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In a very interesting essay published in Lady Blennerhassett's recent work, entitled Sidelights, which has been admirably translated into English by Mrs. Guelcher, she deals with the subject now under discussion. No one could be more fitted to cope with the task. Lady Blennerhassett's previous contributions to literature, her encyclopaedic knowledge of historical facts, and her thorough grasp of the main political, religious, and economic considerations which moved the hearts and influenced the actions of men during the revolutionary convulsion give her a claim, which none will dare to dispute, to speak with authority on this subject. Those who have heretofore looked for guidance to Taine will, therefore, rejoice to note that she is able to vindicate his reputation as an historian. "The six volumes of the Origines," she says, "are, like other human works, not free from errors and exaggerations, but in all essentials their author has proved himself right, and his singular merit remains."
As the most suitable illustration of Taine's historical methods Lady Blennerhassett selects his study of Napoleon. That, she thinks, is "the severest test of the author's skill." Taine did not, like Fournier and others, attempt to write a history of Napoleonic facts. The strategical and tactical genius which enabled Napoleon to sweep across Europe and to crush Austria and Prussia on the fields of Austerlitz and Jena had no attraction for him. He wrote a history of ideas. True to his own psychological habit of thought, he endeavoured to "reconstruct the figure of Napoleon on psychological and physiological lines." The justification of this method is to be found in the fact, the truth of which cannot be gainsaid, that a right estimate of the character of Napoleon affords one of the principal keys to the true comprehension of European history for a period of some twenty stirring years. History, Lord Acton said, "is often made by energetic men steadfastly following ideas, mostly wrong, that determine events." Napoleon is a case in point. "The man in Napoleon explains his work." But what were the ideas of this remarkable man, and were those ideas "mostly wrong"?
His main idea was certainly to satisfy his personal ambition. "Ma maitresse," he said, "c'est le pouvoir," and in 1811, when, although he knew it not, his star was about to wane, he said to the Bavarian General Wrede, "In three years I shall be master of the universe." He was not deterred by any love of country, for it should never be forgotten that, as Lady Blennerhassett says, "this French Caesar was not a Frenchman." Whatever patriotic feelings moved in his breast were not French but Corsican. He never even thoroughly mastered the French language, and his mother spoke not only bad French, but bad Italian. Her natural language, Masson tells us, was the Corsican patois. In order to gratify his ambition, all considerations based on morality were cast to the winds. "I am not like any other man," he told Madame de Remusat; "the laws of morality and decorum do not apply to me." Acting on this principle he did not hesitate to plunge the world into a series of wars. Saevit toto Mars impius orbe.
The other fundamental idea which dominated the whole of Napoleon's conduct was based on Voltaire's cynical dictum, "Quand les hommes s'attroupent, leurs oreilles s'allongent." He was a total disbeliever in the wisdom or intelligence of corporate bodies. Therefore, as he told Sir Henry Keating at St. Helena, "It is necessary always to talk of liberty, equality, justice, and disinterestedness, and never to grant any liberty whatever." Low as was his opinion of human intelligence, his estimate of human honesty was still lower. Mr. Lecky, speaking of Napoleon's relations with Madame de Stael, says: "A perfectly honest man was the only kind of man he could never understand. Such a man perplexed and baffled his calculations, acting on them as the sign of the cross acts on the machinations of a demon." In his callow youth he had coquetted with ultra-Liberal ideas. He had even written an essay in which he expressed warm admiration for Algernon Sidney as an "enemy to monarchies, princes, and nobles," and added that "there are few kings who have not deserved to be dethroned." These ideas soon vanished. He became the incarnation of ruthless but highly intelligent despotism. The reputation acquired at Marengo gave him the authority which was necessary as a preliminary to decisive action, and albeit, if all accounts are true, he lost his head at the most important crisis of his career and owed success to the firmness of that Sieyes whom he scornfully called an "ideologue" and a "faiseur de constitutions," nevertheless on the 18th Brumaire he was able to make captive a tired nation which pined for peace, and little recked that it was handing over its destinies to the most ardent devotee of the god of war that the world has ever known.
Once seated firmly in his saddle Napoleon proceeded to centralise the whole French administration, and to establish a regime as despotic as that of any of the hereditary monarchs who had preceded him. But it was a despotism of a very different type from theirs. Theirs was stupid, and excited the jealousy and hatred of almost every class. His was intelligent and appealed both to the imagination and to the material interests of every individual Frenchman. Theirs was based on privilege; his on absolute equality. "About Napoleon's throne," Lady Blennerhassett says, "were gathered Girondists and Jacobins, Royalists and Thermidorians, Plebeians and the one-time Knights of the Holy Ghost, Roman Catholics and Voltaireans. Kitchen lads became marshals; Drouet, the postmaster of Varennes, became Under-Secretary of State; Fouche, the torturer and wholesale murderer, a duke; the Suabian candidate for the Lutheran Ministry, Reinhard, was appointed an Imperial Ambassador; Murat, son of an innkeeper, a king."
Death, it has been truly said, is the real measure of greatness. What now remains of the stupendous fabric erected by Napoleon? "Of the work of the Conqueror," Lady Blennerhassett says, "not one stone remains upon another." As regards the internal reconstruction of France, the case is very different. All inquirers are agreed that Napoleon's work endures. Taine said that "the machinery of the year VIII." still remains. Mr. Fisher, in his work on Napoleonic Statesmanship, says that Napoleon "created a bureaucracy more competent, active, and enlightened than any which Europe had seen." Mr. Bodley bears similar testimony. "The whole centralised administration of France, which, in its stability, has survived every political crisis, was the creation of Napoleon and the keystone of his fabric."
Napoleon's administrative creations may, indeed, be criticised from many points of view. Notably, it may be said that, if he did not initiate, he stimulated that excessive "fonctionnarisme" which is often regarded as the main defect of the French system. But his creations were adapted to the special character and genius of the nation over which he ruled. His main title-deed to enduring fame is that, for good or evil, he constructed an edifice which, in its main features, has lasted to this day, which shows no signs of decay, and which has exercised a predominant influence on the administration and judicial systems of neighbouring countries. Neither the system itself nor the history of its creation can be thoroughly understood without a correct appreciation of the character and political creed of its founder. It is this consideration which affords an ample justification of the special method adopted by Taine in dealing with the history of the Napoleonic period.
Nothing illustrates Napoleon's character more clearly than the numerous ana which may be culled from the pages of Madame de Remusat, Masson, Beugnot, Roederer, and others. Of these, some are reproduced by Lady Blennerhassett. The writer of the present article was informed on good authority of the following Napoleonic anecdote. It is related that Napoleon ordered from Breguet, the famous Paris watchmaker, a watch for his brother Joseph, who was at the time King of Spain. The back was of blue enamel decorated with the letter J in diamonds. In 1813 Napoleon was present at a military parade when a messenger arrived bearing a brief despatch, in which it was stated that the French army had been completely defeated at Vittoria. It was manifest that Spain was lost. Always severely practical, all that Napoleon did, after glancing at the despatch, was to turn to his secretary and say, "Write to Breguet and tell him that I shall not want that watch." It is believed that the watch was eventually bought by the Duke of Wellington.[108]
[Footnote 107: Sidelights. By Lady Blennerhassett. Translated by Edith Guelcher. London: Constable & Co. 7s. 6d.]
[Footnote 108: My informant in this matter was the late General Sir Arthur Ellis. Since the above was written, the Duke of Wellington has informed me that there is at Apsley House a watch, not made by Breguet but by another Paris watchmaker, on which is inscribed, "Ordered by Napoleon for his brother Joseph." The cover is ornamented not with a diamond J, but with a map of the Peninsula. Inside is the portrait of a lady. I do not doubt that this is the watch to which Sir Arthur Ellis alluded.]
XXVIII
SONGS, PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL
"The Spectator," September 13, 1913
All historians are agreed that contemporary ballads and broadsheets constitute a priceless storehouse from which to draw a picture of the society existing at the period whose history they seek to relate. Some of those which have survived to become generally known to later ages show such poverty of imagination and such total absence of literary merit as to evoke the surprise of posterity at the ephemeral success which they unquestionably achieved. An instance in point is the celebrated poem "Lillibullero," or, as it is sometimes written, "Lilli Burlero." Here is the final stanza of the pitiful doggerel with which Wharton boasted that he had "sung a king out of three kingdoms":
There was an old prophecy found in a bog: Ireland shall be ruled by an ass and a dog; And now this prophecy is come to pass, For Talbot's the dog, and James is the ass. Lillibullero, Bullen-a-la.
Doggerel as this was, it survived the special occasion for which it was written. When Queen Anne's reign was well advanced balladmongers were singing:
So God bless the Queen and the House of Hanover, And never may Pope or Pretender come over. Lillibullero, Bullen-a-la.
If the song is still remembered by other than historical students, it is probably more because Uncle Toby, when he was hard pressed in argument, "had accustomed himself, in such attacks, to whistle Lillibullero," than for any other reason.
But whether it be doggerel or dignified verse, popular poetry almost invariably possesses one great merit. When we read the outpourings of the seventeenth and eighteenth century poets to the innumerable Julias, Sacharissas, and Celias whom they celebrated in verse, we cannot but feel that we are often in contact with a display of spurious passion which is the outcome of the head rather than of the heart. Thus Johnson tells us that Prior's Chloe "was probably sometimes ideal, but the woman with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab of the lowest species." The case of popular and patriotic poetry is very different. It is wholly devoid of affectation. Whatever be its literary merits or demerits, it always represents some genuine and usually deep-rooted conviction. It enables us to gauge the national aspirations of the day, and to estimate the character of the nation whose yearnings found expression in song. The following lines—written by Bishop Still, the reputed author of "Gammer Gurton's Needle"—very faithfully represent the feelings excited in England at the time of the Spanish Armada:
We will not change our Credo For Pope, nor boke, nor bell; And yf the Devil come himself We'll hounde him back to hell.
The fiery Protestant spirit which is breathed forth in these lines found its counterpart in Germany. Luther, at a somewhat earlier period, wrote:
Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort, Und steur des Papsts und Tuerken Mord.
Take again the case of French Revolutionary poetry. The noble, as also the ignoble, sides of that vast upheaval were alike represented in the current popular poetry of the day. Posterity has no difficulty in understanding why the whole French nation was thrilled by Rouget de Lisle's famous song, to whose lofty strains the young conscripts rushed to the frontier in order to hurl back the invaders of their country. On the other hand, the ferocity of the period found expression in such lines as:
Ah! ca ira, ca ira, ca ira! Les aristocrates a la lanterne,
which was composed by one Ladre, a street singer, or in the savage "Carmagnole," a name originally applied to a peasant costume worn in the Piedmontese town of Carmagnola, and afterwards adopted by the Maenads and Bacchanals, who sang and danced in frenzied joy over the judicial murder of poor "Monsieur et Madame Veto."
The light-hearted and characteristically Latin buoyancy of the French nation, which they have inherited from the days of that fifth-century Gaulish bishop (Salvianus) who said that the Roman world was laughing when it died ("moritur et ridet"), and which has stood them in good stead in many an arduous trial, is also fully represented in their national poetry. No other people, after such a crushing defeat as that incurred at Pavia, would have been convulsed with laughter over the innumerable stanzas which have immortalised their slain commander, M. de la Palisse:
Il mourut le vendredi, Le dernier jour de son age; S'il fut mort le samedi, Il eut vecu davantage.
The inchoate national aspirations, as also the grave and resolute patriotism of the Germans, found interpreters of genius in the persons of Arndt and Koerner, the latter of whom laid down his life for the people whom he loved so well. During the Napoleonic period all their compositions, many of which will live so long as the German language lasts, strike the same note—the determination of Germans to be free:
Lasst klingen, was nur klingen kann, Die Trommeln und die Floeten! Wir wollen heute Mann fuer Mann Mit Blut das Eisen roeten. Mit Henkerblut, Franzoesenblut— O suesser Tag der Rache! Das klinget allen Deutschen gut, Das ist die grosse Sache.
Some six decades later, when Arndt's famous question "Was ist das deutsche Vaterland?" was about to receive a practical answer, the German soldier marched to the frontier to the inspiriting strains of "Die Wacht am Rhein."
No more characteristic national poetry was ever written than that evoked by the civil war which raged in America some fifty years ago. Those who, like the present writer, were witnesses on the spot of some portion of that great struggle, are never likely to forget the different impressions left on their minds by the poetry respectively of the North and of the South. The pathetic song of the Southerners, "Maryland, my Maryland," which was composed by Mr. T.R. Randall, appeared, even whilst the contest was still undecided, to embody the plaintive wail of a doomed cause, and stood in strong contrast to the aggressive and almost rollicking vigour of "John Brown's Body" and "The Union for ever, Hurrah, boys, Hurrah!"
Even a nation so little distinguished in literature as the Ottoman Turks is able, under the stress of genuine patriotism, to embody its hopes and aspirations in stirring verse. The following, which was written during the last Russo-Turkish war, suffers in translation. Its rhythm and heroic, albeit savage, vigour may perhaps even be appreciated by those who are not familiar with the language in which it is written:
Achalum sanjaklari! Ghechelim Balkanlari! Allah! Allah! deyerek, Dushman kanin' ichelim! Padishahmiz chok yasha! Ghazi Osman chok yasha![109]
Let us now turn to Italy and Greece, the nations from which modern Europe inherits most of its ideas, and which have furnished the greater part of the models in which those ideas are expressed, whether in prose or in verse.
Although lines from Virgil, who may almost be said to have created Roman Imperialism, have been found scribbled on the walls of Pompeii, it is probable that in his day no popular poetry, in the sense in which we should understand the word, existed. But there is something extremely pathetic—more especially in the days when the Empire was hastening to its ruin—in the feeling, little short of adoration, which the Latin poets showed to the city of Rome, and in the overweening confidence which they evinced in the stability of Roman rule. This feeling runs through the whole of Latin literature from the days of Ovid and Virgil to the fifth-century Rutilius, who was the last of the classic poets. Virgil speaks of Rome as "the mistress of the world" (maxima rerum Roma). Claudian deified Rome, "O numen amicum et legum genetrix," and Rutilius wrote:
Exaudi, regina tui pulcherrima mundi, Inter sidereos Roma recepta polos, Exaudi, genetrix hominum, genetrixque deorum, Non procul a caelo per tua templa sumus.
Modern Italians have made ample amends for any lack of purely popular poetry which may have prevailed in the days of their ancestors. It would, indeed, have been strange if the enthusiasm for liberty which arose in the ranks of a highly gifted and emotional nation such as the Italians had not found expression in song. When the proper time came, Giusti, Carducci, Mameli, Gordigiani, and scores of others voiced the patriotic sentiments of their countrymen. They all dwelt on the theme embodied in the stirring Garibaldian hymn:
Va fuori d'Italia! Va fuori, o stranier!
It will suffice to quote, as an example of the rest, one stanza from an "Inno di Guerra" chosen at random from a collection of popular poetry published at Turin in 1863:
Coraggio ... All' armi, all' armi, O fanti e cavalieri, Snudiamo ardenti e fieri, Snudiam l'invitto acciar! Dall' Umbria mesto e oppresso Ci chiama il pio fratello, Rispondasi all' appello, Corriamo a guerreggiar!
The cramping isolation of the city-states of ancient Greece arrested the growth of Hellenic nationalism, and therefore precluded the birth of any genuinely nationalist poetry. But it only required the occasion to arise in order to give birth to patriotic song. Such an occasion was furnished when, under the pressing danger of Asiatic invasion, some degree of Hellenic unity and cohesion was temporarily achieved. Then the tuneful Simonides recorded the raising of an altar to "Zeus, the free man's god, a fair token of freedom for Hellas."
In more modern times the long struggle for Greek independence produced a crop of poets who, if they could not emulate the dignity and linguistic elegance of their predecessors, were none the less able to express their national aspirations in rugged but withal very tuneful verse which went straight to the hearts of their countrymen. The Klephtic ballads played a very important part in rousing the Greek spirit during the Graeco-Turkish war at the beginning of the last century. The fine ode of the Zantiote Solomos has been adopted as the national anthem, whilst the poetry of another Ionian, Aristotle Valaorites, and of numerous others glows with genuine and perfervid patriotism. But perhaps the greatest nationalist poet that modern Greece has produced was Rhigas Pheraios, who, as proto-martyr in the Greek cause, was executed by the Turks in 1798, with the prophecy on his dying lips that he had "sown a rich seed, and that the hour was coming when his country would reap its glorious fruits." His Greek Marseillaise ([Greek: Deute paides ton Hellenon]) is known to Englishmen through Byron's translation, "Sons of the Greeks, arise, etc." But the glorious lilt and swing of his Polemisterion, though probably familiar to every child in Greece, is less known in this country. The lines,
[Greek: kallitera mias horas eleuthere zoe, para saranta chronon sklabia kai phylake,]
recall to the mind Tennyson's
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
[Footnote 109:
Let us unfurl the standards! Let us cross the Balkans! Shouting "Allah! Allah!" Let us drink the blood of the foe! Long live our Padishah! Long live Ghazi Osman! ]
XXIX
SONGS, NAVAL AND MILITARY
"The Spectator," September 20, 1913
A British Aeschylus, were such a person conceivable, might very fitly tell his countrymen, in the words addressed to Prometheus some twenty-three centuries ago, that they would find no friend more staunch than Oceanus:
[Greek: ou gar pot' ereis hos Okeanou philos esti bebaioteros soi.]
In truth, the whole national life of England is summed up in the fine lines of Swinburne:
All our past comes wailing in the wind, And all our future thunders in the sea.
The natural instincts of a maritime nation are brought out in strong relief throughout the whole of English literature, from its very birth down to the present day. The author of "The Lay of Beowulf," whoever he may have been, rivalled Homer in the awe-stricken epithets he applied to the "immense stream of ocean murmuring with foam" (Il. xviii. 402). "Then," he wrote, "most like a bird, the foamy-necked floater went wind-driven over the sea-wave; ... the sea-timber thundered; the wind over the billows did not hinder the wave-floater in her course; the sea-goer put forth; forth over the flood floated she, foamy-necked, over the sea-streams, with wreathed prow until they could make out the cliffs of the Goths."
Although the claim of Alfred the Great to be the founder of the British navy is now generally rejected by historians, it is certain that from the very earliest times the need of dominating the sea was present in the minds of Englishmen, and that this feeling gained in strength as the centuries rolled on and the value of sea-power became more and more apparent. In a poem entitled "The Libel of English Policy," which is believed to have been written about the year 1436, the following lines occur:
Kepe then the see abought in specialle, Whiche of England is the rounde walle; As thoughe England were lykened to a cite. And the walle enviroun were the see. Kepe then the see, that is the walle of England, And then is England kepte by Goddes sonde.
A long succession of poets dwelt on the same theme. Waller—presumably during a Royalist phase of his chequered career—addressed the King in lines which forestalled the very modern political idea that a powerful British navy is not only necessary for the security of England, but also affords a guarantee for the peace of all the world:
Where'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings.
Thomson's "Rule, Britannia," was not composed till 1740, but before that time the heroism displayed both by the navy collectively and by individual sailors was frequently celebrated in popular verse. The death of Admiral Benbow, who continued to give orders after his leg had been carried off by a chain-shot at the battle of Carthagena in 1702, is recorded in the lines:
While the surgeon dressed his wounds Thus he said, thus he said, While the surgeon dressed his wounds thus he said: "Let my cradle now in haste On the quarter-deck be placed, That my enemies I may face Till I'm dead, till I'm dead."
But it was more especially the long struggle with Napoleon that led to an outburst of naval poetry. It is to the national feelings current during this period that we owe such songs as "The Bay of Biscay, O," by Andrew Cherry; "Hearts of Oak," by David Garrick[110]; "The Saucy Arethusa," by Prince Hoare; "A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea," by Allan Cunningham; "Ye Mariners of England," by Thomas Campbell, and a host of others. Amongst this nautical choir, Charles Dibdin, who was born in 1745, stands pre-eminent. Sir Cyprian Bridge, in his introduction to Mr. Stone's collection of Sea Songs, tells us that it is doubtful whether Dibdin's songs "were ever very popular on the forecastle." The really popular songs, he thinks, were of a much more simple type, and were termed "Fore-bitters," from the fact that the man who sang them took his place on the fore-bitts, "a stout construction of timber near the foremast, through which many of the principal ropes were led." However this may be, there cannot be the smallest doubt that Dibdin's songs exercised a very powerful effect on landsmen, and contributed greatly to foster national pride in the navy and popular sympathy with sailors. It was presumably a cordial recognition of this fact that led Pitt to grant him a pension. It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive poetry more calculated to make the chord of national sentiment vibrate responsively than "Tom Bowling" or that well-known song in which Dibdin depicted at once the high sense of duty and the rough, albeit affectionate, love-making of "Poor Jack":
I said to our Poll, for, d'ye see, she would cry, When last we made anchor for sea, What argufies sniv'ling and piping your eye? Why, what a damn'd fool you must be! . . . . . As for me in all weathers, all times, tides and ends, Nought's a trouble from duty that springs, For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino my friend's, And as for my life it's the King's; Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft As for grief to be taken aback, For the same little cherub that sits up aloft Will look out a good berth for poor Jack!
Pride in the navy and its commanders is breathed forth in the following eulogy of Admiral Jervis (Lord St. Vincent):
You've heard, I s'pose, the people talk Of Benbow and Boscawen, Of Anson, Pocock, Vernon, Hawke, And many more then going; All pretty lads, and brave, and rum, That seed much noble service; But, Lord, their merit's all a hum, Compared to Admiral Jervis!
"Tom Tough" is an example of the same spirit:
I've sailed with gallant Howe, I've sailed with noble Jervis, And in valiant Duncan's fleet I've sung yo, heave ho! Yet more ye shall be knowing, I was cox'n to Boscawen, And even with brave Hawke have I nobly faced the foe.
Perfervid patriotism and ardent loyalty find expression in the following swinging lines:
Some drank our Queen, and some our land, Our glorious land of freedom; Some that our tars might never stand For heroes brave to lead 'em! That beauty in distress might find Such friends as ne'er would fail her; But the standing toast that pleased the most Was—the wind that blows, the ship that goes, And the lass that loves the sailor!
The whole-hearted Gallophobia which prevailed at the period, but which did not preclude generous admiration for a gallant foe, finds, of course, adequate expression in most of the songs of the period. Thus an unknown author, who, it is believed, lived at the commencement rather than at the close of the eighteenth century, wrote:
Stick stout to orders, messmates, We'll plunder, burn, and sink, Then, France, have at your first-rates, For Britons never shrink: We'll rummage all we fancy, We'll bring them in by scores, And Moll and Kate and Nancy Shall roll in louis-d'ors.
It was long before this spirit died out. Twenty-two years after the battle of Waterloo, when, on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Victoria, Marshal Soult visited England and it was suggested that the Duke of Wellington should propose the health of the French army at a public dinner, he replied: "D—— 'em. I'll have nothing to do with them but beat them."
Inspiriting songs, such as "When Johnny comes marching home" and "The British Grenadiers," which, Mr. Stone informs us, "cannot be older than 1678, when the Grenadier Company was formed, and not later than 1714, when hand-grenades were discontinued," abundantly testify to the fact that the British soldier has also not lacked poets to vaunt his prowess. Many of the military songs have served as a distinct stimulus to recruiting, and possibly some of them were written with that express object in view. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his preface to Mr. Stone's collection of War Songs, says, "The Royal Fusiliers are the heroes of a modern but inspiriting song, 'Fighting with the 7th Royal Fusiliers.' It was composed in the early 'nineties, and produced such an overwhelming rush of recruits that the authorities could easily, had they so chosen, have raised several additional battalions." The writer of the present article remembers in his childhood to have learnt the following lines from his old nurse, who was the widow of a corporal in the army employed in the recruiting service:
'Twas in the merry month of May, When bees from flower to flower do hum, And soldiers through the town march gay, And villagers flock to the sound of the drum. Young Roger swore he'd leave his plough, His team and tillage all begun; Of country life he'd had enow, He'd leave it all and follow the drum.
The British military has perhaps been somewhat less happily inspired than the naval muse. Nevertheless the army can boast of some good poetry. "Why, soldiers, why?" the authorship of which is sometimes erroneously attributed to Wolfe, is a fine song, and the following lines written by an unknown author after the crushing blow inflicted on Lord Galway's force at Almanza, in 1707, display that absence of discouragement after defeat which is perhaps one of the most severe tests by which the discipline and spirit of an army can be tried:
Let no brave soldier be dismayed For losing of a battle; We have more forces coming on Will make Jack Frenchman rattle.
Abundant evidence might be adduced to show that the British soldier is amenable to poetic influences. Sir Adam Fergusson, writing to Sir Walter Scott on August 31, 1811, said that the canto of the Lady of the Lake describing the stag hunt "was the favourite among the rough sons of the fighting Third Division," and Professor Courthope in his History of English Poetry quotes the following passage from Lockhart's Life of Scott:
When the Lady of the Lake first reached Sir Adam Fergusson, he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery; somewhere no doubt on the lines of Torres Vedras. The men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground; while they kept that attitude, the Captain, kneeling at their head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza whenever the French shot struck the bank close above them.
Finally, before leaving this subject, it may be noted that amidst the verse, sometimes pathetic and sometimes rollicking, which appealed more especially to the naval and military temperament, there occasionally cropped up a political allusion which is very indicative of the state of popular feeling at the time the songs were composed. Thus the following, from a song entitled "A cruising we will go," shows the unpopularity of the war waged against the United States in 1812:
Be Britain to herself but true, To France defiance hurled; Give peace, America, with you, And war with all the world.
The sixteenth-century Spaniards embodied a somewhat similar maxim of State policy as applied to England in the following distich, the principle of which was, however, flagrantly violated by that fervent Catholic, Philip II.:
Con todo el mundo guerra Y paz con Inglaterra.
[Footnote 110: Since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that Garrick's song was composed during the Seven Years' War (1756-63).]
INDEX
Abu'l'Ala, 65
Acton, Lord, and the Turks, 80, 223, 266
Acton, Lord, on the making of history, 432
Adrianople, occupation of, 411
Akbar, Emperor, 40
Alexandria, society at, 228
Alfred the Great, 450
Algeria, French in, 250-263
Alison, 216
Alliteration, 71
Almanza, song on defeat at, 456
America and Free Trade, 134, 138
America, war with, in 1812, unpopularity of, 457
Amherst, Lord, occupies Burma, 288
Anarchy, 20
Ancient Art and Ritual, 361-371
Andrade, Colonel Freire d', 380, 383, 384
Anglo-French Agreement of 1904, 162, 167
Anglo-Saxon individualism, 15
Anthology, translations from, 72
Anthropology, bases of, 364
Antigonus Gonatas, 351
Anti-Slavery Society, 373
Apollo Belvedere, 370
Aratus of Sicyon, 358
Army reform, 107-126
Arndt, national poetry, 443
Arthur, Sir George, 123
Asoka, 355
Assouan dam, 296
Athenaeus, on dancing, 370
Attwood, Mr. Charles, 196
Aulard, M., on Taine, 430
Aurengzebe, 73
Australia, field of anthropology, 365
Bacchylides, 65
Bacon, 31
Barere, 299
Barth, Dr., on Hinduism, 88
Beaconsfield, Lord, and Egypt, 203
Beaconsfield, Lord, and Empress of India, 422
Bembo, Cardinal, 56
Benbow, Admiral, death of, 451
Beowulf, on the sea, 450
Berthier, Marshal, 279
Bismarck, Prince, on statesmanship, 251
Bleak House, 119
Blennerhassett, Lady, 427-438
Bluecher, Marshal, hallucinations of, 285
Blunt, Mr. Wilfrid, 81
Bodley, Mr., on French administration, 436
Boell, M. Paul, 418
Bolingbroke, 182
Bossuet, definition of heretic, 307
Boufflers, Madame de, 231
Brahmanism, Sir A. Lyall on, 89
Bright, John, and Disraeli, 183
British officials and parliamentary institutions, 27
Browning, Mrs., 60
Brunnow, Baron, and the Balkan States, 275
Bryce, Mr., on the writing of history, 214
Budget system, 44
Buffon, on style, 184
Bugeaud, Marshal, 257
Bureaucracy, Continental, 29
Burgoyne, Sir John, 281
Burke, on fiscal symmetry, 39
Burma, 287-297
Butcher, Dr. S, on Eastern politics, 26
Cabarrus, La (Madame Tallien), 298-306
Cambronne, 298
Campbell, Lord, Disraeli on, 186
Canada and Free Trade, 131
Capitulations in Egypt, 156-174
Capo d'Istria, Count, 271
Cardwell, Lord, 109, 116, 117, 119
Carlyle, 219
"Carmagnole," the, 442
Cavagnari, Major, murder of, 100
Cavour, 269, 272
Centralisation, 34
Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 244, 248
China, 141-155
Chinese labour, 147
Chinese War of 1860, 120
Chitnavis, Sir Gangadhar, 334, 335
Chremonides, 357, 358
Christianity, effect on Roman Empire, 7-19, 52, 53
Claudian on duration of Roman Empire, 1
Clinton, Mr. Fynes, 216
Cobden, Mr., 127
Cobdenism, abuse of, 328
Coleridge, on poetry, 59
Coleridge, on prose, 55
Collier, Jeremy, on Cranmer's death, 56
Commerce and Imperialism, 11
Confucianism, 143, 153
Constantinople, foundation of, 7
Constitutions in the East, 141
Cornwallis, Lord, 36
Corvee in Egypt, 396
Cory, Mr. William, 69
Cowley's translation of Claudian, 67
Creighton, 222
Crewe, Marquis of, 330
Crimean War and India, 410
Crowe, Sir Eyre, 375
Curiales, Fiscal Oppression of, 21
Curtius Rufinus, 356
Curtius, Professor, on the Greek language, 226
Curzon, Lord, on army affairs, 243
Cyprus, occupation of, 276, 413
Danton, 302, 303
Deffand, Madame du, 212
Delhi, transfer of Indian Capital to, 424
Delos, possession of, 358
Demetrius, on style, 227
Democracy and Imperialism, 23
Democritus, epigram of, 231
Demolins, M., on Anglo-Saxons, 15, 28
Demosthenes, Professor Bury, on oratory, 57
Derby, Lord, the Rupert of debate, 184
Dibdin, 452-454
Didactic poetry, 61
Dietzel, Professor, 137, 337
Dino, Duchesse de, 59
Disraeli, 177-203
Dithyramb, meaning of word, 361
Dostoievsky, 205, 210
Draga, Queen, 271
Dryden, on translation, 55
Duckworth, Admiral, 270
Dufferin, Lord, and Egypt, 25, 160
East India Company, policy of, 17
Education in China, 150
Egypt, recent history of, 253
Emerson, 54
Emerson, on inconsistency, 243
Empedocles, translation of, 62
Emu Man, 362
England and Islam, 407-415
English individualism, 30
Ennius, 345
Epicharmus, 82
Esquimaux tug of-war, 363
Euhemerism, 89
Exarch, Bulgarian, 268
Expropriation under Roman law, 41
Famines in India, 146
Farrer, Lord, on trade, 12
Ferry, M. Jules, and Burma, 290
Finance of Roman Empire, 36
Fisher, Mr., on Napoleonic Statesmanship, 436
Flag for India, 423
"Fore-bitters," 452
Forest Department, Burmese, 294
Fouche, 305
Free Trade, international aspects of, 127-140
Froude, 219
Gardiner, historian of the Stuart period, 221
George IV. and Napoleon, 282
German word-coining, 70
Gibbon and the sciences, 308
Gladstone, Mr., translations, 63
Gogol, 211
Gooch, Mr., 214
Gordon, General, and the Mahdi, 101-102
Goschen, Lord, and Disraeli, 198
Government of Subject Races, 1-53
Graham, Sir James, 192
Grant, Sir Hope, as a musician, 284
Greek adjectives, 70
Greek drama, 366
Greek joyousness, 212
Gregorovius on foreign rule, 84
Grenadiers, British, 455
Grey, Sir Edward, 168, 411, 412
Grey, Sir Edward, definition of slavery, 387, 391, 393
Grey, Sir Edward, diplomatic success of, 276
Grey, Sir Edward, on the Balkan Peninsula, 407
Griboiedof, 210
Grundy, Dr., translations, 232
Guizot, 217
Hacklaender, on European slave life, 386
Hamilton, Alexander, 138
Hamilton, Lord George, on Sir Alfred Lyall, 92
Harrison, Miss, 361-371
Havelock's love of Homer, 359
Headlam, Dr., 68
Heliogabalus, the Emperor, 299
Helps, Sir Arthur, on inaccuracy, 373
Hermann, Professor, 311
Herrick, translation of, 68
Hieronymus, 354
History, the writing of, 214-225
Hodgkin, Dr. Thomas, 1, 7, 20, 36, 347
Homer's women, 315
Humanitarianism, 378
Hunkiar-Iskelesi, Treaty of, 271
Ilbert Bill, 94
Imperial schools of thought, 10
Imperialism, Mr. Mallik on, 321
Imperialist, profession of faith of, 1
India Council, 33
India, Customs duties in, 329
India, Fiscal Question in, 327-339
Indian Frontier policy, 47-49
Indian Problems, 416-426
Indiction, Roman, 36
Ion, Dr. Verrall on, 314
Ireland, Disraeli's opinion on, 193-194
Islam, influence of, 347
Italian patriotic poetry, 446
Jaray, M., 165
Jebb, Professor, on the humanities, 308
Jervis, Admiral, 453
Judicial reform in Algeria, 258
Julian the Apostate, 353
Jute, duty on, 336
Keats, on Melancholy, 60
Kennedy, Mr., translations, 68
Kitchener, Viscount, 114, 169, 174, 255
Klephtic ballads, 447
Labour, free, at San Thome, 400
Lacretelle and Madame Tallien, 301
Lamartine, 218
Lamb on sanity of genius, 61
Land revenue system in India, 42-45
Land tax in Eastern countries, 40
Lanfrey, 218
Lawrence, Lord, Afghan policy, 100
Lawrence, Lord, Central Asian policy, 47
Lawrence, Lord, on Indian Taxation, 45
Lawson's Greek Folk-Lore, 368
Le Bon, M., on national characteristics, 429
Lear, Edward, in Italy, 142
Lecky, on morals in politics, 19
Legislation in India, 39
Lermontof, 210
Lessing and Greece, 312
Lethbridge, Sir Roper, 327-339
"Lillibullero," 439
List, Friedrich, on Free Trade, 131
Livingstone, Dr., on Portuguese, 11
Lucian, 56
Lucretius, Dryden's translation of, 62
Luther, hymn by, 441
Lyall, Sir Alfred, 77-103
Lyall, Sir Alfred, on uniformity, 350
Lycidas, Professor Walker on, 60
Lycon, the philosopher, 354
Lytton, Earl of, 99
Macaulay, partiality of, 221
MacDonald, Mr. Ramsay, 417
Mahabharata, 419
Mahaffy, Professor, 229
Mahdi, the, Sir Alfred Lyall on, 101
Mahmoud II., 270
Maine, Sir Henry, 96
Mallik, Mr., 317-326
Manchester School, Disraeli on, 194
Manipur massacres, 91
Marie Antoinette, 242
Marquardt, 216
"Maryland, my Maryland," 443
Massena, Marshal, 279
Maurice, Sir Frederick, 360
McIlwraith, Sir Malcolm, 360
Meath, Earl of, 424
Mecca, importance of, 409
Melbourne, Lord, 185
Militarism, 126
Miller, Mr., 264-276
Millet, M. Philippe, 259-262
Milner, Viscount, and Party, 237-249
Mindon, King of Burma, 289
Missionaries in China, 147
Mitford, 216
Mitra, Mr. S.M., 416-426
Mommsen, 216
Montalembert, 218
Mookerjee, Sir Rajendra, 419, 426
Moslems in India, 407
Motley, 219
Napoleon, a bad shot, 279
Napoleon and Corsica, 433
Napoleon and Count Chaptal, 349
Napoleon and the Ottoman Empire, 264
Napoleon and the battle of Vittoria, 437
Napoleon, Roederer on, 92-93
Napoleon, Taine on, 348, 427-438
Napoleon's patent of nobility, 355
Napoleon, Joseph, 437
Newbolt, Mr., 91
Nicholson, Professor Shield, 135
Nietzsche, on Greek simplicity, 227
Northbrook, Lord, 118
Novelists, political influence of, 208
Ottoman Empire, 264-276
Ouvrard, the Banker, 306
Pakenham, Miss (Duchess of Wellington), 283
Palisse, M de la, 442
Palmerston, Lord, and the Eastern question, 274
Paradise Lost and Euripides, 66
Paris Commune, 20
Party system, 240
Pauperisation of Roman Proletariat, 19
Peacock, T.L., on education, 310
Peasant proprietorship, 197
Peel, Sir Robert, 185, 190, 192
Peel, Sir Robert, on Free Trade, 199-202
Peel, Sir Robert, unpopularity, 202
Pericles and public works, 296
Pericles, metaphor of, 58
Philip II., 457
Physiocrates, 16
Pitt, on British trade, 11
Plagiarism, 65
Plato, epitaph by, 235
Plevna, defence of, 272
Poe, Edgar, 60
Poetry, Aristotelian canon, 229
Polemisterion, 448
Polish Diet, 173
Poole, Mr. Stanley Lane-, 149
"Poor Jack," 453
"Popkins's plan," 186
Portuguese in Africa, 11
Portuguese slavery, 372-406
Pouchkine, 210
Principe, Island of, 398
Prote, epitaph on, 236
Prudentius, epitaph on Julian, 353
Ptolemy Keraunos, 357
Pyrrhus, 352
Rangoon, 290
Rao, Sir Dinkur, 84
Redmond, Mr., 143
Red River campaign, 112
Reid, Mr., 340
Rhigas Pheraios, 447
Ridgeway, Professor, 365
Ripon, Marquis of, 98, 331
Robespierre, 300, 302, 303, 305
Roebuck, Mr. Disraeli on, 186
Roman Empire, cause of downfall, 7
Rome and Municipal Government, 340-350
"Rosa Rosarum," 234
Round Table, article in, 246
Rump, Herr, 152
Russian Romance, 204-213
Rutilius on power of Rome, 445
Sainte-Beuve, 217
St. Cyr, Marshal, as a musician, 284
St. Ovinus, epitaph on, 58
St.-Victor, Paul de, 57
Salisbury, Marquis of, 173
Salisbury, Marquis of, and immigrant coolies, 405
Salisbury, Marquis of, foreign policy, 101, 123
Salisbury, Marquis of, and Turkey, 265
Sappho, translation of, 67
Scott, Sir George, 291, 294, 295, 297
Scott, Sir Walter, advice to Shelley, 285
Scott, Sir Walter, Carlyle on, 219
Scott, Sir Walter, influence of his poetry on soldiers, 456
Seeley, Sir Thomas, 223
Sharaki lands in Egypt, 42
Shelburne, Lord, 182
Shelley, on translating, 59
Shelley, Lady, 277-286
Silva, Carlos de, 389, 391
Slavery, 19
Smallbones, Mr., 386, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 403, 406
Smith, Dr. Adam, 16
Smith, Rev. Sydney, 142
Songs, Naval and Military, 449-457
Songs, Patriotic and National, 439
Soudan, campaign of 1896-98, 112
Soudan, commercial policy in, 139
Soudan, slavery in the, 379
Stael, Madame de, and Napoleon, 434
Still, Bishop, 441
Stratonice, 356
Sultans not rightful Caliphs, 409
Surgeon, the, and the soldier, 111
Swadeshi movement in India, 86
Swift, Dean, 208
Swinburne, on the sea, 449
Symmons, Dr., on blank verse, 62
Szechuan Railway Company, 151
Taine, on Napoleon, 427
Tallien, 298-306
Tariff wars, 137
Tell, William, legend of, 217
Tenasserim and E.I. Co. directors, 288
Tennyson and Euripides, 65, 81
Themistocles, saying of, 341
Theodosius, 84
Thibaw, King of Burma, 289
Thiers on French Conservatism, 197
Tiberius, 349
Tolstoy, 212
Toryism, middle-class, 196
Tourguenef, 211
Translation and Paraphrase, 54-73
Turgot on corporate bodies, 18
Turkish war-song, 444
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 208
Usury in the East, 43
Utilitarianism, 309
Vandal, M., 142
Vasconcellos, Senhor, 383, 404
Vauvenargues, 65
Venezelos, M., 269
Verrall, Dr., 312-316
Viceroy of India and his Council, 33
Voguee, M. de, 204
Voltaire, 209, 434
Waller, on the British Navy, 451
Walpole, Sir Robert, 240
War Office, 115
Wellington, Duke of, and the Ottoman Empire, 264
Wellington, Duke of, as a musician, 284
Wellington, Duke of, at Waterloo, 284
Wellington, Duke of, hatred of French, 454
Wellington, Duke of, on Cambronne, 298
Wellington, Duke of, on India, 10
Wellingtoniana, 277-286
Wensleydale, Lord, translation by, 67
Wilson, Sir Fleetwood, 332, 338
Wingfield, Mr., 402, 404
Wolfe, General, 359
Wolseley, Viscount, 107
Wolseley, Viscount, and Sir Frederick Maurice, 360
Wrede, Generals and Napoleon, 433
Wyllie, Colonel, 392, 398, 399, 401, 405
THE END
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