Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851

"I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.
Their colours and their forms were thus to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed. I have learned
To look on nature not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

Our poet sounds all the chords. He does not muffle any; he honours Nature in her own simple loveliness, and in the beauty she wins from the human heart, as well as when she is informed with that sublime spirit

"that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

Sit down, by all means, amongst the fern and the wild-flowers, and look out upon the blue hills, or near you at the flowing brook, and thank God, the giver of all this beauty. But what manner of good will you do by endeavouring to persuade yourself that these objects are only beautiful because you give thanks for them? – for to this strange logical inversion will you find yourself reduced. And surely you learned to esteem and love this benevolence itself, first as a human attribute, before you became cognisant of it as a Divine attribute. What other course can the mind take but to travel through humanity up to God?

There is much more of metaphysics in the volume before us; there is, in particular, an elaborate investigation of the faculty of imagination; but we have no inducement to proceed further with Mr Ruskin in these psychological inquiries. We have given some attention to his theory of the Beautiful, because it lay at the basis of a series of critical works which, partly from their boldness, and partly from the talent of a certain kind which is manifestly displayed in them, have attained to considerable popularity. But we have not the same object for prolonging our examination into his theory of the Imaginative Faculty. "We say it advisedly," (as Mr Ruskin always adds when he is asserting anything particularly rash,) we say it advisedly, and with no rashness whatever, that though our author is a man of great natural ability, and enunciates boldly many an independent isolated truth, yet of the spirit of philosophy he is utterly destitute. The calm, patient, prolonged thinking, which Dugald Stewart somewhere describes as the one essential characteristic of the successful student of philosophy, he knows nothing of. He wastes his ingenuity in making knots where others had long since untied them. He rushes at a definition, makes a parade of classification; but for any great and wide generalisation he has no appreciation whatever. He appears to have no taste, but rather an antipathy for it; when it lies in his way he avoids it. On this subject of the Imaginative Faculty he writes and he raves, defines and poetises by turns; makes laborious distinctions where there is no essential difference; has his "Imagination Associative," and his "Imagination Penetrative;" and will not, or cannot, see those broad general principles which with most educated men have become familiar truths, or truisms. But what clear thinking can we expect of a writer who thus describes his "Imagination Penetrative?" —

"It may seem to the reader that I am incorrect in calling this penetrating possession-taking faculty Imagination. Be it so: the name is of little consequence; the Faculty itself, called by what name it will, I insist upon as the highest intellectual power of man. There is no reasoning in it; it works not by algebra, nor by integral calculus; it is a piercing Pholas-like mind's tongue, that works and tastes into the very rock-heart. No matter what be the subject submitted to it, substance or spirit – all is alike divided asunder, joint and marrow, whatever utmost truth, life, principle, it has laid bare; and that which has no truth, life, nor principle, dissipated into its original smoke at a touch. The whispers at men's ears it lifts into visible angels. Vials that have lain sealed in the deep sea a thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them Genii." – (P. 156.)

With such a wonder-working faculty man ought to do much. Indeed, unless it has been asleep all this time, it is difficult to understand why there should remain anything for him to do.

Surveying Mr Ruskin's works on art, with the knowledge we have here acquired of his intellectual character and philosophical theory, we are at no loss to comprehend that mixture of shrewd and penetrating remark, of bold and well-placed censure, and of utter nonsense in the shape of general principles, with which they abound. In his Seven Lamps of Architecture, which is a very entertaining book, and in his Stones of Venice, the reader will find many single observations which will delight him, as well by their justice, as by the zeal and vigour with which they are expressed. But from neither work will he derive any satisfaction if he wishes to carry away with him broad general views on architecture.

There is no subject Mr Ruskin has treated more largely than that of architectural ornament; there is none on which he has said more good things, or delivered juster criticisms; and there is none on which he has uttered more indisputable nonsense. Every reader of taste will be grateful to Mr Ruskin if he can pull down from St Paul's Cathedral, or wherever else they are to be found, those wreaths or festoons of carved flowers – "that mass of all manner of fruit and flowers tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall." Urns with pocket-handkerchiefs upon them, or a sturdy thick flame for ever issuing from the top, he will receive our thanks for utterly demolishing. But when Mr Ruskin expounds his principles – and he always has principles to expound – when he lays down rules for the government of our taste in this matter, he soon involves us in hopeless bewilderment. Our ornaments, he tells us, are to be taken from the works of nature, not of man; and, from some passages of his writings, we should infer that Mr Ruskin would cover the walls of our public buildings with representations botanical and geological. But in this we must be mistaken. At all events, nothing is to be admitted that is taken from the works of man.

"I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that all ornament is base which takes for its subject human work; that it is utterly base – painful to every rightly toned mind, without, perhaps, immediate sense of the reason, but for a reason palpable enough when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it up for admiration, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God's doings."

After this, can we venture to admire the building itself, which is, of necessity, man's own "wretched doing?"

Perplexed by his own rules, he will sometimes break loose from the entanglement in some such strange manner as this: – "I believe the right question to ask, with respect to all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment —was the carver happy while he was about it?" Happy art! where the workman is sure to give happiness if he is but happy at his work. Would that the same could be said of literature!

How far colour should be introduced into architecture is a question with men of taste, and a question which of late has been more than usually discussed. Mr Ruskin leans to the introduction of colour. His taste may be correct; but the fanciful reasoning which he brings to bear upon the subject will assist no one else in forming his own taste. Because there is no connection "between the spots of an animal's skin and its anatomical system," he lays it down as the first great principle which is to guide us in the use of colour in architecture —

"That it be visibly independent of form. Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always cross it. Never give separate mouldings separate colours," &c. "In certain places," he continues, "you may run your two systems closer, and here and there let them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the colours and the forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings do; the same for an instant, but each holding its own course. So single members may sometimes have single colours; as a bird's head is sometimes of one colour, and its shoulders another, you may make your capital one colour, and your shaft another; but, in general, the best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not on the points of interest in form. An animal is mottled on its breast and back, and rarely on its paws and about its eyes; so put your variegation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of it on the capital and moulding." – (Lamps of Architecture, p. 127.)

We do not quite see what we have to do at all with the "anatomical system" of the animal, which is kept out of sight; but, in general, we apprehend there is, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom, considerable harmony betwixt colour and external form. Such fantastic reasoning as this, it is evident, will do little towards establishing that one standard of taste, or that "one school of architecture," which Mr Ruskin so strenuously insists upon. All architects are to resign their individual tastes and predilections, and enrol themselves in one school, which shall adopt one style. We need not say that the very first question – what that style should be, Greek or Gothic – would never be decided. Mr Ruskin decides it in favour of the "earliest English decorated Gothic;" but seems, in this case, to suspect that his decision will not carry us far towards unanimity. The scheme is utterly impossible; but he does his duty, he tells us, by proposing the impossibility.

As a climax to his inconsistency and his abnormal ways of thinking, he concludes his Seven Lamps of Architecture with a most ominous paragraph, implying that the time is at hand when no architecture of any kind will be wanted: man and his works will be both swept away from the face of the earth. How, with this impression on his mind, could he have the heart to tell us to build for posterity? Will it be a commentary on the Apocalypse that we shall next receive from the pen of Mr Ruskin?

PORTUGUESE POLITICS

The dramatic and singular revolution of which Portugal has recently been the theatre, the strange fluctuations and ultimate success of Marshal Saldanha's insurrection, the narrow escape of Donna Maria from at least a temporary expulsion from her dominions, have attracted in this country more attention than is usually bestowed upon the oft-recurring convulsions of the Peninsula. Busy as the present year has been, and abounding in events of exciting interest nearer home, the English public has yet found time to deplore the anarchy to which Portugal is a prey, and to marvel once more, as it many times before has marvelled, at the tardy realisation of those brilliant promises of order, prosperity, and good government, so long held out to the two Peninsular nations by the promoters of the Quadruple Alliance. The statesmen who, for nearly a score of years, have assiduously guided Portugal and Spain in the seductive paths of modern Liberalism, can hardly feel much gratification at the results of their well-intended but most unprosperous endeavours. It is difficult to imagine them contemplating with pride and exultation, or even without a certain degree of self-reproach, the fruits of their officious exertions. Repudiating partisan views of Peninsular politics, putting persons entirely out of the question, declaring our absolute indifference as to who occupies the thrones of Spain and Portugal, so long as those countries are well-governed, casting no imputations upon the motives of those foreign governments and statesmen who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the present state of things south of the Pyrenees, we would look only to facts, and crave an honest answer to a plain question. The question is this: After the lapse of seventeen years, what is the condition of the two nations upon which have been conferred, at grievous expense of blood and treasure, the much vaunted blessings of rulers nominally Liberal, and professedly patriotic? For the present we will confine this inquiry to Portugal, for the reason that the War of Succession terminated in that country when it was but beginning in the neighbouring kingdom, since which time the vanquished party, unlike the Carlists in Spain, have uniformly abstained – with the single exception of the rising in 1846-7 – from armed aggression, and have observed a patient and peaceful policy. So that the Portuguese Liberals have had seventeen years' fair trial of their governing capacity, and cannot allege that their efforts for their country's welfare have been impeded or retarded by the acts of that party whom they denounced as incapable of achieving it, – however they may have been neutralised by dissensions and anarchy in their own ranks.

At this particular juncture of Portuguese affairs, and as no inappropriate preface to the only reply that can veraciously be given to the question we have proposed, it will not be amiss to take a brief retrospective glance at some of the events that preceded and led to the reign of Donna Maria. It will be remembered that from the year 1828 to 1834, the Liberals in both houses of the British Parliament, supported by an overwhelming majority of the British press, fiercely and pertinaciously assailed the government and person of Don Miguel, then de facto King of Portugal, king de jure in the eyes of the Portuguese Legitimists and by the vote of the Legitimate Cortes of 1828, and recognised (in 1829) by Spain, by the United States, and by various inferior powers. Twenty years ago political passions ran high in this country: public men were, perhaps, less guarded in their language; newspapers were certainly far more intemperate in theirs; and we may safely say, that upon no foreign prince, potentate, or politician, has virulent abuse – proceeding from such respectable sources – ever since been showered in England, in one half the quantity in which it then descended upon the head of the unlucky Miguel. Unquestionably Don Miguel had acted, in many respects, neither well nor wisely: his early education had been ill-adapted to the high position he was one day to fill – at a later period of his life he was destined to take lessons of wisdom and moderation in the stern but wholesome school of adversity. But it is also beyond a doubt, now that time has cleared up much which then was purposely garbled and distorted, that the object of all this invective was by no means so black as he was painted, and that his character suffered in England from the malicious calumnies of Pedroite refugees, and from the exaggerated and easily-accepted statements of the Portuguese correspondents of English newspapers. The Portuguese nation, removed from such influence, formed its own opinions from what it saw and observed; and the respect and affection testified, even at the present day, to their dethroned sovereign, by a large number of its most distinguished and respectable members, are the best refutation of the more odious of the charges so abundantly brought against him, and so lightly credited in those days of rampant revolution. It is unnecessary, therefore, to argue that point, even were personal vindication or attack the objects of this article, instead of being entirely without its scope. Against the insupportable oppression exercised by the monster in human form, as which Don Miguel was then commonly depicted in England and France, innumerable engines were directed by the governments and press of those two countries. Insurrections were stirred up in Portugal, volunteers were recruited abroad, irregular military expeditions were encouraged, loans were fomented; money-lenders and stock-jobbers were all agog for Pedro, patriotism, and profit. Orators and newspapers foretold, in glowing speeches and enthusiastic paragraphs, unbounded prosperity to Portugal as the sure consequence of the triumph of the revolutionary party. Rapid progress of civilisation, impartial and economical administration, increase of commerce, development of the country's resources, a perfect avalanche of social and political blessings, were to descend, like manna from heaven, upon the fortunate nation, so soon as the Liberals obtained the sway of its destinies. It were beside our purpose here to investigate how it was that, with such alluring prospects held out to them, the people of Portugal were so blind to their interests as to supply Don Miguel with men and money, wherewith to defend himself for five years against the assaults and intrigues of foreign and domestic enemies. Deprived of support and encouragement from without, he still held his ground; and the formation of a quadruple alliance, including the two most powerful countries in Europe, the enlistment of foreign mercenaries of a dozen different nations, the entrance of a numerous Spanish army, were requisite finally to dispossess him of his crown. The anomaly of the abhorred persecutor and tyrant receiving so much support from his ill-used subjects, even then struck certain men in this country whose names stand pretty high upon the list of clear-headed and experienced politicians, and the Duke of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Lyndhurst, and others, defended Miguel; but their arguments, however cogent, were of little avail against the fierce tide of popular prejudice, unremittingly stimulated by the declamations of the press. To be brief, in 1834 Don Miguel was driven from Portugal; and his enemies, put in possession of the kingdom and all its resources, were at full liberty to realise the salutary reforms they had announced and promised, and for which they had professed to fight. On taking the reins of government, they had everything in their favour; their position was advantageous and brilliant in the highest degree. They enjoyed the prestige of a triumph, undisputed authority, powerful foreign protection and influence. At their disposal was an immense mass of property taken from the church, as well as the produce of large foreign loans. Their credit, too, was then unlimited. Lastly – and this was far from the least of their advantages – they had in their favour the great discouragement and discontent engendered amongst the partisans of the Miguelite government, by the numerous and gross blunders which that government had committed – blunders which contributed even more to its downfall than did the attacks of its foes, or the effects of foreign hostility. In short, the Liberals were complete and undisputed masters of the situation. But, notwithstanding all the facilities and advantages they enjoyed, what has been the condition of Portugal since they assumed the reins? What is its condition at the present day? We need not go far to ascertain it. The wretched plight of that once prosperous little kingdom is deposed to by every traveller who visits it, and by every English journal that has a correspondent there; it is to be traced in the columns of every Portuguese newspaper, and is admitted and deplored by thousands who once were strenuous and influential supporters of the party who promised so much, and who have performed so little that is good. The reign of that party whose battle-cry is, or was, Donna Maria and the Constitution, has been an unbroken series of revolutions, illegalities, peculations, corruptions, and dilapidations. The immense amount of misnamed "national property" (the Infantado and church estates,) which was part of their capital on their accession to power, has disappeared without benefit either to the country or to its creditors. The treasury is empty; the public revenues are eaten up by anticipation; civil and military officers, the court itself, are all in constant and considerable arrears of salaries and pay. The discipline of the troops is destroyed, the soldiers being demoralised by the bad example of their chiefs, including that of Marshal Saldanha himself; for it is one of the great misfortunes of the Peninsula, that there most officers of a certain rank consider their political predilections before their military duty. The "Liberal" party, divided and subdivided, and split into fractions, whose numbers fluctuate at the dictates of interest or caprice, presents a lamentable spectacle of anarchy and inconsistency; whilst the Queen herself, whose good intentions we by no means impugn, has completely forfeited, as a necessary consequence of the misconduct of her counsellors, and of the sufferings the country has endured under her reign, whatever amount of respect, affection, and influence the Portuguese nation may once have been disposed to accord her. Such is the sad picture now presented by Portugal; and none whose acquaintance with facts renders them competent to judge, will say that it is overcharged or highly coloured.

The party in Portugal who advocate a return to the ancient constitution,[7 - It is desirable here to explain that the old constitution of Portugal, whose restoration is the main feature of the scheme of the National or Royalist party, (it assumes both names,) gave the right of voting at the election of members of the popular assembly to every man who had a hearth of his own – whether he occupied a whole house or a single room – in fact, to all heads of families and self-supporting persons. Such extent of suffrage ought surely to content the most democratic, and certainly presents a strong contrast to the farce of national representation which has been so long enacting in the Peninsula.] under which the country flourished – which fell into abeyance towards the close of the seventeenth century, but which it is now proposed to revive, as preferable to, and practically more liberal than, the present system – and who adopt as a banner, and couple with this scheme, the name of Don Miguel de Bragança, have not unnaturally derived great accession of strength, both moral and numerical, from the faults and dissensions of their adversaries. At the present day there are few things which the European public, and especially that of this country, sooner becomes indifferent to, and loses sight of, than the person and pretensions of a dethroned king; and owing to the lapse of years, to his unobtrusive manner of life, and to the storm of accusations amidst which he made his exit from power, Don Miguel would probably be considered, by those persons in this country who remember his existence, as the least likely member of the royal triumvirate, now assembled in Germany, to exchange his exile for a crown. But if we would take a fair and impartial view of the condition of Portugal, and calculate, as far as is possible in the case of either of the two Peninsular nations, the probabilities and chances of the future, we must not suffer ourselves to be run away with by preconceived prejudices, or to be influenced by the popular odium attached to a name. After beholding the most insignificant and unpromising of modern pretenders suddenly elevated to the virtual sovereignty – however transitory it may prove – of one of the most powerful and civilised of European nations, it were rash to denounce as impossible any restoration or enthronement. And it were especially rash so to do when with the person of the aspirant to the throne a nation is able to connect a reasonable hope of improvement in its condition. Of the principle of legitimacy we here say nothing, for it were vain to deny that in Europe it is daily less regarded, whilst it sinks into insignificance when put in competition with the rights and wellbeing of the people.

As far back as the period of its emigration, the Pedroite or Liberal party split into two fractions. One of these believed in the possible realisation of those ultra-liberal theories so abundantly promulgated in the proclamations, manifestoes, preambles of laws, &c., which Don Pedro issued from the Brazils, from England and France, and afterwards from Terceira and Oporto. The other fraction of the party had sanctioned the promulgation of these utopian theories as a means of delusion, and as leading to their own triumph; but they deemed their realisation impossible, and were quite decided, when the revolutionary tide should have borne them into power, to oppose to the unruly flood the barrier of a gradual but steady reaction. At a later period these divisions of the Liberal party became more distinctly defined, and resulted, in 1836, in their nominal classification as Septembrists and Chartists – the latter of whom (numerically very weak, but comprising Costa Cabral, and other men of talent and energy) may be compared to the Moderados of Spain – the former to the Progresistas, but with tendencies more decidedly republican. It is the ambitious pretensions, the struggles for power and constant dissensions of these two sets of men, and of the minor fractions into which they have subdivided themselves, that have kept Portugal for seventeen years in a state of anarchy, and have ended by reducing her to her present pitiable condition. So numerous are the divisions, so violent the quarrels of the two parties, that their utter dissolution appears inevitable; and it is in view of this that the National party, as it styles itself, which inscribes upon its flag the name of Don Miguel – not as an absolute sovereign, but with powers limited by legitimate constitutional forms, to whose strict observance they bind him as a condition of their support, and of his continuance upon the throne upon which they hope to place him – uplifts its head, reorganises its hosts, and more clearly defines its political principles. Whilst Chartists and Septembrists tear each other to pieces, the Miguelites not only maintain their numerical importance, but, closing their ranks and acting in strict unity, they give constant proofs of adhesion to Don Miguel as personifying a national principle, and at the same time give evidence of political vitality by the activity and progress of their ideas, which are adapting themselves to the Liberal sentiments and theories of the times.[8 - The principal Miguelite papers, A Nação (Lisbon,) and O Portugal (Oporto,) both of them highly respectable journals, conducted with much ability and moderation, unceasingly reiterate, whilst exposing the vices and corruption of the present system, their aversion to despotism, and their desire for a truly liberal and constitutional government.] And it were flying in the face of facts to deny that this party comprehends a very important portion of the intelligence and respectability of the nation. It ascribes to itself an overwhelming majority in the country, and asserts that five-sixths of the population of Portugal would joyfully hail its advent to power. This of course must be viewed as an ex-parte statement, difficult for foreigners to verify or refute. But of late there have been no lack of proofs that a large proportion of the higher orders of Portuguese are steadfast in their aversion to the government of the "Liberals," and in their adherence to him whom they still, after his seventeen years' dethronement, persist in calling their king, and whom they have supported, during his long exile, by their willing contributions. It is fresh in every one's memory that, only the other day, twenty five peers, or successors of peers, who had been excluded by Don Pedro from the peerage for having sworn allegiance to his brother, having been reinstated and invited to take their seats in the Chamber, signed and published a document utterly rejecting the boon. Some hundreds of officers of the old army of Don Miguel, who are living for the most part in penury and privation, were invited to demand from Saldanha the restitution of their grades, which would have entitled them to the corresponding pay. To a man they refused, and protested their devotion to their former sovereign. A new law of elections, with a very extended franchise – nearly amounting, it is said, to universal suffrage – having been the other day arbitrarily decreed by the Saldanha cabinet (certainly a most unconstitutional proceeding,) and the government having expressed a wish that all parties in the kingdom should exercise the electoral right, and give their votes for representatives in the new parliament, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of the Miguelites was convened at Lisbon. This meeting voted, with but two dissentient voices, a resolution of abstaining from all share in the elections, declaring their determination not to sanction, by coming forward either as voters or candidates, a system and an order of things which they utterly repudiated as illegal, oppressive, and forced upon the nation by foreign interference. The same resolution was adopted by large assemblages in every province of the kingdom. At various periods, during the last seventeen years, the Portuguese government has endeavoured to inveigle the Miguelites into the representative assembly, doubtless hoping that upon its benches they would be more accessible to seduction, or easier to intimidate. It is a remarkable and significant circumstance, that only in one instance (in the year 1842) have their efforts been successful, and that the person who was then induced so to deviate from the policy of his party, speedily gave unmistakable signs of shame and regret. Bearing in mind the undoubted and easily proved fact that the Miguelites, whether their numerical strength be or be not as great as they assert, comprise a large majority of the clergy, of the old nobility, and of the most highly educated classes of the nation, their steady and consistent refusal to sanction the present order of things, by their presence in its legislative assembly, shows a unity of purpose and action, and a staunch and dogged conviction, which cannot but be disquieting to their adversaries, and over which it is impossible lightly to pass in an impartial review of the condition and prospects of Portugal.

We have already declared our determination here to attach importance to the persons of none of the four princes and princesses who claim or occupy the thrones of Spain and Portugal, except in so far as they may respectively unite the greatest amount of the national suffrage and adhesion. As regards Don Miguel, we are far from exaggerating his personal claims – the question of legitimacy being here waived. His prestige out of Portugal is of the smallest, and certainly he has never given proofs of great talents, although he is not altogether without kingly qualities, nor wanting in resolution and energy; whilst his friends assert, and it is fair to admit as probable, that he has long since repented and abjured the follies and errors of his youth. But we cannot be blind to the fact of the strong sympathy and regard entertained for him by a very large number of Portuguese. His presence in London during some weeks of the present summer was the signal for a pilgrimage of Portuguese noblemen and gentlemen of the best and most influential families in the country, many of whom openly declared the sole object of their journey to be to pay their respects to their exiled sovereign; whilst others, the chief motive of whose visit was the attraction of the Industrial Exhibition, gladly seized the opportunity to reiterate the assurances of their fidelity and allegiance. Strangely enough, the person who opened the procession was a nephew of Marshal Saldanha, Don Antonio C. de Seabra, a staunch and intelligent royalist, whose visit to London coincided, as nearly as might be, with his uncle's flight into Galicia, and with his triumphant return to Oporto after the victory gained for him as he was decamping. Senhor Seabra was followed by two of the Freires, nephew and grand-nephew of the Freire who was minister-plenipotentiary in London some thirty years ago; by the Marquis and Marchioness of Vianna, and the Countess of Lapa – all of the first nobility of Portugal; by the Marquis of Abrantes, a relative of the royal family of Portugal; by a host of gentlemen of the first families in the provinces of Beira, Minho, Tras-os-Montes, &c. – Albuquerques, Mellos, Taveiras, Pachecos, Albergarias, Cunhas, Correa-de-Sas, Beduidos, San Martinhos, Pereiras, and scores of other names, which persons acquainted with Portugal will recognise as comprehending much of the best blood and highest intelligence in the country. Such demonstrations are not to be overlooked, or regarded as trivial and unimportant. Men like the Marquis of Abrantes, for instance, not less distinguished for mental accomplishment and elevation of character than for illustrious descent,[9 - The Marquis of Abrantes is descended from the Dukes of Lancaster, through Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of John I., one of the greatest kings Portugal ever possessed.] men of large possessions and extensive influence, cannot be assumed to represent only their individual opinions. The remarkable step lately taken by a number of Portuguese of this class, must be regarded as an indication of the state of feeling of a large portion of the nation; as an indication, too, of something grievously faulty in the conduct or constitution of a government which, after seventeen years' sway, has been unable to rally, reconcile, or even to appease the animosity of any portion of its original opponents.

Between the state of Portugal and that of Spain there are, at the present moment, points of strong contrast, and others of striking similarity. The similarity is in the actual condition of the two countries – in their sufferings, misgovernment, and degradation; the contrast is in the state and prospects of the political parties they contain. What we have said of the wretched plight of Portugal applies, with few and unimportant differences, to the condition of Spain. If there has lately been somewhat less of open anarchy in the latter country than in the dominions of Donna Maria, there has not been one iota less of tyrannical government and scandalous malversation. The public revenue is still squandered and robbed, the heavy taxes extorted from the millions still flow into the pockets of a few thousand corrupt officials, ministers are still stock-jobbers, the liberty of the press is still a farce,[10 - This remark, (regarding the press,) literally true in Spain, does not apply to Portugal.] and the national representation an obscene comedy. A change of ministry in Spain is undoubtedly a most interesting event to those who go out and those who come in – far more so in Spain than in any other country, since in no other country does the possession of office enable a beggar so speedily to transform himself into a millionaire. In Portugal the will is not wanting, but the means are less ample. More may be safely pilfered out of a sack of corn than out of a sieveful, and poor little Portugal's revenue does not afford such scope to the itching palms of Liberal statesmen as does the more ample one of Spain, which of late years has materially increased – without, however, the tax-payer and public creditor experiencing one crumb of the benefit they might fairly expect in the shape of reduced imposts and augmented dividends. But, however interesting to the governing fraction, a change of administration in Spain is contemplated by the governed masses with supreme apathy and indifference. They used once to be excited by such changes; but they have long ago got over that weakness, and suffer their pockets to be picked and their bodies to be trampled with a placidity bordering on the sublime. As long as things do not get worse, they remain quiet; they have little hope of their getting better. Here, again, in this fertile and beautiful and once rich and powerful country of Spain, a most gratifying picture is presented to the instigators of the Quadruple Alliance, to the upholders of the virtuous Christina and the innocent Isabel! Pity that it is painted with so ensanguined a brush, and that strife and discord should be the main features of the composition! Upon the first panel is exhibited a civil war of seven years' duration, vying, for cold-blooded barbarity and gratuitous slaughter, with the fiercest and most fanatical contests that modern Times have witnessed. Terminated by a strange act of treachery, even yet imperfectly understood, the war was succeeded by a brief period of well-meaning but inefficient government. By the daring and unscrupulous manœuvres of Louis Philippe and Christina this was upset – by means so extraordinary and so disgraceful to all concerned that scandalised Europe stood aghast, and almost refused to credit the proofs (which history will record) of the social degradation of Spaniards. For a moment Spain again stood divided and in arms, and on the brink of civil war. This danger over, the blood that had not been shed in the field flowed upon the scaffold: an iron hand and a pampered army crushed and silenced the disaffection and murmurs of the great body of the nation; and thus commenced a system of despotic and unscrupulous misrule and corruption, which still endures without symptom of improvement. As for the observance of the constitution, it is a mockery to speak of it, and has been so any time these eight years. In June 1850, Lord Palmerston, in the course of his celebrated defence of his foreign policy, declared himself happy to state that the government of Spain was at that time carried on more in accordance with the constitution than it had been two years previously. As ear-witnesses upon the occasion, we can do his lordship the justice to say that the assurance was less confidently and unhesitatingly spoken than were most other parts of his eloquent oration. It was duly cheered, however, by the Commons House – or at least by those Hispanophilists and philanthropists upon its benches who accepted the Foreign Secretary's assurance in lieu of any positive knowledge of their own. The grounds for applause and gratulation were really of the slenderest. In 1848, the un-constitutional period referred to by Lord Palmerston, the Narvaez and Christina government were in the full vigour of their repressive measures, shooting the disaffected by the dozen, and exporting hundreds to the Philippines or immuring them in dungeons. This, of course, could not go on for ever; the power was theirs, the malcontents were compelled to succumb; the paternal and constitutional government made a desert, and called it peace. Short time was necessary, when such violent means were employed, to crush Spain into obedience, and in 1850 she lay supine, still bleeding from many an inward wound, at her tyrants' feet. This morbid tranquillity might possibly be mistaken for an indication of an improved mode of government. As for any other sign of constitutional rule, we are utterly unable to discern it in either the past or the present year. The admirable observance of the constitution was certainly in process of proof, at the very time of Lord Palmerston's speech, by the almost daily violation of the liberty of the press, by the seizure of journals whose offending articles the authorities rarely condescended to designate, and whose incriminated editors were seldom allowed opportunity of exculpation before a fair tribunal. It was further testified to, less than four months later, by a general election, at which such effectual use was made of those means of intimidation and corruption which are manifold in Spain, that, when the popular Chamber assembled, the government was actually alarmed at the smallness of the opposition – limited, as it was, to about a dozen stray Progresistas, who, like the sleeping beauty in the fairy tale, rubbed their eyes in wonderment at finding themselves there. Nor were the ministerial forebodings groundless in the case of the unscrupulous and tyrannical Narvaez, who, within a few months, when seemingly more puissant than ever, and with an overwhelming majority in the Chamber obedient to his nod, was cast down by the wily hand that had set him up, and driven to seek safety in France from the vengeance of his innumerable enemies. The causes of this sudden and singular downfall are still a puzzle and a mystery to the world; but persons there are, claiming to see further than their neighbours into political millstones, who pretend that a distinguished diplomatist, of no very long standing at Madrid, had more to do than was patent to the world with the disgrace of the Spanish dictator, whom the wags of the Puerta del Sol declare to have exclaimed, as his carriage whirled him northwards through the gates of Madrid, "Comme Henri Bulwer!"

Passing from the misgovernment and sufferings of Spain to its political state, we experience some difficulty in clearly defining and exhibiting this, inasmuch as the various parties that have hitherto acted under distinct names are gradually blending and disappearing like the figures in dissolving views. In Portugal, as we have already shown, whilst Chartists and Septembrists distract the country, and damage themselves by constant quarrels and collisions, a third party, unanimous and determined in its opposition to those two, grows in strength, influence, and prestige. In Spain, no party shows signs of healthy condition. In all three – Moderados, Progresistas, and Carlists – symptoms of dissolution are manifest. In the two countries, Chartists and Septembrists, Moderados and Progresistas, have alike split into two or more factions hostile to each other; but whilst, in Portugal, the Miguelites improve their position, in Spain the Carlist party is reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Without recognised chiefs or able leaders, without political theory of government, it bases its pretensions solely upon the hereditary right of its head. For whilst Don Miguel, on several occasions,[11 - Particularly by his "declaration" of the 24th June 1843, by his autograph letter of instructions of the 15th August of the same year, and by his "royal letter" of the 6th April 1847, which was widely circulated in Portugal.] has declared his adhesion to the liberal programme advocated by his party for the security of the national liberties, the Count de Montemolin, either from indecision of character, or influenced by evil counsels, has hitherto made no precise, public, and satisfactory declaration of his views in this particular,[12 - We cannot attach value to the vague and most unsatisfactory manifesto signed "Carlos Luis," and issued from Bourges in May 1845, or consider it as in the slightest degree disproving what we have advanced. It contains no distinct pledge or guarantee of constitutional government, but deals in frothy generalities and magniloquent protestations, binding to nothing the prince who signed it, and bearing more traces of the pen of a Jesuit priest than of that of a competent and statesmanlike adviser of a youthful aspirant to a throne.] and by such injudicious reserve has lost the suffrages of many whom a distinct pledge would have gathered round his banner. Thus has he partially neutralised the object of his father's abdication in his favour. Don Carlos was too completely identified with the old absolutist party, composed of intolerant bigots both in temporal and spiritual matters, ever to have reconciled himself with the progressive spirit of the century, or to have become acceptable to the present generation of Spaniards. Discerning or advised of this, he transferred his claims to his son, thus placing in his hands an excellent card, which the young prince has not known how to play. If, instead of encouraging a sullen and unprofitable emigration, fomenting useless insurrections, draining his adherents' purses, and squandering their blood, he had husbanded the resources of the party, clearly and publicly defined his plan of government – if ever seated upon the throne he claims – and awaited in dignified retirement the progress of events, he would not have supplied the present rulers of Spain with pretexts, eagerly taken advantage of, for shameful tyranny and persecution; and he would have spared himself the mortification of seeing his party dwindle, and his oldest and most trusted friends and adherents, with few exceptions, accept pardon and place from the enemies against whom they had long and bravely contended. But vacillation, incapacity, and treachery presided at his counsels. He had none to point out to him – or if any did, they were unheeded or overruled – the fact, of which experience and repeated disappointments have probably at last convinced him, that it is not by the armed hand alone – not by the sword of Cabrera, or by Catalonian guerilla risings – that he can reasonably hope ever to reach Madrid, but by aid of the moral force of public opinion, as a result of the misgovernment of Spain's present rulers, of an increasing confidence in his own merits and good intentions, and perhaps of such possible contingencies as a Bourbon restoration in France, or the triumph of the Miguelites in Portugal. This last-named event will very likely be considered, by that numerous class of persons who base their opinions of foreign politics upon hearsay and general impressions rather than upon accurate knowledge and investigation of facts, as one of the most improbable of possibilities. A careful and dispassionate examination of the present state of the Peninsula does not enable us to regard it as a case of such utter improbability. But for the intimate and intricate connection between the Spanish and Portuguese questions, it would by no means surprise us – bearing in mind all that Portugal has suffered and still suffers under her present rulers – to see the Miguelite party openly assume the preponderance in the country. England would not allow it, will be the reply. Let us try the exact value of this assertion. England has two reasons for hostility to Don Miguel – one founded on certain considerations connected with his conduct when formerly on the throne of Portugal, the other on the dynastic alliance between the two countries. The government of Donna Maria may reckon upon the sympathy, advice, and even upon the direct naval assistance of England – up to a certain point. That is to say, that the English government will do what it conveniently and suitably can, in favour of the Portuguese queen and her husband; but there is room for a strong doubt that it would seriously compromise itself to maintain them upon the throne. Setting aside Donna Maria's matrimonial connection, Don Miguel, as a constitutional king, and with certain mercantile and financial arrangements, would suit English interests every bit as well. But the case is very different as regards Spain. The restoration of Don Miguel would be a terrible if not a fatal shock to the throne of Isabella II. and to the Moderado party, to whom the revival of the legitimist principle in Portugal would be so much the more dangerous if experience proved it to be compatible with the interests created by the Revolution. For the Spanish government, therefore, intervention against Don Miguel is an absolute necessity – we might perhaps say a condition of its existence; and thus is Spain the great stumbling-block in the way of his restoration, whereas England's objections might be found less invincible. So, in the civil war in Portugal, this country only co-operated indirectly against Don Miguel, and it is by no means certain he would have been overcome, but for the entrance of Rodil's Spaniards, which was the decisive blow to his cause. And so, the other day, the English government was seen patiently looking on at the progress of events, when it is well known that the question of immediate intervention was warmly debated in the Madrid cabinet, and might possibly have been carried, but for the moderating influence of English counsels.

If we consider the critical and hazardous position of Marshal Saldanha, wavering as he is between Chartists and Septembrists – threatened to-day with a Cabralist insurrection, to-morrow with a Septembrist pronunciamiento – it is easy to foresee that the Miguelite party may soon find tempting opportunities of an active demonstration in the field. Such a movement, however, would be decidedly premature. Their game manifestly is to await with patience the development of the ultimate consequences of Saldanha's insurrection. It requires no great amount of judgment and experience in political matters judgment to foresee that he will be the victim of his own ill-considered movement, and that no long period will elapse before some new event – be it a Cabralist reaction or a Septembrist revolt – will prove the instability of the present order of things. With this certainty in view, the Miguelites are playing upon velvet. They have only to hold themselves in readiness to profit by the struggle between the two great divisions of the Liberal party. From this struggle they are not unlikely to derive an important accession of strength, if, as is by no means improbable, the Chartists should be routed and the Septembrists remain temporary masters of the field. To understand the possible coalition of a portion of the Chartists with the adherents of Don Miguel, it suffices to bear in mind that the former are supporters of constitutional monarchy, which principle would be endangered by the triumph of the Septembrists, whose republican tendencies are notorious, as is also – notwithstanding the momentary truce they have made with her – their hatred to Donna Maria.

The first consequences of a Septembrist pronunciamiento would probably be the deposition of the Queen and the scattering of the Chartists; and in this case it is easy to conceive the latter beholding in an alliance with the Miguelite party their sole chance of escape from democracy, and from a destruction of the numerous interests they have acquired during their many years of power. It is no unfair inference that Costa Cabral, when he caused himself, shortly after his arrival in London, to be presented to Don Miguel in a particularly public place, anticipated the probability of some such events as we have just sketched, and thus indicated, to his friends and enemies, the new service to which he might one day be disposed to devote his political talents.

The intricate and suggestive complications of Peninsular politics offer a wide field for speculation; but of this we are not at present disposed further to avail ourselves, our object being to elucidate facts rather than to theorise or indulge in predictions with respect to two countries by whose political eccentricities more competent prophets than ourselves have, upon so many occasions during the last twenty years, been puzzled and led astray. We sincerely wish that the governments of Spain and Portugal were now in the hands of men capable of conciliating all parties, and of averting future convulsions – of men sufficiently able and patriotic to conceive and carry out measures adapted to the character, temper, and wants of the two nations. If, by what we should be compelled to look upon almost as a miracle, such a state of things came about in the Peninsula, we should be far indeed from desiring to see it disturbed, and discord again introduced into the land, for the vindication of the principle of legitimacy, respectable though we hold that to be. But if Spain and Portugal are to continue a byword among the nations, the focus of administrative abuses and oligarchical tyranny; if the lower classes of society in those countries, by nature brave and generous, are to remain degraded into the playthings of egotistical adventurers, whilst the more respectable and intelligent portion of the higher orders stands aloof in disgust from the orgies of misgovernment; if this state of things is to endure, without prospect of amendment, until the masses throw themselves into the arms of the apostles of democracy – who, it were vain to deny, gain ground in the Peninsula – then, we ask, before it comes to that, would it not be well to give a chance to parties and to men whose character and principles at least unite some elements of stability, and who, whatever reliance may be placed on their promises for the future, candidly admit their past faults and errors? Assuredly those nations incur a heavy responsibility, and but poorly prove their attachment to the cause of constitutional freedom, who avail themselves of superior force to detain feeble allies beneath the yoke of intolerable abuses.

THE CONGRESS AND THE AGAPEDOME

A TALE OF PEACE AND LOVE

CHAPTER I

If I were to commence my story by stating, in the manner of the military biographers, that Jack Wilkinson was as brave a man as ever pushed a bayonet into the brisket of a Frenchman, I should be telling a confounded lie, seeing that, to the best of my knowledge, Jack never had the opportunity of attempting practical phlebotomy. I shall content myself with describing him as one of the finest and best-hearted fellows that ever held her Majesty's commission; and no one who is acquainted with the general character of the officers of the British army, will require a higher eulogium.

Jack and I were early cronies at school; but we soon separated, having been born under the influence of different planets. Mars, who had the charge of Jack, of course devoted him to the army; Jupiter, who was bound to look after my interests, could find nothing better for me than a situation in the Woods and Forests, with a faint chance of becoming in time a subordinate Commissioner – that is, provided the wrongs of Ann Hicks do not precipitate the abolition of the whole department. Ten years elapsed before we met; and I regret to say that, during that interval, neither of us had ascended many rounds of the ladder of promotion. As was most natural, I considered my own case as peculiarly hard, and yet Jack's was perhaps harder. He had visited with his regiment, in the course of duty, the Cape, the Ionian Islands, Gibraltar, and the West Indies. He had caught an ague in Canada, and had been transplanted to the north of Ireland by way of a cure; and yet he had not gained a higher rank in the service than that of Lieutenant. The fact is, that Jack was poor, and his brother officers as tough as though they had been made of caoutchouc. Despite the varieties of climate to which they were exposed, not one of them would give up the ghost; even the old colonel, who had been twice despaired of, recovered from the yellow fever, and within a week after was lapping his claret at the mess-table as jollily as if nothing had happened. The regiment had a bad name in the service: they called it, I believe, "the Immortals."

Jack Wilkinson, as I have said, was poor, but he had an uncle who was enormously rich. This uncle, Mr Peter Pettigrew by name, was an old bachelor and retired merchant, not likely, according to the ordinary calculation of chances, to marry; and as he had no other near relative save Jack, to whom, moreover, he was sincerely attached, my friend was generally regarded in the light of a prospective proprietor, and might doubtless, had he been so inclined, have negotiated a loan, at or under seventy per cent, with one of those respectable gentlemen who are making such violent efforts to abolish Christian legislation. But Pettigrew also was tough as one of "the Immortals," and Jack was too prudent a fellow to intrust himself to hands so eminently accomplished in the art of wringing the last drop of moisture from a sponge. His uncle, he said, had always behaved handsomely to him, and he would see the whole tribe of Issachar drowned in the Dardanelles rather than abuse his kindness by raising money on a post-obit. Pettigrew, indeed, had paid for his commission, and, moreover, given him a fair allowance whilst he was quartered abroad – circumstances which rendered it extremely probable that he would come forward to assist his nephew so soon as the latter had any prospect of purchasing his company.

Happening by accident to be in Hull, where the regiment was quartered, I encountered Wilkinson, whom I found not a whit altered for the worse, either in mind or body, since the days when we were at school together; and at his instance I agreed to prolong my stay, and partake of the hospitality of the Immortals. A merry set they were! The major told a capital story, the senior captain sung like Incledon, the cuisine was beyond reproach, and the liquor only too alluring. But all things must have an end. It is wise to quit even the most delightful society before it palls upon you, and before it is accurately ascertained that you, clever fellow as you are, can be, on occasion, quite as prosy and ridiculous as your neighbours; therefore on the third day I declined a renewal of the ambrosial banquet, and succeeded in persuading Wilkinson to take a quiet dinner with me at my own hotel. He assented – the more readily, perhaps, that he appeared slightly depressed in spirits, a phenomenon not altogether unknown under similar circumstances.

After the cloth was removed, we began to discourse upon our respective fortunes, not omitting the usual complimentary remarks which, in such moments of confidence, are applied to one's superiors, who may be very thankful that they do not possess a preternatural power of hearing. Jack informed me that at length a vacancy had occurred in his regiment, and that he had now an opportunity, could he deposit the money, of getting his captaincy. But there was evidently a screw loose somewhere.

"I must own," said Jack, "that it is hard, after having waited so long, to lose a chance which may not occur again for years; but what can I do? You see I haven't got the money; so I suppose I must just bend to my luck, and wait in patience for my company until my head is as bare as a billiard-ball!"

"But, Jack," said I, "excuse me for making the remark – but won't your uncle, Mr Pettigrew, assist you?"

"Not the slightest chance of it."