TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FETISH.
Is Captain Owi;s's Narrative of his Surveying Voyages on the coast of Africa, we find the following incident of a Fetish dance narrated- " King Passel suddenly exclaimed= Now you laugh too much ; Fetish e come 1' and sure enough forthwith rushed 11'0111 the house amongst the per- fbriners a most extraordinary figure. This was a man mounted upon stilts, at least six feet above the ground, on which he moved with as much facility as if upon the most active pair of legs. His thee was hid by a large white mask, with a red ball on each cheek and on his chin ; his eyebrows and the under part of his nose being pointy,' of the same colour. Over his forehead was a yellow vizor, with a string of small hri,s bulk tied across ornamented with alli- gators' teeth, and a con Iteiod display of feathers, ter-i, blades of grass, and elephants' hairs. Front the top of his head thc skin of a monkey hung down his back, having affixed. to its tail a wire with a large sheep-bell attached to the end, which kept constantly ringing. Ills body, Irg:, itnil arms, were completely en- veloped in a number of folds of the native grass-eloth, through which he grasped. i either hand a quantity of alligators' teeth, lizards' skins, Ws' bones, feathers, and hairs ; sliogether reminding one of file attributes of Obi, the dread of the slave-owner= of * * I at first imagined that this exhibition was got up Mr our amusement, but was soon undeceived ; for when, under this impri.s,ion, I inquired of a bystander what man it was that performed the cha- f.mter, he am, ored, with a look of iistoilisliment at my ignorance= E no mon ; no man de ,ante as him, he be de Still being a little sceptical as to their b.•livving this theins,lres, 1 ;piked in an unconcerned winner, In what Lowe does he liar 1' t What, hat! Fetkh, I tell you, lie Dible; e no catch house, e lib in dot wood,'—pointing to a gloomy-looking wove skirtina the f of the village.- Philosophers tell us that idolatry may survive the worship of mere material idols of wood or stone. An imaginary aggregate of attributes, a cosmological dream, or a pet crotchet respecting the regeneration of society, may each be made the recipient of that wloration and litith which are clue only to the unimaginable First Cati.e. So with the art of frightening men into obedience by parading a terrible spectre before thcm : the art of Fetish government long survives the period of civilization when men can be awed by bug- bears palpable to sense. And in like manner as the unsubstantial idols of the imagination cannot be undeilied by the same simple process that enabled Daniel to disprove the godhead of the idol Bel, so the fear of intellectual Fetishes is more difficult to dispel than the fear of the mummers who haunt the coast of Africa. When the idol is broken or the Fetish stripped, their reigns re- spectively are at an end : but our imaginings seem almost to parti- cipate of the all but imperishable nature of the spirit in which
they arc engendered
" Spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part ; not as frail man,
In entrails, heart, or head, liver or reins; Cannot but by annihilating die,
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive no more titan can the fluid air."
Must English Governments within our recollection have been tolerable proficients in the art of dressing up Fetishes. Toss PAINE, Bosarmern, the Jacobins, the Roman Catholics—that is, not the person or persons vulgarly known by these names, but cer- tain raw-head-and-bloody-bones combinations of incompatible cha- racteristics, to which one orotherof these names were attached—have all done good service in their turn. In the art of getting up Fetish dances, the present Ministers do not seem to be inferior to any of their predecessors. With infinite address they for a series of years frightened the Tories out of Downing Street, by crying 't O'Connell's coming ! " and the people at large from prying too closely into their own doings, by bawling " There are the Tories"! But their invention is on the wane. These two Fetishes have lost their power : the Fetish-masters have been too often seen flirting in public places with the one, 101d hob:1101)1)111g at dinner with the seller, to admit of their being able to persuade the veriest dullard that they themselves fear them. A Fetish that has been seen taking a social glass with its exhibitel', is no longer of any use. The Whigs, however, have still one Fetish left—the King qf Hano- ver!—and, from the merciless way in which they use it, leaving it not a moment's repose, pulling the strings that make it grin horribly at the public, morning, noon, and night, to the imminent risk of wear- ing it threadbare, we suspect it is their only one.
had the abuse of the King of Hanover's name by the Whigs been merely—like most of the dois:s of these gentry—in bad taste, we should scarcely have noticed it. But we think it pregnant with mischievous consequences. So thr as politics go, we are no very ardent admirers of King Ersxits'r : he has, we believe, been the bold and persevering opponent of every Liberal measure carried or discussed in his day. His character in Hanover shows him to be a dangerous because an active and a courageous despot. We should regret mush to see a sovereign of such a character occupy the British throne, But considerations of this kind them an almost impalpable ingredient in the incessant hooting and chattering with which the Whigs assail the King of Hanover. Somehow or other, prejudice resting upon 11,, substantial ground's, no established facts, exists in the popular mind of this country against the fifth son of GEORGE the Third. Of this the Whigs avail themselves lustily, by inuendo or by broad assertion to lay at his door every atrocity that might grace a villain of the Minerva Press. We have in abundance dark hints regarding h is private life, scarcely ambiguous hints of the lengths to which a reckless ambition may carry him. The objectionable states- man cannot be seen for the picture of the terrible man. Now let us for a moment suppose—a supposition we make with great reluc- tance—that by some accident his Majesty should succeed to the throne of these kingdoms. The public imagination will have been excited by these pictures of a monster; but the public mind will not have been prepared to struggle against the encroachments of the ar- bitrarily-disposed King. The dark suspicions cast around King Ea- NEST are too unsubstantial to endure probing. They will crumble to pieces in the inquirer's hand. His private character will remain, the not uncommon one of a gentleman, who, having sown his wild oats, has sobered down (more by the influence of years than prin- ciples) into a very companionable sort of person, who is on the whole rather a favourite in his domestic circle. The attempt to injure an unpopular statesman by attacks directed more against his private than his political character, will react in his favour. Those who have been taught to fear him on personal grounds alone, will tole- rate him on personal grounds alone. They will endure his despotic tendencies, because they find him a tolerably decent, and indeed pleasant domestic character. And this will have been the doing of the Whigs; who, instead of inculcating sound political prin- ciple, have busied themselves in spreading defamatory gossip.
This is the necessary consequence of seeking to terrify men into submission by parading a Fetish before them. If you teach men that certain actions tend to their advantage and others to their dis- advantage, you make them wise. If you render them capable of feeling moral beauty, you render them amiable. But if you only deter them from certain courses by planting a bugbear in their way, mere curiosity will lure them into the forbidden paths the moment the scarecrow is removed.
Should the King of Hanover by any chance ascend the throne of Britain, it would not surprise us, who entertain towards his person a perfectly neutral feeling, to find ourselves in active opposition to his Government, and many who are at present his most virulent defamers doing the dirty work of his Ministers.
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