught a cold, but used to say, "let it go
as it came!"

Nor yet was his constant regularity of habits attended by undue
formality of manner. In one of his most private letters there
appears given incidentally, and as it were by chance, a golden
rule upon that subject:--"As to the gentlemen you mention I cannot
charge myself with incivility, or what in my opinion is
tantamount, ceremonious civility.

In figure Washington was thin and tall (above six feet high), in
countenance grave, unimpassioned, and benign. An inborn worth, an
unaffected dignity, beamed forth in every look as in every word
and deed. His first appearance and address might not convey the
idea of superior talents; such at least was the remark of his
accomplished countryman, Mr. Gallatin; but no man, whether friend
or enemy, ever viewed without respect the noble simplicity of his
demeanor, the utter absence in him of every artifice and every
affectation.

It has been justly remarked that of General Washington there are
fewer anecdotes to tell than perhaps of any other great man on
record. So equally framed were the features of his mind, so
harmonious all its proportions, that no one quality rose salient
above the rest. There were none of those chequered ques, none of
those warring emotions, in which Biography delights. There was no
contrast of lights and shades, no flickering of the flame; it was
a mild light that seldom dazzled, but that ever cheered and
warmed. His contemporaries or his close observers, as Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Gallatin, assert that he had naturally strong
passions, but had attained complete mastery over them. In
self-control indeed he has never been surpassed. If sometimes on
rare occasions, and on strong provocation, there was wrung from
him a burst of anger, it was almost instantly quelled by the
dominion of his will. He decided surely, though he deliberated
slowly; nor could any urgency or peril move him from his serene
composure, his calm and clear-headed good sense. Integrity and
truth were also ever present in his mind. Not a single instance,
as I believe, can be found in his whole career when he was
impelled by any but an upright motive, or endeavored to attain an
object by any but worthy means. Such are some of the high
qualities which have justly earned for General Washington the
admiration even of the country he opposed, and not merely the
admiration but the gratitude and affection of his own. Such was
the pure and upright spirit to which, when its toils were over and
its earthly course had been run, was offered the unanimous homage
of the assembled Congress, all clad in deep mourning for their
common loss, as to "the man first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." At this day in the
United States the reverence for his character is, as it should be,
deep and universal, and not confined, as with nearly all our
English statesmen, to one party, one province, or one creed. Such
reverence for Washington is felt even by those who wander furthest
from the paths in which he trod. A President when recommending
measures of aggression and invasion can still refer to him whose
rule was ever to arm only in self-defence as to "the greatest and
best of men!" States which exult in their bankruptcy as a proof of
their superior shrewdness, and have devised "Repudiation" as a
newer and more graceful term for it, yet look up to their great
General--the very soul of good faith and honor--with their reverence
unimpaired!"

PATRICK HENRY.

The colony of Virginia was the place, and the the year 1736 the
time, of birth to Patrick Henry. His parents were in easy
circumstances, but burthened with a numerous family; they resided
at a country scat to which the ambitious name of Mount Brilliant
had been given. In childhood Patrick Henry gave little promise of
distinction. His person is represented as having been coarse, his
manners extremely awkward, his dress slovenly, and his aversion to
study invincible. No persuasion could bring him either to read or
to work. At sixteen his father gave him means to open a small
shop, which failed, however, in less than one year. Then he tried
a small farm, and married; then again he entered upon the life of
a tradesman, but in a few years more was a bankrupt. It was at
this period that he became acquainted with Mr. Jefferson,
afterwards President of the United States. "Mr. Henry," says
Jefferson, "had a little before broken up his store (shop), or
rather it had broken him up, but his misfortunes were not to be
traced either in his countenance or conduct. His manners had
something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing,
and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and it attached every one
to him."

As a last resource, Patrick Henry now determined to make a trial
of the law. It cannot be said that his preparatory studies were
unduly arduous, since, as his biographer informs us, they were all
comprised in the period of six weeks. Under such unpromising
circumstances, and in the year 1763, he obtained a brief in the
long-contested cause then raging in Virginia between the clergy on
the one side, and the legislature on the other, as regarding the
stipends which the former claimed. On this occasion Henry, to the
astonishment of all who knew him, poured forth a strain of such
impassioned eloquence as not only carried the cause, contrary to
all previous expectation, but placed him ever afterwards at the
head of his profession in the colony. To this very day, says Mr.
Wirt, writing in 1818, the impression remains, and the old people
of that district think that no higher compliment can be paid to
any public speaker than to say of him in their homely phrase, "He
is almost equal to Patrick when he plead (pleaded) against the
parsons!"

The natural eloquence which on this occasion flashed forth from
the coarse and unlettered Henry, as the spark-of fire from the
flint, continued to distinguished him both as a Member of the
House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and afterwards as a member of
Congress. He took from the first a bold and active part against
the pretensions of the mother country; indeed Mr. Jefferson goes
so far as to declare that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the earliest
impulse to the ball of revolution." His most celebrated burst of
oratory, or rather turn of phrase, was in this very year 1765,
when descanting in the House of Burgesses on the tyranny of the
Stamp Act. "Caesar--" he cried, in a voice of thunder and with an
eye of fire--"Caesar had his Brutus--Charles the First had his
Cromwell--and George the Third"--"Treason!" here exclaimed the
Speaker, "Treason! Treason!" re-echoed from every part of the
House. Henry did not for an instant falter, but fixing his eye
firmly on the Speaker, he concluded his sentence thus "--may profit
by their example. If this be treason make the most of it!"

Indolence and aversion to reading seemed almost as natural to
Henry's mind as powers of debate. To the last he never overcame
them. Thus, at his death, in 1799, his books were found to be
extremely few, and these too consisting chiefly of odd volumes.
But his gift of speech was (for his hearers) sufficiently
supported by his fiery energy, his practical shrewdness, and his
ever keen glance into the feelings and characters of other. Nor
were these his only claims to his country's favor. He retained the
manners and custom of the common people, with what his friendly
biographer terms "religious caution.--He dressed as plainly as the
plainest of them," continues Mr. Wirt, "ate only their homely
fare, and drank their simple beverage, mixed with them on a
footing of the most entire and perfect equality, and conversed
with them even in their own vicious and depraved pronunciation."
By such means he soon acquired and long retained a large measure
of popularity, and he applied himself with zeal and success before
any audience, and on every occasion which arose, to increase and
perpetuate the estrangement between the North American Colonies
and England.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32