Page images
PDF
EPUB

proved, whether its resuscitation as satisfactorily foreshews the perpetuity of royal and sacerdotal despotism; or whether the cracked vessel may not figure rather the state of the royal intellects, and the disjointed condition of the restored government.

Without, however, pausing to estimate how much church and state will take by this episode in the ceremony, we must beg our readers to remember that, to the parties concerned, a coronation is a matter of vast importance. Philosophers may sneer as they please at the proceedings of our Court of Claims, but the vanity which seeks gratification in precedence, or, with the Baron of Bradwardine, delights in pulling off the king's boots, is by no means out of keeping. In matters

of form, form is every thing; and if majesty itself, without its externals, be but a jest, the outward man of even a Burleigh or a Leicester must not be disregarded. We remember rebuking an ungracious wight for laughing at a privy counsellor who walked with great gravity into the king's tailor's, to know whether he should appear with red or with blue heels at George the Fourth's inauguration. Nothing could be more displaced than such ridicule; for if one single privy counsellor (though it had been Mr. Canning himself) had sported his talons rouges while the rest had been blue, not even the Quarterly Review could have justified the incongruity. The cabinet, indeed, may be as arrant a piece of patchwork as it pleases, "chequered with a white and a black square" in every direction,-here a papist, and there an ascendency man, here an Eldon, and there a Robinson,-and things are none the worse for the difference. But in the case of feet, c'est tout une autre chose; and a discrepancy of colour in the shoes would be enough to trip up the heels of an entire administration.

It appears by the public papers that this anointing of kings, which came into Europe from the East, has taken a second flight, and has passed over to Otaheite. The journals, however, have committed a great oversight in neglecting to inform us how the ceremony took among the dingy politicians of the islands. Neither have they condescended to relate the order and arrangement of the processions, the splendid costume of the peers, nor the ceremonial adopted by the missionaries upon the important occasion and this is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as there is, most likely, no Sir G. Naylor at hand to record the fleeting honours of the day, and to preserve, in illuminated plates, the splendour and taste which were lavished on the dresses. This is an event which naturally inspires many weighty reflections. In the first place, a doubt suggests itself how far these same missionaries were justified in arrogating to themselves a function which is proper to the prelacy; and this consideration leads to another doubt, now far a potentate, thus irregularly anointed, is indeed "every inch a king." But these are scruples which I leave to graver heads to unravel. Query-will such a king's flag protect a vessel, or is his commission available against the statute of Piracy? Is he entitled, ex virtute officii, to convert the waters which flow round his dominions into a mare clausum ? and, lastly, can he cure the evil? A point more immediately connected with the present paper concerns the policy of permitting such exhibitions, even as far off as Otaheite. For if people are encouraged to laugh at the coronation of the King of Otaheite, they will soon laugh at that of Charles the Tenth. Nothing in VOL. X. No. 57.-1826.

29

[ocr errors]

the world can be more contagious than laughter, or more dangerous to social order and good government. Away, then, with such odious comparisons. The King of Otaheite has no saint in his lineage, no holy oil vessel in his cellar, and (since he has turned Christian) no family god of his own to pit against the great God of nature and to sanctify his usurpations. Then, again, he has no cathedral to be crowned in, and no descendant of the apostles to confer a divine right upon him. In short, the whole thing was a burlesque, and a pure blasphemy against kingly government; and folks will be but too apt to remark, that when the King of Otaheite takes up such toys, it is high time for the kings of civilized Europe to have done with them for ever. Fortune, who is never more pertinacious, "ludum insolentem ludere," than when she meddles with royal heads,-while she has thus revived the ceremony of coronation in the South Sea, has been equally busy in abolishing it in the West. Very few years have passed over our heads since the sun set for ever upon the royal festivities of Dawkey; and the fatal rebellion of ninety-eight, among the many other evils which it inflicted upon Ireland, has placed the splendid coronation of the kings of Dawkey among the things which have been. The gaiety of nations is eclipsed, and the innocent amusements of the citizens of Dublin have been ill-exchanged for Orange processions and party violence. Irish affairs are, for the most part, less known in England than those of Loo Choo; and the London cockney, who would be ashamed of not understanding the geography of Behring's Straits, very likely never heard of any other place in Ireland except the Giant's Causeway or the Lakes of Killarney. It may be as well therefore to state, that the kingdom of Dawkey is an island in the bay of Dublin, a few miles distant from that capital. Of its government and people it is at present unnecessary to say more than that the king held his office durante bene placito, and was elected from among the choicest and most spirited bon vivants of the metropolis of the mother-country. For many years the inthronization of the King of Dawkey, which took place in the halcyon days of summer, when not a breeze was at hand "the blue wave to curl," was the signal for mirth and jollity, for frolic, and for fun. Unlike the Mayor of Garratt, who was chosen for his personal deformities, the King of Dawkey was selected for the splendour of his intellectual endowments. The head which could bear the most wine and punch was the head inevitably destined to bear the crown: and he who was possessed of the dryest humour, sung the drollest song, and went nearest to the unextinguishable laughter of the immortal gods, was the man who united all suffrages. The election was wholly undegraded by that corruption which sends so many blockheads to graver assemblies, and it was not subject to the chances which often commit the affairs of hereditary monarchies to the superintendence of the greatest dolt in the kingdom. In this alone he resembled the crowned heads of certain other countries, that he was a decided enemy to thinking, had a dislike to "daylight," and tolerated no open dissent from the "sentiments" which he chose to promulgate. Next in talents, as next in place to the king, were his state officers, his chancellor, his attorneygeneral, his chancellor of the exchequer, his secretaries of state, &c. &c. The keeper of his conscience never doubted-when another bottle was in question :-his chancellor of the exchequer was as careless of debt as William Pitt himself; and what may seem extraordinary,

his law-officers were men of good-nature and common sense. With the first dawnings of day, the gingle, the noddy, the glass-coach, and the jarvey, were in requisition, the cold pies and the hams, the porter, the punch, and the black strap, all securely packed. The worthy citizens, every thought of bankruptcy ("by particular desire and for that day only") banished from their minds, and their best clothes aired and adjusted, were in readiness for the solemn procession which was to carry the debonnaire monarch to the seat of his authority. On the shore of the main land opposite to the island, the boats awaited their arrival to transport them (there was then no insurrection act) to the opposite shore. The platform was set out, the tent erected, the arm-chair of state dusted and in readiness. Numerous and motley was the assemblage of personages collected on these exhilarating oc casions. First, there was honest Stephen Armitage, somewhile King of Dawkey, a fellow of infinite jest. Then there was Sir Thomas Brittleware, an eminent and facctious dealer in delf and porcelain; there were also those two capital rivals, Sir W. Felt and Sir Luke Beaver, (Jewster and Cassidy the hatters) of course at the head of affairs. There was Jemmy Allspice the grocer, and the Prince of Inishowen, an eminent spirit-merchant: with a thousand others remarkable for whim, oddity, good spirits, and good fellowship every man his title derived, not like the vain honours of feudal aristocracy from plunder and bloodshed, nor like those of modern times from favour or accident, but each imposed in allusion to qualifications and attributes strictly personal. Nor were there wanting among these jovial sons of commerce names of an higher interest. Curran and Bush, Lord Downes and Yelverton, if we mistake not, have not disdained to mingle in the mirth of the day. The costumes, though inferior in splendour to those of the coronators of Rheims, were marked by a more sober propriety. A plain brown coat, with a single gold button at the collar, and a white wand, indicated the person of a high officer, without sinking the personage into a playhouse "king of shreds and patches." The great business of the day (the officers being all duly installed) was the holding a special assize for the trial of such grievous offences as the state of the times brought to the surface; such as eating the cat's tail without salt,” “sleeping with the eyes shut," &c. &c. And not even Lord Norbury's far celebrated "racket-court,”—as the Irish court of Common Pleas has long been called-ever echoed with half the fun, or was enlivened by half the brilliance of repartee, that distinguished this court of Momus. Eating and drinking there were "galore;" but eating and drinking were not the sole ends of this ceremony. There was none of the silent gravity of a swan-hopping voyage; the national vivacity and flow of spirits poured forth unrestricted, save by good humour and the politeness of the heart. The rocks echoed to songs which might have raised a smile on the melancholy cheek of the bewitched prince in the tale of the three Pomegranates; and the very oysters in the adjacent beds, however "crossed by love," gaped sympathetic to the puns and quips and quiddities of the court, and for once in their lives threw off their proverbial dulness. There is something in the hilarity of an Irishman, which when he chooses to be merry, is peculiar to him. His animal spirits are more bounding, more humorous, more "creaming" (to borrow a metaphor from cham

66

paigne); and in those days trade was not absolutely stagnant, nor all the landholders absentees. A tradesman therefore might by possibility afford to relax. Now-a-days, God save the mark! if the King of Dawkey were to re-appear, his retinue would be mistaken for an execution and a "berring." But woe is me! the kingdom of Dawkey is now laid low. It is gone to join the Rhenish confederacy, the Cis-alpine republic, the kingdoms of the Ptolemies, of the Lusignans and the Iturbides: and its gaiety is a sound that is heard no more. A truce, however, with gloomy reflections. When the citizens, as Homer has it, "had made an end of eating and of drinking," they returned to Dublin as well as they could; not always in perfect right lines, but joyously and merrily: and the next day things entered into their usual train, in a patient expectation of the due recurrence of the anniversary. It is on record that for many successive years the people of Dawkey remained contented with their king, Armitage, and never felt a desire to place the crown on another head. Of how many other of the kings of Europe the same may be affirmed, I will not venture to say. It is enough for a loyal Englishman to answer for one. M.

[graphic]

AN HOUR OF ROMANCE.

THERE were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs, like those of Childhood's sleep,
Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound,

As of soft showers on water: dark and deep

Lay the oak-shadows o'er the turf, so still,

They seem'd but pictured glooms!—a hidden rill
Made music, such as haunts us in a dream,

Under the fern-tufts; and a tender gleam

Of emerald light, as by the glow-worm shed,

Came pouring through the woven beech-boughs down,
And steep'd the magic page wherein I read
Of royal Chivalry and old Renown;

A tale of Palestine '-Meanwhile the bee
Swept past me with a tone of summer hours,
A drowsy bugle, wafting thoughts of flowers,
Blue skies, and amber sunshine: brightly free
On filmy wings, the purple dragon-fly
Shot glancing like a fairy javelin by;

And sweet voice of sorrow told the dell
Where sat the lone wood-pigeon.-

But ere long,

All sense of these things faded, as the spell
Breathing from that high gorgeous tale grew strong
On my chain'd soul!-'twas not the leaves I heard-
-A Syrian breeze the lion-banner stirr'd

Through its proud floating folds !-'twas not the brook
Singing in secret through its grassy glen-
-A wild shrill trumpet of the Saracen

Peal'd from the Desert's lonely heart, and shook

The burning air!-Like clouds when winds are high,
O'er glittering sands flew steeds of Araby,
And tents rose up, and sudden lance and spear
Flash'd where a fountain's diamond wave lay clear,
Shadow'd by graceful palm-trees!-Then the shout
Of merry England's joy rang freely out,

Sent through an Eastern heaven, whose glorious hue
Made shields dark mirrors to its depths of blue
And harps were there—I heard their sounding strings,
As the waste echoed to the mirth of Kings!

-The bright masque vanish'd!-unto life's worn track
What call'd me from its world of glory back?

-A voice of happy Childhood!-and they pass'd,
Banner, and harp, and Paynim trumpet's blast!
Yet might I scarce bewail the splendours gone,
My heart so leap'd to that sweet laughter's tone!

F. H.

REMARKABLE PAMPHLETS.-NO. I.

Burning of Moscow.*

We are not sufficiently versed in the calculations of criticism, to assign exactly the period which puts a work out of its reach. We believe reviewers acknowledge no copyright that retrospection should hold sacred; nor do we know of any regulated limits for size any more than age. A folio should have, it might be thought, a longer rate of existence allowed it in the critical world than a duodecimo; but we suspect no literary insurance-office would be inclined to judge of the life of a book from its bulk. Pamphlets, on the other hand, seem, in their light and flimsy appearance, ready, like young winged chrysalis, to fly out of the public mind almost as soon as they come into its sight; yet we often find matter of more enduring stuff in these thin brochures than in nine-tenths of the unwieldy leviathans which flounder in the seas of literature. The late M. Courier, who was the best pamphletwriter in France, and perhaps in the world, asserted stoutly the dignity of the genre which he elevated so highly, by his talents rather than by his arguments. He maintained that the orations of Demothenes should be considered only as spoken pamphlets; but he might, without the aid of paradox, have been content with the indisputable fact, "that the Provincial Letters" of Pascal found their way to immortality in the form which has ushered his own writings to their deserved celebrity. We might cite many other remarkable productions which have appeared in this humble way, to justify the attention which we mean to bestow, from time to time, upon those which we may catch in their migration from the press to the pastrycook's. But, in the present instance, we shall waive all ceremonious excuses, and merely tell our readers that our two-fold reason for noticing Count Rostopchin's little production so late after its appearance, is because we have not seen it even alluded to in any English publication, great or small, and because we consider it entitled to rank, from various causes, as the most remarkable" of modern pamphlets.

[ocr errors]

The burning of Moscow, as attributed to its Governor and its inhabitants, was certainly the finest fiction of modern days, and was, perhaps, unrivalled by the most splendid extravagancies of antiquity. There was so much savage grandeur in such an act, and so many elements of heroism, that had it been, as was believed, a sacrifice of individual to national good, it would have been the proudest monument ever raised to a country's glory. It was one of those sublime delusions

[ocr errors]

* "La verité sur l'Incendie de Moskou, par le Comte Rostopchine. Reponse à la Brochure, de M. le Comte Rostopchine. Lettres sur l'Incendie de Moskou, par l'Abbé Surrugues. Paris."

« PreviousContinue »