Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn
her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and
human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern
hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a
scale so imperial.
OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]
A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book.
We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows
us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has
had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and
harmony for his narrative.
The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of
Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is
needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an
excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and
with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is
necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it,
under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics,"
"disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his
power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses
to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under
such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of
having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on
which he formed his.
But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of
despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear
to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat"
"shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory
affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the
letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's
explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old
"Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the
character of Cromwell.
We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with
virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by
receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes
a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light
of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural
autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in
"Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide,
the result is no less delightful for us.
But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always
looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one
day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for
their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat,
(asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him
afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he
thought it safest to stay with the squire."
Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war,
(usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so
far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where
the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men
must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine
as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with
"sibylline execration" and extreme disgust.
Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:--
"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism,
sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present.
We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any
commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with
sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these
letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it
surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question
which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in
God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of
surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and
piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to
shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also
art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft
crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in
bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say,
there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there
was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of
Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still
so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but
for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet
got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the
difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the
difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men
yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in
late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final
perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one
universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau
sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink
and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous,
as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we,
had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.
* * * * *
"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver,
to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become
to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The
reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the
whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous
canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is
no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not
the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for
recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell,
as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied
complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and
others, shall make of it what he can.
"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the
most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian
lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it,
an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of
it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to
see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the
heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have
seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of
earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses
the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary
blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering
individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose
very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of
fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are
acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the
nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it
is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and
nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under
them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let
you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not
as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue
in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not
understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to
them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the
place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to
death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation;
and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To
Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the
like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster
this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man
speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is
accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland
ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor
Ireland!"
Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had
resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration,
Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,--
"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * *
Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that
were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword
about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled
over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one
hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being
summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of
St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in
the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'
"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these
barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent
blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the
future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which
otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an
exceeding great mercy."
Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says
such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was
there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the
Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of
"Cromwell's Curse!"
For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars
that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the
verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell
was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe
him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want
of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to
rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of
canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed,
despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!
In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his
predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen
circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments,
fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the
facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the
Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial
gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion
that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception
of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of
strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to
station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the