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    778 ®i)C VLCabtt. [Saturday,

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    A IiOST I'OKT. Jo Anclic ! Porni:!, chie...

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    M I R A 11 Ic A U. Correspondence Entre ...

    constitution ; which , radically defective as it was and is , was still a beau ideal of Government , compared with the tyranny of Bastilles and lettres de cachet . And when Mirabeau rises to depart he has done what he always does with friends and enemies , with precise gentlemen and fluttering women , fascinated them , conquered their hearts and their reasons , and made them firmly his own . De la Marck , with all his views and all his prejudices in direct hostility to Mirabeau ' s political and moral life , hating his revolutionary tendency as much as he hated his outrages upon conversational morality ,

    is yet overwhelmed by his force , by his grasp of mind , by his clear insight , compelled to yield to his arguments , and , stranger still , to take the rough pock-pitted monster to his heart and to love him . For Mirabeau was one of those extraordinary men from whose person exhales a magnetic influence , an aroma of spiritual warmth and fascination . They part with mutual vows of friendship and vague engagements for infinite dinners . But they do not meet again till they are members of the States General : De la Marck as a representative of the Noblesse ,

    Mirabeau ' as a deputy of the Tiers Etat . They do not renew their acquaintance till the preliminary squabbles regarding the constitution of the States , are ended by the subjugation of the clergy and noblesse , during which Mirabeau has asserted his leadership , has got recognized throughout revolutionary France as the master spirit in the great tribune of the people . The Court hate him , yet tremble at his power . Wild rumours are afloat regarding his sanguinary nature , his hatred of the monarchy , his desire for anarchy . De la Marck

    remembers Mirabeau s former professions of faith in a limited monarchy and constitutional government . He thinks he cannot be the foe to just order that people about Court say he is . He introduces himself , when they recommence their friendship and cement it with daily dinners and suppers . Mirabeau explains his views . He came to the States with an idea—the same idea he had expressed before the States were summoned . He expected Necker would have had a plan to propose to the States , that he would have endeavoured to construct a

    Ministerial party , and he came prepared to join that party , provided its views coincided with his own . He had even offered his services to Necker , it appeared , and been repulsed with contempt . Nothing then remained for him but to take up an independent position , and to speak out , in his own bold energetic manner , whatsoever his insight dictated to him in the various emergencies that arose from the bungling no-policy of Necker and the Court . Stung by pride , determined to make them feel his power , he had even exaggerated his revolutionary views . My influence is my power , said he . With

    it 1 am—Mira . bea . u : without it , I am nothing . But he is quite ready at the eleventh hour to do what they refused him opportunity to do at the first . De la Marck is delighted ; endeavours to bring him into connection with the Court ; but owing to the prejudice of the Queen against the factious tribune ami audacious debauchee , he fails . At length , after the taking of the Bastille , when Mirabeau baa grown more disgusted with the spread of anarchy , and the Court more terrified at the overflowing blood , Mirabeau prepares his first mhnoire for the King ' s brother . It is a vivid , masterly picture

    of the position and danger of the . Court and Crown . The King must accept the revolution honestly ; he must immediately take up an advanced and liberal policy , and consolidate the nation upon it . If he do not , he writes , " the populace of Paris Will batten their carcases in the mud . " The King and Queen are delighted with this , but a . s yet they cannot overcome their prejudices . l » not Mirabeau an immoral monster ? they ask . Mirabeau is horrorstricken . 1 was , he answers ; but I am no longer . " Are then the errors of my bad youth to be the ruin of my country . '" De la Marck is called away to Brussels , and the negotiations are suspended . In the

    mean time everything grown worm : and worse ; Necker bungles and blunders deeper and deeper ; the populace grow more and more excited and anarchic ; the King ' s throne totters . In I 7 J <) , J ) e la Marck returns , and reopeiiK the negotiations between Mm ; Court and Mirabeau . At tilt ; request of" the former , tin : latter addresses , on the IOth of May , his beautiful and touching letter to tin ; King . The Queen yields . Overtures are uuulc to Mirabeau ; he is retained as private counsellor to the Court at a salary of <>()()< > livren per month , and one million of livrcs when the King should be saved- The latter was never paid ; the former hardly at all . And it i » only fair to

    Mirabeau to state that he inherited a fortune of 50 , 000 francs from his father ' s death , which he allowed to go to waste in his labours for the public weal . In reality , he lived on a monthly loan from De la Marck , and died insolvent . On June 1 , 1790 , when these arrangements were complete , Mirabeauaddressed his first me ' moire to the King . He continued to address him till his death . They are forty-eight in all , exclusive of two lengthy and elaborate papers . These two contained the whole of Mirabeau ' s policy for the Court . They advise the King to withdraw to Rouen ; call the States around

    him ; and there , free from the factious influences of Paris , to throw himself heart and soul into the settlement of the nation on principles of enlarged and liberal constitutional government on the English model . The other forty-eight are minute hints on the minor emergencies of the day . In all these he advises the King to do and say precisely what appears to us alone could possibly have saved him . The King , however , could not make up his mind ; hesitated , longed , yet feared ; consulted nincompoops about the Court ; followed them rather than Mirabeau ; and finally did nothing , until Mirabeau was taken from him , when he performed a sort of

    burlesque of Mirabeau ' s advice in his flight to Varennes ( not perceiving that Mirabeau himself was necessary to the success of his own plan ); and he lost his head in consequence . All these letters were returned through De la Marck to the writer , and when Mirabeau lay upon his death-bed , he requested De la Marck to take away all his papers . This was complied with , and De la Marck spent the last years of his life in putting them in order , and bequeathed them to M . de Bacourt , to publish after his decease . M . de Bacourt has performed his trust by the appearance of the three handsome volumes before "us now . The originals have been deposited in the archives of the house of Aremberg , at Brussels .

    It may be as well to add , that De la Marck paints Mirabeau as an upright politician , as a man of the most prodigious genius and activity , as a loveable and steadfast friend . He also denies the reports of Mirabeau ' s excessive immorality ; and , in trie vexed question of his death , gives his opinion against the poisoning . But as he produces no evidence , and as every physician who saw the postmortem examination entertained a contrary opinion , we are not inclined to receive De la Marck ' s dictum . In our opinion , the question never can be settled exclusively ; but we decidedly think , that the business of disproving that he was poisoned lies with those who deny it . The materials for the life of Mirabeau are now

    complete . We have his whole career before us in totality and in detail , and can pronounce an opinion . If , as we imagine , the greatness of a man consists of the union of a firm faith in a large principle , a vivid insight that sees into the core of things , and an energetic decision that acts at once with power upon the dictates of that insight , then Mirabeau was a great man , than whom history records few greater . The defect in the

    argument for his greatness lies in his morality . But let us not measure giants by the inch . An enlightened philosophy will consider temperament and physical organization in its relation to morality . It will not gauge David , Mahomet , Mirabeau by the same standard as it gauges Diogenes , Hume , or Pitt . It will disapprove absolutely , as it dare not condemn relatively . It will leave much to a larger eye and to a wiser judge , and will pronounce with charity : — " He does well , who docs his best : Ls lie weary ? Ji (; t him rest !"

    778 ®I)C Vlcabtt. [Saturday,

    778 ® i ) C VLCabtt . [ Saturday ,

    A Iiost I'Okt. Jo Anclic ! Porni:!, Chie...

    A IiOST I'OKT . Jo Anclic ! Porni : ! , chiefl y lyiical . lly Thomas Siiiibort ,. ( I i ooinlii i <];/ e unit Soiih TiiiflitK is a current superstition that our Poetical Literature is poor , owing to the dearth of I'oetsthe requisite genius not appearing , Poems do not appear . Thomas Smibcrt hints at a deeper and more universal cause . Not because genius is rare , but because Periodical Literature is exacting —that lie seriously believes l ; o be the explanation ! Wordsworth finely and profoundly says : —• 44 Oli ! many are tho ports that are nown ll y nature ; men endow'd with highest {^ iftn , The vision nnd the faculty divine , Yet wanting the accomplishment , of verse . " TheHe go to the grave unthought of , because , although born poets they are not made poets . But , according to Thomas Smibert , they may have the accomplishment of verso as well as tho fuculty divine ; yet in tho face of phenomena , tmch a »

    Chambers ' s Journal , Hogg ' s Weekly Instructor , and all the cheap periodicals , they cannot produce poems . They have to change their golden gui neas into sixpences and coppers ; the money is the same but distributed . It may be so ; but it would require very substantial evidence to make us think so . Genius , if we understand its processes aright , waits upon no " supply or demand , " is independent of cheap literature , independent of everything save its own inward irresistible impulse to create . It sings as the

    bird sings , not because you are listening or are in " want of copy , " but because it is made a singingbird . The orbit of genius is eccentric . It has a law and a reason of its own . Periodicals neither make nor mar it . To suppose that a poet can write " to order " is to mistake the very nature of his tajent ; and is the mistake' of a man of business , no ^ r of a critic . When Goethe startled Germany by his Goetz von Berlichingen , an " enterprising " bookseller waited on him and desired to give an order for a dozen more chivalry pieces , It was a purely bibliopolic notion !

    But we are wrong to argue this point with Mr . Smibert . The notion of Periodicalism , as destructive of fine poems , was evidently suggested to him by his own experience . It escapes somewhat thus : — I might have been a great poet . Instead of writing great poems , I have squandered my talent on trifles for periodicals . Ergo , periodicalism prevents great poems . The strength of this syllogism , like the strength of an iron beam , is to be tested by its weakest part , and we have little difficulty in laying our finger on that part . It is the major premiss ,

    " I might have been a great poet . Mr . Smibert has had the ambition of a poet—the intense yearning to leave a name to aftertime . But the programme of his qualifications ends there . He has learned to write verse , but he is guiltless of poetry . Indeed , so little claim has he to any consideration on the score of poetical faculty , that we almost resented the sympathy his preface awakened . In it he bewails , and somewhat touchingly , the mournful condition of one who , having started on his career winged with heavenly hopes , now looks back in sadness , and sees no lasting trophy of his labours : —

    " He has used the pen almost incessantly during a literary life of some considerable duration ; and when he asks himself if this work be indeed all , or the best , which he can now offer to the world , to bear evidence to the labours of the past , or justify a claim to respect in the future , sentiments of regret are awakened in his mind in real earnest . Undoubtedly , avast deal more than appears here has been written , and , in one or another place , published ; but the great mafs , being produced for temporary purposes , neither deserves not could bear re-issue . On all

    those portions which do advance any feasible claims to be so honoured , the author has ent in personal and uncontrolled judgment , and finds himself constrained to admit , that almost every effort in verse—the species of composition here concerned—which is of value even in his own partial eyes , is compressible , and comprised , within the limits of this small publication . Such sweeping exclusions as have been deemed necessary , however , could not be made without exciting some melancholy reflections—not on account of the value , but of the want of value , of the matter

    rejected . There is a period of life , when the prospective cry of Cowley , " What shall 1 do to be for ever known ? " assumes the retrospective form of " What huve I done to be for ever known ? " At that period , even those who have done much , are prone to think that they have done but little ; while those who huve really done but little , are apt to imagine that little lews . Nor must it bo conceived , that such feelings can only assail parties impressed with a high opinion of their own powers and endowments . Ho w , ' ' ? conscious , that at best he could not have effi-ctef much , has all the more reason for regret , when n ° t ' telt ) , perhaps too late , that even that limited amoun liaa not been accomplished . "

    We confess that the diction of the whole preface somewhat congealed our sympathies ; a V " A prosaic we had not before encountered ; and a p <> using the vulgarism " parties " might well ' K ' panne . " But after all may not that too be owing « TeriodicaliKin ? So we read the ]\> eins — N <> , ^ expression is too strong—we " looked over the liiiue "—and the remilt of our inspection wan , tiia ^ iiiHteud of bewailing his lot in having produced n more ambitious work , lie ought to be extiein y grateful to PcriodicaliHin for having thwarted ambition by its incessant demands

    To give the reuder a justification of our « crite " J we will dip into hia volume , simply and truly ' random . Wo have done so . Our first opening * ao

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 16, 1851, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16081851/page/14/