Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851
But Lord Holland also considers Napoleon as entitled to deep sympathy on the ground of his being ill-treated. That is a matter entirely of private opinion. That Lord Bathurst should not have purchased Lady Holland's machine for making ice may appear, in the eyes of the frequenters of Holland House, a most barbarous act of cruelty. That a special vessel should not have been despatched for St Helena, so often as a letter was addressed to the illustrious captive, may shock the sensitive mind. The liberal soul may be thrilled with anguish and pity at the perusal of the following miseries inflicted on the devastator of Europe towards the close of his career: —
"It was indispensable to the peace of the world to prevent his escape; and the expedition from Elba had shown that no reliance could be placed either on his professions or his treaties. Detention and sure custody, therefore, were unavoidable; and every comfort consistent with these objects was afforded him by the British Government. He was allowed the society of the friends who had accompanied him in his exile; he had books in abundance to amuse his leisure hours; saddle-horses in profusion were at his command; he was permitted to ride several miles in one direction; Champagne and Burgundy were his daily beverage; and the bill of fare of his table, which is shown by Las Cases as a proof of the severity of the British Government, would be thought the height of luxury by most persons in a state of liberty. If the English Government had acted towards Napoleon as he did to others who opposed him, they would have shot him in the first ditch, as he did the Duc d'Enghien or Hofer; or shut him up in an Alpine fortress, as he did the Cardinal Pacca."22
But we have really dwelt too long upon this tedious exhibition of spurious sympathy, which, after all, is but a flimsy veil intended to cover the self-glorification of the peer. The remaining passages regarding Napoleon contain nothing of the slightest interest, and are, moreover, especially heavy. A few commentaries upon various remarkable incidents in the life of the Emperor are interspersed, from which we learn that Lord Holland condemned the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, but did not consider the abandonment of Josephine as any heinous act of moral dereliction. We doubt whether the majority of mankind will concur in the latter opinion. To us it appears that Napoleon's treatment of his first wife shows him to have been as destitute of heart as insensible to the obligations of honour.
It is not a little amusing to observe the estimate formed by Lord Holland of some of his remarkable contemporaries. Occasionally he assumes a tranquil air of superiority, which, when we remember the even obscurity of his own life, in respect to the discharge of public duties, is comical in the extreme. Mark how he disposes of Prince Metternich: —
"That minister, originally a partisan of the French faction, and then a tool of Napoleon, has, no doubt, since the fall of that great prince, supported the system which succeeded him. He seems hardly qualified by any superior genius to assume the ascendency, in the councils of his own and neighbouring nations, which common rumour has for some years attributed to him. He appeared to me, in the very short intercourse I had with him, little superior to the common run of Continental politicians and courtiers, and clearly inferior to the Emperor of Russia in those qualities which secure an influence in great affairs. Some who admit the degrading but too prevalent opinion, that a disregard of truth is useful and necessary in the government of mankind, have, on that score, maintained the contrary proposition. His manners are reckoned insinuating. In my slight acquaintance with him in London, I was not struck with them; they seemed such as might have been expected from a German who had studied French vivacity in the fashionable novel of the day. I saw little of a sagacious and observant statesman, or of a courtier accustomed to very refined and enlightened society."
What will the crême de la crême of Vienna say to this? Here is a decided thrust at the midriff of the enemy! Not only is Prince Metternich set down as an exceedingly overrated person in point of ability, but his very manners and demeanour have been criticised in the polite circles of Holland House, and found wanting. We cannot sufficiently applaud the sagacity with which the true source of the Metternichian polish is detected. Truth will out at last! During the later years of his life, the Prince has been studying French vivacity in the classical academies of Pigault le Brun and Paul de Kock! And yet, perhaps, we may be wrong. Louvet was the earlier master, and may have had a hand in forming the vivacity of this distinguished pupil. But the Prince has this consolation, at least, that he suffers in good company. Tried by the unerring standard of Lord Holland, "the address of Alexander himself, the Emperor of Russia, was, perhaps, liable to similar criticism." The inference is, that the Czar also had been studying vivacity in French novels, and was obviously not a person accustomed to very refined and enlightened society! As for the Emperor Francis II., he is dismissed in a still more summary manner: —
"I have heard it observed, and I believe justly, that the Emperor passed, during his long reign, for a weak, foolish, but good sort of man; but that he deserved none of those epithets. He was a man of some understanding, little feeling, and no justice."
Perhaps the reader would take a glimpse at the royal family of Portugal, as seen through the critical glasses of Lord Holland: —
"The king and queen, very opposite in principle, character, and conduct, have a natural abhorrence to one another. They, in truth, have nothing in common but a revolting ugliness of person, and a great awkwardness of manner. He is well-meaning, but weak and cowardly, and so apprehensive of being governed by his ostensible ministers, that he becomes the victim of low and obscure cabals, and renders his councils at all times unsteady, irresolute, and uncertain. The queen's outrageous zeal in the cause of despotism, miscalled legitimacy, is supposed to have softened his aversion to a representative assembly and a constitutional form of government. The queen is vindictive, ambitious, and selfish, and has strong propensities to every kind of intrigue, political or amorous."
What a sensation of awe steals across the mind as we peruse these wholesale sentences of condemnation! What a sublime idea we imbibe of the dignity and intellect of the judge! We need not add further to this portrait gallery, although ample materials are afforded us. The above specimens, we think, will be sufficient to satiate the curiosity of the reader.
Lord Holland, however, had his favourites. Napoleon, as we have seen, was one; and Talleyrand was another. It is rather odd that Lord Holland should have discerned in the latter one pre-eminent and distinguishing quality, for which no one else ever gave him the slightest credit – we mean a high regard for truth.
"Talleyrand," says he, "was initiated into public affairs under M. de Calonne, and learned from that lively minister the happy facility of transacting business without effort and without ceremony in the corner of a drawing-room, or in the recess of a window. In the exercise of that talent, he equalled the readiness and surpassed the wit of his model; but he brought to his work some commodities which the latter could never supply – viz. great veracity, discretion, and foresight."
And again, in a note: —
"My general and long observation of Talleyrand's VERACITY, in great and small matters, makes me confident his relation is correct. He may as much, or more than other diplomatists, suppress what is true; I am quite satisfied he never actually says what is false, though he may occasionally imply it."
It is a pity that an ordinary acquaintance with the significance of terms was not among the accomplishments of Lord Holland. Here we have the two leading elements of falsehood – the suppressio veri, and the suggestio falsi– plainly admitted; and yet we are told in the same breath, that the man who recoiled from neither practice was a person of great veracity! One or two hackneyed and rather poor bon-mots of Talleyrand are quoted in the text, as instances of his remarkable wit; – had he never enunciated anything better, he certainly would not have achieved his great renown as a conversationalist. He appears, however, to have enchanted Lord Holland, who cites his authority on all occasions with an implicit trustfulness which we cannot sufficiently admire.
We must be allowed to remark that, in this instance also, Lord Holland has chosen an odd method of testifying his respect for the memory of a friend. In whatever liberties of speech a famous wit may choose to indulge with reference to his own domestic relations, we are yet sure that he by no means intends these to form part of the common currency of conversation, and that he will not feel peculiarly obliged to any one who gratuitously undertakes to circulate them. The sarcasm of Talleyrand with regard to the intellectual deficiencies of the lady who afterwards became his wife, was not, we presume, intended for repetition, though Lord Holland carefully preserves it. Good taste, we think, would have suggested its omission; but if our scruples upon that point should be thought to savour too much of Puritanism, of this at least we are certain, that no living relative of M. de Talleyrand will feel indebted to Lord Holland for the manner in which the secret history of his marriage is related: —
"It is generally thought that he (Talleyrand) negotiated his return to France through Madame de Stael. He was on intimate terms with her, but had abandoned her society for that of Madame Grand before the peace of 1802, when I saw him again at Paris. It became necessary, on the conclusion of the Concordat, that he should either revert to the habits and character of a prelate, or receive a dispensation from all the duties and obligations of the order. He chose the latter. But Buonaparte, who affected at that time to restore great decorum in his Consular court, somewhat maliciously insisted either on the dismissal of Madame Grand, or his public nuptials with that lady. The questionable nature of her divorce from Mr Grand created some obstacle to such a union. It was curious to see Sir Elijah Impey, the judge who had granted her husband damages in India for her infidelity, caressed at her little court at Neuilly. His testimony was deemed essential, and he was not disposed to withhold it, because, notwithstanding his denial of riches in the House of Commons, he was at that very time urging a claim on the French Government to indemnify him for his losses in their funds. Mr (Sir Philip) Francis, her paramour, then at Paris also, did not fail to draw the attention of Englishmen to the circumstance, though he was not himself admitted at Neuilly to complete the curious group with his judicial enemy and quondam mistress."
Pleasant reading this! It may be said that the facts were long ago notorious, and that they are to be found in more than one scandalous chronicle. That may possibly be the case; but surely it can afford no apology for this elaborate repetition on the part of a friend. Is history served by such contributions? Does society benefit by their preservation?
The passion of the past generation for collecting and retailing bon-mots was carried to an extravagant length. Such a man as Talleyrand was a perfect treasure to any coterie, for his established reputation gave to every sentence which he uttered more than its intrinsic value. But we often find that sayings which appear most brilliant in conversation, lose their lustre when committed to writing, after the occasion which called them forth has passed away. Therefore we do not attach any very exorbitant value to their collection, especially when they are flavoured, as it is too often the case, with coarseness and personality. The writer in the Edinburgh Review expresses a wish "that Lord Holland, who possessed more opportunities than any other man for collecting and stringing these conversational pearls, had been more diligent in so agreeable a vocation." Judging from the specimens which are given, we do not think that the world has sustained any great loss from the negligence of the noble peer; for some of those which have escaped oblivion, bear unmistakable symptoms of the decomposition of the heap from which they were originally culled.
In short, we feel ourselves compelled to say that we cannot consider this volume as an important or even creditable contribution to the historical literature of the country. Those portions of it which do not directly offend, are so uninteresting and destitute of the charms of style, that they act as a positive soporific; and, but for the indignation excited by the more objectionable passages, we doubt very much whether we could have had patience enough to peruse it from the title-page to the close. We are not sure whether we even understand the meaning of several sentences, or whether they really were intended to convey any meaning at all. Possibly the fault lies with us. We may be either too dull, or too unversed in the occult innuendos of diplomatic society, to perceive what is clear and perspicuous to those who have enjoyed superior advantages. Nevertheless, we would give a trifle to any one who should enlighten us upon the point of relationship suggested by the following paragraph. Lord Holland is recounting a conversation held in 1838 with his friend Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, in the course of which they appear to have discussed family matters with that charming ease which excludes considerations of propriety.
"I asked him if he saw Don Francisco; and his manner of saying 'no' convinced me that that Prince, who is notoriously his son, had made no advances to him; for he somewhat earnestly explained that it did not become him to seek his protection, and enlarged on the opportunities he had of knowing the Infanta before her marriage at Rome, and talking of the beauty of her mother, Isabella, Queen of Naples, who was in all senses, I believe, the own brother of her son-in-law Francisco."
We have certainly no overstrained impression of the moral purity of the European courts as they existed fifty years ago. We have no doubt of the existence of intrigues of a very shameful nature, and even less of a widespread system of venality and corruption; but we totally demur to the opinion which Lord Holland seems to have entertained, that such topics constitute the most interesting and most important points of history. A man who is collecting notes relative to the leading features of the age in which he has lived, with the deliberate intention that these shall, at some future period, be given to the public, might surely be better occupied – more creditably to himself, and more usefully to his species – in directing his attention to the great subjects of social progress, intellectual development, and high unselfish patriotism, than in gleaning at second-hand the malicious reports of the antechamber, or in chronicling the whispers of the waiting-room. Lord Holland either would not, or could not, avail himself of the opportunities which were evidently within his reach. He has preferred giving us some sketches, not conceived in the best or most delicate taste, to the composition of a manly picture; and therefore we cannot be expected to feel any exuberant degree of gratitude on the receipt of the legacy, or to entertain any very exalted notion of the artistical acquirements of the painter.
Perhaps it may be thought that we have attached more importance to this work than it deserves; and certainly, seeing that we have been compelled to pronounce so unfavourable a judgment on its merits, there may appear room for the allegation. But it must be remembered that a book always acquires a certain degree of factitious importance from the position of its writer. Humble and nameless men may scribble their Reminiscences by the ream, rush boldly into print, and yet find scarce a single reader. If their works are indeed destitute of merit, they can hardly be said to fall into oblivion, for they never take hold of the memory. They have neither the advantage of a name to introduce, nor the greater advantage of genius to recommend them. But the case is different when men of station and title come forward in the character of authors. They are sure to find an audience, even though that audience should be deeply disappointed; and if, besides these other advantages, they are fortunate enough to have any sort of literary connection, they never want heralds who are ready and able to proclaim their advent to the world. We regret exceedingly that we have been compelled to use the language of condemnation rather than of praise – for the literature of the present century has been greatly enriched in almost every department by the contributions of the nobility of England, and we never feel greater pleasure than when able to bear testimony to such instances of talent and industry. It becomes, therefore, of more importance that the critical function should be duly and justly performed; and that no work, which does not possess a certain degree of intrinsic merit, should be allowed to pass under shelter of the author's name. Had the merit been there, we should most gladly have followed the example of our critical brother in the Edinburgh Review; and, adopting his magnificent, sonorous, but not very intelligible phraseology, have taken care that "the last chords of our opera should be accompanied by double drums, and the burst of a brass band, and that our curtain should drop before the gold and tissue, the waving wings, and the flowing garlands of a modern opera!"
POPERY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The constant custom of the advocates of Popery is to represent their religion as a work of the primitive age. With them it is a Patriarchal figure, beginning its pilgrimage by a Divine summons, and protected by Divine influence; perhaps occasionally touched by the stains, or sinking under the struggles belonging to all human history, but still suddenly purifying its robes into more than their original brightness, and turning its difficulties into the weapons of that warfare which is to end in the sovereignty of the world.
The learned investigation of Protestantism, however, wholly strips this Patriarchal figure of its antique habiliments, declares that every fragment of its ceremonial has been the work of ages when Christianity had fallen into oblivion; that its belief is credulity, its system an accumulation of error, and its spirit an antagonism to the gospel.
On the other hand, the Popish stigma on Protestantism is, that it is a new name, unknown before the sixteenth century. But to this charge the natural answer has been, that a name is nothing; that Christianity was once a new name, and that Heathenism was older than Popery.
The true question is of principle, and then the decision is clear. Popery appeals for its authority to councils and fathers; Protestantism, to apostles and prophets. The doctrines of Rome are to be looked for only in the annals of the Popedom; the doctrines of Protestantism appeal only to the New Testament. "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," was the maxim of the celebrated Chillingworth. Nothing commanded by the New Testament can be rejected by Protestantism, nothing contradictory of the New Testament can be received by Protestantism. The appeal of Rome is to tradition; the appeal of Protestantism is to inspiration.
We shall now give the dates, at which the peculiar errors of Popery were engrafted on the worship of the Roman world.
The claim of the Headship of Christianity was the first of the Romish errors, and the fount from which they all flowed. But this claim was first formally made in the sixth century, (A.D., 533,) and was established by the Emperor Justinian. But no mortal power had the right to give, or to assume, this title. The headship of the universal church belongs to Christ alone, who has been made "Head over all things to His church." No human being could be competent to the high duty of governing a church spreading, and to be ultimately spread, through all nations. The government is also spiritual, of which no human being of this earth can have a comprehension. Its seizure by the Bishop of Rome was an enormous usurpation. In about sixty years after, the title was disclaimed by the Bishop of Rome, in indignation at its seizure by the Bishop of Constantinople; but it was solicited again, in the reign of the Emperor Phocas, (A.D., 606,) and has been ever since retained.
It is not to be presumed, that this usurpation was universally allowed. God has not left Himself without witnesses in any age. Successive opponents of Rome, preachers of the gospel, the true Protestants, arose during the dark ages; and a continued resistance to superstition was sustained for the thousand years of the Popish assumption; until, in the sixteenth century, the recovery of learning, the renewed intelligence of the human mind, the translation of the Bible, and, above all, and acting through all, the mercy of God, restored Christianity to the world in the glorious German Reformation, (A.D. 1517.)
The most visible practice of Popery is Mass-worship. This practice commenced early; but we have no direct record of its reception until the Second Council of Nice, (A.D. 787.)
Infallibility was too monstrous a conception to be adopted, but in the utter prostration of the general mind. It was, accordingly, first made an article of faith in the very centre of the Dark Ages, (A.D. 1076.)
But this claim is so repugnant to reason, so contradictory to the common sense of man, and so palpably overthrown by the vicious conduct of Popes, and the contemptible quarrels of Councils, that, even among the Papists, it has been the most dubious of all doctrines – some of the Popish parties placing infallibility in a General Council, some in a General Council united with the Pope, some in the Universal Church. But those disputes, which no human understanding could ever decide, show only the repugnancy of the doctrine itself to the human intellect. Infallibility was, at length, by the mere ignorance of knowing where to place it, quietly delivered into the possession of the Pope. He now presumed to be the acting infallibility of the Romish world.
Yet, immeasurably absurd as this doctrine is, it is the especial and favourite one on which the Tractarians insist, and by which the apostates attempt to justify their guilty desertion to Rome. Infatuated as they are, they have fixed on the very point where infatuation is most infatuated, where perversion most degrades the character of the understanding.
The Celibacy of the Clergy. – After several attempts by ambitious Popes, this doctrine, or ordinance, was established by the tyrannical Hildebrand, Gregory the Seventh, in the eleventh century. The parochial clergy had generally married, and they protested long and strongly against abandoning their wives. But the advantage of having the ecclesiastics, in all countries, wholly separated from all connexion with their native soil and native interests, and the fixture of large bodies of men in every kingdom, wholly devoted to the objects of the Popedom, overpowered the voice alike of nature, justice, and scripture. "Those whom God had joined together" were put asunder by man.
No act, even of the Papacy, ever produced more suffering or more crime. No act could be politically more injurious, for it withdrew from the increase of the population – in times when population was the great want of Europe, and when half the land was desert – 300,000 parochial priests, 300,000 monks and friars, and probably upwards of 300,000 nuns; thus giving to a life of idleness, and almost total uselessness in a national view, an enormous multitude of human beings annually, down to this hour, through nearly nine centuries!
But, to give the true character of this presumptuous contempt of the Divine will, and of the primal blessing of "Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth," and of the universal custom of the Jewish covenant, in which the priesthood descended by families; we should know the solitary miseries entailed by monastic and conventual life, the thousands of hearts broken by remorse for those rash bonds, the thousands sunk into idiotism and frenzy by the monotony, the toilsome trifling, the useless severities, and the habitual tyrannies of the cloister. Even to those we must add the still darker page of that grossness of vice which, in the ages previous to the Reformation, produced frequent remonstrances even from the Popes, and perpetual disgust among the people.
The Invocation of Saints. – This doctrine first assumed an acknowledged form in the seventh century. It had been gradually making its way, since the dangerous homage paid to the tombs of the martyrs in the third and fourth centuries. But this invocation made them, in the estimate of their worshippers, gods. For the supposition that they heard and answered prayer in every part of the world at once, necessarily implied Omnipresence – an attribute exclusively belonging to Deity.
Transubstantiation. – This doctrine declares that, when the words of consecration have been pronounced over the Eucharist, the bread and wine are actually transformed into the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Christ. This monstrous notion was wholly unknown to the Christians of the first four centuries. In the eleventh century, it was held that the body of Christ was actually present, without directly affirming in what manner. It was not until the thirteenth century (A.D. 1215) that the change of the bread and wine became an acknowledged doctrine, by the Fourth Lateran Council.
This doctrine contradicts the conception of a miracle, which consists in a visible supernatural change. It contradicts the physical conception of body, which is, that body is local, and of course cannot be in two places at once; but the body of Christ is in Heaven. It also contradicts Scripture, which pronounces that the taking of the bread and wine would be wholly profitless, but by the accompanying operation of the Holy Spirit acting on the faithful partaker of the Sacrament; the language of Christ being – "The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit." The whole efficacy is spiritual.
The Mass. – Popery declares that in the Mass is offered continually the actual sacrifice of Christ. This conception arises from Transubstantiation, by which the Host is Christ; and the priest thus continually offering the Host is presumed to sacrifice our Lord, in every instance of the offering!
This doctrine is threefold – that the priest can make God, that flour and water can be God, and that the wafer, which is still but flour and water to the senses, is the Christ of whom it is declared in Scripture that, "having suffered once for all for the sins of men, he sat down for ever at the right hand of God." This monstrous doctrine was long disputed, and, though practically adopted, was not confirmed before the Council of Trent, (A.D. 1563.)
The Half-communion. – This doctrine originated also in Transubstantiation. From pronouncing the Eucharist to be actually Christ, scruples arose as to its chances of pollution; and as the wine might be spilt, it became the custom to give only the bread to the laity, in whose mouths it is placed by the priest. But a mutilated sacrament is none. The consequence of this doctrine is, that no Popish layman ever receives the Eucharist, or has received it during the last four hundred years! – most awful and terrible result of human presumption!
Auricular Confession. – By this doctrine, the forgiveness of sin must be preceded by confession to a priest. In contradiction to the whole tenor of Scripture, which declares the forgiveness of sin to depend on sincere prayer for forgiveness, through the atonement of Christ, and on the determination to sin no more: "Come to me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." – "Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."
But Auricular Confession, with its subsequent Absolution, actually increases crime, by disburthening the mind of remorse, and by substituting absolution for repentance. This practice was established, as a portion of the acknowledged system of Rome, scarcely before the thirteenth century.
Purgatory. – This doctrine was unheard of in the first four centuries. It crept in about the seventh century, the period of the chief corruptions of worship. It was not sanctioned by any council until the fifteenth century, (A.D. 1438.) Its first establishment was by the Council of Trent.
This doctrine, which is wholly contradictory to the redemption declared in the Gospel, as resulting from the sufferings of Christ alone; declares that every sinner must be qualified for redemption in part, by undergoing sufferings of his own; that he must be personally punished in Purgatory for his temporal sins, to be purified for Heaven. The doctrine is evidently borrowed from the Heathen ideas of Tartarus. It has not the slightest ground in Scripture, and is totally opposed to the whole spirit and bearing of Christianity.
Indulgences. – This doctrine originated in the combination of Purgatory and Saintship. It held, that the merits of the dead might be applied to the wants of the living; and that these merits, not being required for the redemption of the saints, were preserved in the hands of the Church, to be distributed as remissions from Penance, in the first instance, and in the next, from the terms of suffering in Purgatory. These remissions were sold by Rome under the name of Indulgences, and were given for any and every period. These Indulgences extended from a year to ten thousand years. Instances are recorded of their being extended to thirty thousand years! This was the most lucrative portion of the traffic of Rome. It brought in prodigious sums to the Roman Treasury.