TOPICS OF THE DAY.
GOOD IN EVERYTHING.
ALTHOUGH the gale which has blown throughout Europe for the last eight months has been distinguished among revolutions by the comparative scantiness of the sanguinary element, there have been some few of those shocking incidents which mark all despe- rate conflicts in the human family. During the civil war of June, Paris witnessed the death of many in wanton bloodshed. The Sicilians slew their prisoners at Messina, and are accused of cannibalism Lichnowsky was hunted to death at Frankfort, Lamberg was slain in the streets of Pesth, and Latour was gib- beted in Vienna. And on account of such scenes, a writer who has undertaken the obsolete task of vindicating the defunct rule of Austria exclaims, that "for shameless licence, for savage vindictiveness, for bloodthirsty tyranny, no despot can match a mob broke loose." A bold assertion, when one follows the tracks of victorious armies in any quarter of the world. Indeed, we cannot see the vast difference between the Demo- cratic excesses and the Royal excesses of the very revolution that is going on. The mob that broke into the Tuileries did show some respect for its adornments, luxuries though they were, be- cause they were works of art ; but no similar respect has been shown by the Austrian soldiers stabled in the palaces of Milan— those abodes of an ancient history. The Sicilians slew some pri- soners in cold blood ; but it was the King, safe at a coward dis- tance, that bombarded the fair city of Messina. It was a mob that hunted Lichnowsky to death, a mob that gibbeted Latour ; but it was an Emperor that doomed Confalonieri to waste in hope- less prison, and raised a Gallician jacquerie—a King that can- nonaded his "beloved Berliners." Do not deal out condemnation or absolution, for the same offence, according to the quality of the criminal : the cruelty of cold blood is only the more shocking when it keeps its coldness under luxurious ermine ; the ruffian in rags is not more wicked than the ruffian in robes who wears a crown by "the grace of God "; excited " Democracy " is not more barbarous than vindictive Royalty.
Nor are popular excesses in themselves merely damnable : even these later scenes in Germany, though more revolting to the sense because of the individual interest felt in the victims, are not unmixed wickedness. The most like an act of wanton wickedness is the slaughter of Prince Lichnowsky ; but we do not believe it to have been what is properly to be called a popular ex- cess. The rabble that made the Prince their quarry in that odious chace was evidently imported from a distance ; and all countries have ruffianly crews that form the dregs of every class. But in the other cases there are distinctions. Count Lamberg came before the Hungarians as the impersonation of a policy at once treacherous, flagrantly illegal, and insolent ; and in accepting his mission he braved the fate he met. Count Latour, however loyal to his sovereign and gallant as a soldier, had supplied the strongest provocatives to popular rage : he had been detected in a treacherous correspondence with a dreaded enemy ; at the door of the War-office cannon had poured a deadly fire on the mob, whose blood was roused to madness ; their desire for revenge was piqued by his hiding, and a certain degree of meanness in the act of hiding from danger added the impulse of contempt to the combined furor of hatred, fear, and revenge. Such exhibitions are lamentable ; but at least they teach a lesson which might too easily have been forgotten—that Ministerial responsibility has a basis of reality, and has not become a mere figment—that, South-west of Russia, statesmen are not to brave whole nations on the strength of the sign-manual. More : they teach that the peoples are living flesh and blood ; that a prince is not to handle "my subjects" like puppets ; that economists have not done their all when they have classified a "population" even in the neatest of tables; and that statesmen are not to slur over whole races as disposed of in "a geographical expression." Statesmen are taught that the people whom they are to govern are greater than their governors ; less apt to rule, because more unwieldy, but therefore more to be considered than the rulers. They are taught that if statecraft can accumulate a power tremendous over the nations, a people in its wrath is more terrible still. And the lesson is not the less real because it comes in the rough and shocking form of blood and gibbets retaliated upon those governors who have forgotten to discriminate between offenders against the law and peoples honestly vindicating their rights.
But there is still more in it than even that. Do you believe that when the sabre red with the blood of Lamberg was held aloft in the Diet of Hungary and the Assembly shouted appro- val, that all the men there, or even the majority of them, were ruffians? No; you know better. Why did they shout, then ? Because the Emperor had thrown the stake of life or death, and the Hungarians accepted the challenge ; because they, shouting, declared that they were willing to stake death and destruction to vindicate the independence of their country, as they had done before ; because in that blood they saw that they had snatched the earnest of the victory that belongs to hardihood, and knew that it would carry to Vienna the defiance that attested the old undaunted spirit of their race—the race which had stood be- tween Europe and the Turk, and had so long maintained its stand against Austria. Now, do you sympathize in that shout ? Do you, who perchance have read how Achilles shout- ed, and have gloried in the terror of that voice which made men recoil until many were killed in the press—have ex- ulted in the despairing carnage of Thermopylm—have enjoyed the advice of the Roman to his veterans that they should slash the faces of the youn,g recruits whom they were to encounter ; you who have read how Amadis of Gaul rode up to the thickest of the fight, on that terrible day when he and his fellows vanquished King Cildadan and his hundred knights, his sword "bloody up to the hilt "—who have relished the fleshing of British bayonets at Meanee, and have felt the fire of admiration in your eye at seeing the lion-like Lamoriciere march amid the hail of bullets to redden his sword in the blood of his countrymen; you, who have dwelt with a fierce pleasure on these and hundreds more of such passages in history and romance, do you devour the narra- tives even of these deadly scenes in Europe with mere revulsion ? The cruelty of cowardice is sickening; but even in reading of that, you cannot but feel your bosom swell with pride for the sake of a Lichnowsky, who breasts with the Promethean fortitude of a Titan the cruel appetite of the beast that devours him. Remembering the treachery of Latour—the deadly fight—the eager search—the drunkenness of that bloody hour—you hold your breath, you shud- der as you see the naked corpse swinging to and fro to the violence of the populace; but a powerful interest has hurried you on in the story—there is something even there that grasps your sym- pathy, if not your admiration : you have enjoyed the blood and wounds of the tales of chivalry—you would be disappointed if this dreadful tragedy were not carried to its end.
Why ? what is that something which possesses your mind ?— It is that you recognize those passions—trained mostly, now-a- days, subdued, but not extinguished—which belong to the pri- mary elements of human nature,—its great inherent energies, its impulses, by what rough way soever, towards great actions and great ends ; you are, for the moment, unshackled from the re- straints of transitory usage, and run wild in the first wilderness of nature ; you behold opened to your astonished view the great volcano of life, and in its vast alembic you see pain and terror converted to triumph—even suffering has its exaltation, and the living principle transmutes bad to good ; you know once more the full strength that is in your kind, and for the rough work which is still before the world recognize the might of passion to face danger, horror, and despair. You have preserved its image in the poems that are the proudest work of genius—you have wor- shiped it in that mirror; and now, knowing it in the living reality, you cannot refuse to bow before it.
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