BOOKS.
A.LISOPI'S ILISTOBY OP EIIBGP13 P11051
1816 TO 1862.* IN choosing a peaceful epoch for the subject of his pan, Sir Arai- bald Alison has displayed a want of judgment. His genius is al- together adapted to narrative. Note indeed, the highest kind of narrative which impresses the whole of an action by the quiet ex- hibitMn Of a few essential particulars ; for he is given to exag,gera- tion in style and minuteness in details, while his imagination is rhetorical, not poetical. Still, he has an impressionable mind, which is readily stirred by a great event or a striking exploit; and he is able to reproduce his own conceptions vividly to the reader. Perhaps this faculty is opposed to the patient research, the slow inquiry, and the critical examination, necessary to discover politi- eel, economical, and social truths. It is certain that Sir Archibald has no gift in this direction. Even in matters of fact his conclu- sions cannot always be relied on rand when his peculiar notions on politics and political economy are in question he can no more be trusted than can a Popish fanatic upon the miracles of his church. Nor has Alison even the manner of a critical philosopher. There is none of the specious calmness, the air of judicial impar- tiality, with which some historical writers cover their prejudices and endeavour to insinuate their opinions. In Sir Archibald there is a partisan "piping hot," with as little of historical moderation in his manner as there is of measure or condensation in his style.
Hence, a peaceful period, which in any way involves logical i conclusions, s unfitted for the pen of our author ; though he might suoceed in the description of laws, institutions, and the works of peace, as well as he does in the narrative of events and actions. When democracy, currency, and corn-laws, are the leading sub- jects of the history, the rhetoric of the author runs into railing, and the statement of conclusions is dogmatism. The time between the restoration of the Bourbons and the se- cession of Louis Napoleon to absolute power is dangerously tempt- ing to Sir Archibald; for he has been engaged during a large part of the period in laying down, the law as to what the world should do, anti the world has been as obstinately bent upon disregarding his advice and warnings. In fact, the object of his book is to tram* the downfall of France to the spread of Democracy, and of England to Peel's Bill, the Reform Bill, and the repeal of the Corn-laws. A man who sets about a contemporary history, brining to his task a judgment warped by extreme opinions and a disposition heated by conflict, is not in the best condition to instruct the future by the past.
The literary drawback to this work is not, however, the error of the author's opinions, erroneous though we think them often, an& absurdly exaggerated as they sometimes are. The prudence of a return to the old standard after the depreciation by the Bank issues during the war is an open question : a man may fairly affirm that the standard should have been reduced by the amount of the de- preciation at some given period, or by its average amount—though not much would be gained by the latter process. But this is not enough for our historian. He affirms, at page 6, that "the mone- tary bill of 1819, before many years had elapsed, addedfifty pet- cent to the value of money and weight of 'debts and taxes, and took as much from the remuneration of industry." A few pages onwards, at page 24, he both ,modifies and extends this opinion. "The contraction of the currency, introduced in 1819 and ren- dered still more stringent by the acts of 1844 and 1846, has changed the value of money fifty per cent; coupled with free trade in all the branches, it has doubled it." And he proceeds in the same strain to expand the text on the pressure of talration, without a word on the relief furnished by reductions of the in- terest of the debt, and by repeals or modifications of taxes. It may be admitted that the Reform Bill was not a perfect measure; that the ten-pound constituency it created and the small boroughs it preserved have given more power to corruption and narrow in- terests than is desirable; and that the scheme of representing only numbers instead of the various classes of a nation is bad,—withont denouncing all reform and persisting in the prophecy of evils which facts are confuting. For never since the English monarchy was established has there been such reasoning loyalty displayed as within these last few years—perhaps since Peers abolition of the Corn-laws gave the deathblow to class favour; never has such at- tachment to the constitution with all its faults been shown as du- ring the time when revolution abroad was likely to excite desire of change at home; while so far from danger threatening from "Democratic ambition," the country is if anything apathetic, nor can all the demagogues put together get up even "a cry." That too great a supineness was displayed in the matter of our defences, is beyond a doubt; and that the millionaires and raiddle-dasses were too blindly bent upon "peace at any price," is true. But it is equally true that the country has shown itself sound at heart, in the manner in which it passed judgment on the coup &kat, in its ready acquiescence in preparation for defence, and the spirit with which all classes were ready to come forward, though Go- vernment thought fit to confine encouragement to the Militia. If there is timidity or improper parsimony anywhere just now, it is not among the British Democracy. But errors and exaggerations, grievous as they are to the cha- racter of a history' are not, we repeat, the main literary fault— the great want of attraction—in this volume. A large portion of the civil history both of England and France, with which this first • Ilistogr of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the Accession of Louis Napoleon m 1852. By Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., &c. &c. Published by Blackwood and Sons. volume is chiefly concerned, consists of disquisition, or rather a sort of lay-sermon ; and it is the repetition of a ten-times-told tale. The ideas and opinions have appeared month after month and year after year in Blackwood's Magazine, till most people are sick of them. And they are presented without any improvement of man- ner or any condensation of style. The principal novelty as regards Rugland is a review of art and literature ; elaborate as regards the number of persons, and not of remarkable merit, but it impresses, by means of the very number, the high rank, especially in history, which the present century is entitled to take in letters. French affairs have more of narrative and action, with more of novelty, notwithstanding the different French works that have been published. The account of party struggles at Court? in Parliament, the press, and the elec- tions, will be read with interest in spite of the .Alisonianism. The murderous proceedings of the triumphant Papists and Royalists in the South of France will recall the feelings of horror with which they were regarded five-and-thirty years ago in this country. The prosecutions of the " traitors " of the Hundred Days furnishes scope for the display of the writer's peculiar qualities. This is the mingled description and reflection on the execution of Ney.
• -"In the majority who voted for death were found the names of Marmont, Serrurier, the Duke of Valmy, Latour Maubourg, and many others of Ney's old companions in arms. "The Marshal himself supped calmly that night, and, after smoking a cigar, slept for some hours. He was wakened by M. Cauchy, who came to announce to him the decision of the House of Peers. 'Marshal,' said he, have a melancholy duty to perform." Do your duty, M. Cauchy ; we all have ours in this world.' Then, as the preamble began, he said— 'To the point, to the point.' When the numerous titles of the accused— Prince of the Moskwa, Duke of Elchingen—began, he interrupted him again : 'Say simply Michel Ney, soon a little dust ; that is all.' Never did execu- tion succeed a sentence more rapidly. The King's Ministers were in a state of extreme anxiety ; the state of the metropolis was reported to them every quarter of an hour. In the evening a conference of the Royal Family was held, at which it was resolved by all that a great example was necessary ; the Duchess d'Angouleme was particularly vehement in inculcating this opin- ion. At midnight the Ministers had a meeting, at which it was determined, after anxious deliberation, to petition the King in favour of a commutation of the sentence to one of banishment to America. The Duke of Richelieu was with some difficulty brought to acquiesce in this resolution; but, hav- ing done so he exerted himself to the utmost to carry it into effect, and be- sought the 'King to exercise his clemency by acceding to the wishes of the Cabinet: but he found the Monarch immoveable. He had not courage enough to be magnanimous ; the heroie only have such. It is those who could them- selves confront death that can forgive it to others. ft was doubtless a matter of extreme difficulty for the King to resist the unanimous voice of the Euro- pean powers, who concurred in demanding the punishment of a great delin- quent, and the impassioned feelings of the great majority of both the Cham- bers, who concurred in that requisition. But there is a voice in the human heart, superior to that of public opinion, and that voice is the voice of God. Condemned by the great majority of men at the moment, the forgiveness of Ney, by one whom he had so deeply injured, would have been the noblest inauguration of the monarchy for all future tunes. "At three in the morning of the 8th, the Palace of the Luxembourg, where Noy was confined, was taken possession of by M. de la Rochecouart with two hundred soldiers, chiefly gendarmes and veterans. At nine in the morning, the Marshal, having drank a little claret, entered a carriage, ac- companied by the Ours of St. Sulpice : two gendarmes occupied the front seat of the carriage. The vehicle drew up in the gardens to the left of the en- trance, about fifty yards from the gate. Ney got out with a rapid step, and placing himself eight paces from the wall, said, addressing the officer in com- mand, 'Is it here, sir ? ' 'Yes, M. le Marechal,' was the reply. He refused to have his eyes bandaged. 'For five-and-twenty years,' said he, have been accustomed to face the balls of the enemy.' Then taking off his hat with his left hand, and placing his right upon his heart, he said in a loud voice, confronting the soldiers, 'My comrades, fire on me !' The officer in command gave the signal, and he fell without any struggle : death was instantaneous ; three balls had penetrated the head, and four the breast. The place of execution may still be seen in the gardens of the Luxembourg ; and no spot in Europe will ever excite more melancholy feelings in the breast of the spectator.
"The death of Ney was one of the greatest faults that the Bourbons ever committed. His guilt was self-evident; never did criminal more richly de- serve the penalties of treason. Like Marlborough, he had not only betrayed his sovereign, but he had done so when in high command, and when, like him, he had recently before been prodigal of protestations of fidelity to the cause he undertook. His treachery had brought on his country unheard- of calamities—defeat in battle, conquest by Europe, the dethronement and . captivity of its sovereign, occupation of its capital and provinces by 1,100,000 armed men, contributions to an unparalleled amount from its suffering people. Double treachery had marked his career; he had first abandoned in adversity his fellow-soldier, benefactor, and emperor, to take service with his
enemy, and, having done so, he next and his trust to that enemy, and converted the power given him into the means of destroying his sovereign. If ever a man deserved death, according to the laws of all civilized coun- tries—if ever there was one to whom continued life would have been an op- probrium—it was Ney. But all that will not justify the breach of a capitula- tion. He was in Paris at the time it was concluded ; he remained in it on its faith ; he fell directly- under its word as well as its spirit. To say that it was a military convention which could not tie up the hands of the Xing of France, who was no pad), to it, is a sophism alike contrary to the principles of law and the feelings of honour. If Louis XVIII. was not a party to it, he became such by entering Paris, and resuming his throne, the very 'day after it was concluded, without firing a shot. True, the magnitude of the treachery called for a great example ; true, -Europe in arms demanded his head as an expiation; but what then ? The very time when justice is shown in harmony with present mag- nanimity and ultimate expedience, is when a great crime has been committed, a great criminal is at stake, and a great sacrifice must be made to secure that harmony. Banished from France, with his double treason affixed to his name, Ney would for ever have been an object of scorn and detestation to every honourable mind. Slain in defiance of the capitu- lation, in the gardens of the Luxembourg, and meeting death in a heroic _spirit, he became an object of eternal pathetic interest ; and the decoration of the Legion of Honour, which his sentence directed to be torn from his . neck., was for ever replaced around it by the volley of the platoon which consigned him to the grave."
The author occasionally introduces his personal knowledge and reminiscences into the text or by foot-notes. This personal appear- ance, as it were, is somewhat oontrary to the stiffer canon of the old school, which required impersonality in an historian ; but it imparts life and freshness. The following notices of the converse- tional powers of celebrated authors are from foot-notes to the re- view of literature.
Mackintosh.—" The author once spent one of these forenoons in his society, from breakfast to two o'clock. Lord Jeffrey, and Mr. Earle Monteith, now Sheriff of Fife were the only other persons present. The superiority of Sir James Mackintosh to Jeffrey, in conversation, was then very manifest. His ideas succeeded each other much more rapidly; his expressions were more brief and terse—his repartee more felicitous. Jeffrey's great talent consisted in amplification and illustration, and there he was eminently great; and he had been accustomed to Edinburgh society, where he had been allowed, by his admiring auditors, male and female, to prelect and expand ad libitum. Sir James had not greater quickness of mind, for nothing could exceed Jeffrey in that respect ; but much greater power of condensed expression, and infinitely more rapidity in changing the subject of conversation. Tout toucher, rice approfondir, was his practice, as it is of all men in whom the real conversa- tional talent exists, and where it has been trained to perfection by frequent collision in polished society with equal or superior men and elegant and charming women. Jeffrey, in conversation was like a skilful swordsman flourishing his weapon in the air; while conversation, with a thin sharp rapier, in the middle of his evolutions, ran him through the body." Scott.—" Sir Walter Scott had a prodigious fund of stories and anecdotes at command, both in regard to the olden and the present time, which he told with infinite zest and humour ; and his conversation was always interspersed with those strokes of delicate satire or sterling good sense which abound in his writings. But he had not the real conversational talent; there was little interchange of ideas when he talked- he took it nearly all to himself, and talked of persons or old anecdotes, or characters, not things." Byron.—" It was impossible that a man of Lord Byron's genius could converse for any length of time without some sparks falling; and his cele- brity and rank rendered him a great favourite, especially of women of high rank. But he wanted nature in his ideas' and simplicity in his manner. He never forgot himself, and was constantly affecting the roué and man of fashion, rather than the poet or literary man. Don Juan was the picture of him in real life, much more than any of his heroes or Corsairs. The au- thor met him only once, at Venice, in 1818; when he kindly entertained him in his hotel, and rowed him through the Grand Canal and the Lagunas to Lido in his gondola. The conversation was charming, chiefly from the historic anec- dotes connected with the places which Lord Byron mentioned ; but the im- pression left, on the whole, was rather lowering than elevating to that pre- viously formed by the study of his writings." Moore.—" The author met Moore only once, but that was under very in- teresting circumstances. After an evening party at Paris in the Rue Mont Blanc in 1821, when he charmed every one by his singing of his own melo- dies, especially the exquisite one on genius outstripping wealth in the race for ladies' favour, they walked home together, and falling into very interest- ing conversation, walked round the Place Vendeme, in constant talk, for three hours. They separated at three in the morning,with regret, at the foot of the Pillar of Austerlitz, and never met again. His conversation was very sparkling ; and, as it abounded in the rapid interchange of poetical ideas, it impressed the author more than the more discursive and amusing anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott."
8outhey.—" The author met Southey only once, but he then saw much of him, under very interesting circumstances. Travelling through the High- lands of Scotland in autumn 1819, with his friend Mr. Hope, the present Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, they were put into a room at Fort Augustus, the inn being crowded, with two other gentlemen, who proved to be Mr. Telford, the celebrated engineer, a very old friend of the author, and Southey. It may readily be believed the conversation did not flag in such society; it continued from nine at night till two in the morning, vrithout a moment's intermission. Southey was very brilliant, but yet unassuming. He left an impression on the mind which has never been effaced ; and the author was gratified to find, on sending him a copy of his History, that he had not for- gotten the nocturnal meeting."
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