Old year, new year: a selection of wit, gossip and trenchant opinion from The Spectator’s archives
175 Years Ago 1 JANUARY 1831
REVOLUTION!
In Westminster, clamour for reform; in France, a king overthrown; in Belgium and Poland, uprising. The Spectator cheered them all on.
No year ever expired with a more honoured memory than the year 1830. In the secular calendar it must be always marked with a red letter. It has been great in deeds, and it is immeasurable in promise. We who have noted the actions of its every day, and have not permitted the most trivial event to pass unnoticed, ought to know it well; and we give it the praise of deserving the civic crown above all those we have been acquainted with, personally at least.
It is difficult to be a SPECTATOR in these times. The SPECTATOR of the day should have the eyes of Argus, and must envy the hands of the well-armed Briareus; and were we to amuse our fancy with an auto-portrait of an accomplished SPECTATOR, duly prepared for the discharge of his duties for the commencing year, we would have him drawn germinating hands and eyes in all directions — the hands springing out like the sons of earth, each armed with a pen.
Revolution is a term which popularly implies violence: there are revolutions, however, and those often of the most effective kind, which are accompanied by all the emblems of peace. When the principle of ruling wholly and solely for the benefit of the nation becomes the guide and test of a government, a stage of improvement has been reached which opens the brightest possible prospect of public happiness. We have been for some time verging to this point in England.
British governments have of late each been more liberal than the other, but always grudgingly, and as if in spite of themselves; but a change has come over their spirit. They who are liberal or are nothing — they who have their life and being in the maintenance of certain wise and enlightened principles — have been called to the possession of power. Is not this a revolution? It is our pride that, at least, it is a bloodless one.
It is the pride of the French people, and justly, that they, in this year, have not hesitated to purchase their revolutions at the price of blood. In France, the depositaries of power resisted the progress of opinion, and acted in defiance of its march: they braved the national will, and had the temerity to appeal to the wager by battle. The challenge was accepted, and the victory nobly won.
The history of 1830 is the history of the progress of national liberty and public opinion. In various parts of Europe, in the course of this eventful year, the people had been arriving at a just sense of their rights and a lively feeling of their wrongs.
In England alone, public opinion had that great and overwhelming majority which forbade resistance; it had, moreover, those legitimate channels for the expression of the national will which are the true political safety-valve. In France, the contest was short and sharp, but decisive. In Belgium, protracted and painful, it has been, however, successful. Poland, shackled and mutilated by the crime of Europe, seems to have risen, and at one effort shaken off her yoke; but the tyrant is strong and active — warfare is his sport — and if Poland ultimately wins her freedom, doubtless the blessing will have been dearly bought. The voice of the nation has, however, been heard: it is one of the last echoes that falls upon the dying ear of the glorious 1830, who, like a conqueror falling on the field of battle, seems just to linger in life that he may hear the shout of victory. The year of 1830 will be noted as the year of the awakening of the people. We are of the people, feel with them, and hope for them; long and arduous efforts in the public cause entitle us to recommend to them to proceed by the means best calculated to insure their happiness; let them not listen to the declamation of inflammatory preachers, who mean nothing but their own ends; the way of happiness is a quiet one: it lies by the great high-road of public instruction; it is to be reached by patient thought, argument, and representation, and not by violence and treachery, the natural fruits of which are public loss, and individual wrong and wretchedness.
For our part (and it is with no idle vanity) we maintain that the duties of a public instructor, for such is a newspaper, are high, and that his responsibility is painfully great — his power at the present day is universally admitted to be immense. It is with long labour, and at enormous expense, that the foundation of his influence, when it is legitimately placed, is founded: varied talents, and the devotion of much skill, unassailable integrity, and high and generous views, are absolutely essential to the formation of a true public advocate and teacher in a journal.
It is at least with such sentiments that we have undertaken our engagement; they have been our support and guide under severe trials and excessive exertions; and the splendid success which has attended us is more honourable to the public, who have rejected meretricious temptation, than to us who have had chiefly the merit of perseverance in good intentions. This perseverance has, however, its merits: we do not hesitate to point out, that the SPECTATOR is an ordinary compilation, thrown together without taste, order, and almost without effort. We began with the conscientious determination of working up each department as if it were even an affair of state, and as if we were already in receipt of those high rewards with which zealous public service is always sooner or later endowed; and we have continued to act up to the resolve, till the world has recognised the value of our efforts, and treats us with the honourable distinction of old and favoured servants.
Faithfully and painfully have we waited upon events for now nearly three years: the last year was more especially a year of great exertion and agitating interest; we discharged our duty to it, and are now girded to accompany the race of events which are impatiently waiting at the goal to start with the year from which they are to take their name. If 1831 completes what 1830 began, it will not be the unworthy successor of the period which has just taken its silent departure. We are its attendants — its time-waiters; and the public, whose organs we are elected, now almost by universal suffrage, may rely upon our energetic efforts to keep pace with the spirit of the age. In our capacity as SPECTATOR, we can see every thing; in that of REPORTERS, we communicate all we can learn, in the way best fitted to the ears that hear; as CRITICS, we discern and decide in all cases where doubt may occur; as TEACHERS, we offer the tribute of our study, our education, and our knowledge; and it would be difficult to find the question which, in the course of the year, we do not at least aim at throwing light upon.
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