Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 41

"On the holy night of Sunday, having performed the divine offices of matins, returning to my bed to sleep, a voice most terrible came to my ear; 'Charles! thy spirit shall now issue from thy body; thou shalt go and behold the judgments of G.o.d; they shall serve thee only as presages, and thy spirit shall again return shortly afterwards.' Instantly was my spirit rapt, and he who bore me away was a being of the most splendid whiteness. He put into my hand a ball of thread, which shed a blaze of light, such as the comet darts when it is apparent. He divided it, and said to me, 'Take thou this thread, and bind it strongly on the thumb of thy right hand, and by this I will lead thee through the infernal labyrinth of punishments.'

"Then going before me with velocity, but always unwinding this luminous thread, he conducted me into deep valleys filled with fires, and wells inflamed, blazing with all sorts of unctuous matter. There I observed the prelates who had served my father and my ancestors. Although I trembled, I still, however, inquired of them to learn the cause of their torments. They answered, 'We are the bishops of your father and your ancestors; instead of uniting them and their people in peace and concord, we sowed among them discord, and were the kindlers of evil: for this are we burning in these Tartarean punishments; we, and other men-slayers and devourers of rapine. Here also shall come your bishops, and that crowd of satellites who surround you, and who imitate the evil we have done.'

"And while I listened to them tremblingly, I beheld the blackest demons flying with hooks of burning iron, who would have caught the ball of thread which I held in my hand, and have drawn it towards them, but it darted such a reverberating light, that they could not lay hold of the thread. These demons, when at my back, hustled to precipitate me into those sulphureous pits; but my conductor, who carried the ball, wound about my shoulder a double thread, drawing me to him with such force, that we ascended high mountains of flame, from whence issued lakes and burning streams, melting all kinds of metals. There I found the souls of lords who had served my father and my brothers; some plunged in up to the hair of their heads, others to their chins, others with half their bodies immersed. These yelling, cried to me, 'It is for inflaming discontents with your father, and your brothers, and yourself, to make war and spread murder and rapine, eager for earthly spoils, that we now suffer these torments in these rivers of boiling metal.' While I was timidly bending over their suffering, I heard at my back the clamours of voices, _potentes potenter tormenta patiuntur_! 'The powerful suffer torments powerfully;' and I looked up, and beheld on the sh.o.r.es boiling streams and ardent furnaces, blazing with pitch and sulphur, full of great dragons, large scorpions, and serpents of a strange species; where also I saw some of my ancestors, princes, and my brothers also, who said to me, 'Alas, Charles! behold our heavy punishment for evil, and for proud malignant counsels, which, in our realms and in thine, we yielded to from the l.u.s.t of dominion.' As I was grieving with their groans, dragons hurried on, who sought to devour me with throats open, belching flame and sulphur. But my leader trebled the thread over me, at whose resplendent light these were overcome. Leading me then securely, we descended into a great valley, which on one side was dark, except where lighted by ardent furnaces, while the amenity of the other was so pleasant and splendid, that I cannot describe it. I turned, however, to the obscure and flaming side; I beheld some kings of my race agonised in great and strange punishments, and I thought how in an instant the huge black giants who in turmoil were working to set this whole valley into flames, would have hurled me into these gulfs; I still trembled, when the luminous thread cheered my eyes, and on the other side of the valley a light for a little while whitened, gradually breaking: I observed two fountains; one, whose waters had extreme heat, the other more temperate and clear; and two large vessels filled with these waters. The luminous thread rested on one of the fervid waters, where I saw my father Louis covered to his thighs, and though labouring in the anguish of bodily pain, he spoke to me. 'My son Charles, fear nothing! I know that thy spirit shall return unto thy body; and G.o.d has permitted thee to come here that thou mayest witness, because of the sins I have committed, the punishments I endure. One day I am placed in the boiling bath of this large vessel, and on another changed into that of more tempered waters: this I owe to the prayers of Saint Peter, Saint Denis, Saint Remy, who are the patrons of our royal house; but if by prayers and ma.s.ses, offerings and alms, psalmody and vigils, my faithful bishops, and abbots, and even all the ecclesiastical order, a.s.sist me, it will not be long before I am delivered from these boiling waters. Look on your left!' I looked and beheld two tuns of boiling waters. 'These are prepared for thee,' he said, 'if thou wilt not be thy own corrector, and do penance for thy crimes!' Then I began to sink with horror; but my guide perceiving the panic of my spirit, said to me, 'Follow me to the right of the valley, bright in the glorious light of Paradise.' I had not long proceeded, when, amidst the most ill.u.s.trious kings, I beheld my uncle Lotharius seated on a topaz, of marvellous magnitude, covered with a most precious diadem; and beside him was his son Louis, like him crowned, and seeing me, he spake with a blandishment of air, and a sweetness of voice, 'Charles, my successor, now the third in the Roman empire, approach! I know that thou hast come to view these places of punishment, where thy father and my brother groans to his destined hour: but still to end by the intercession of the three saints, the patrons of the kings and the people of France. Know that it will not be long ere thou shalt be dethroned, and shortly after thou shalt die!' Then Louis turning towards me: 'Thy Roman empire shall pa.s.s into the hands of Louis, the son of my daughter; give him the sovereign authority, and trust to his hands that ball of thread thou holdest.' Directly I loosened it from the finger of my right hand to give the empire to his son. This invested him with empire, and he became brilliant with all light; and at the same instant, admirable to see, my spirit, greatly wearied and broken, returned gliding into my body. Hence let all know whatever happen, that Louis the Young possesses the Roman empire destined by G.o.d. And so the Lord who reigneth over the living and the dead, and whose kingdom endureth for ever and for aye, will perform when he shall call me away to another life."

The French literary antiquaries judged of these "Visions" with the mere nationality of their taste. Everything Gothic with them is barbarous, and they see nothing in the redeeming spirit of genius, nor the secret purpose of these curious doc.u.ments of the age.

The Vision of Charles the Bald may be found in the ancient chronicles of Saint Denis, which were written under the eye of the Abbe Suger, the learned and able minister of Louis the Young, and which were certainly composed before the thirteenth century. The learned writer of the fourth volume of the _Melanges tires d'une grande Bibliotheque_, who had as little taste for these mysterious visions as the other French critic, apologises for the venerable Abbe Suger's admission of such visions: "a.s.suredly," he says, "the Abbe Suger was too wise and too enlightened to believe in similar visions; but if he suffered its insertion, or if he inserted it himself in the chronicle of Saint Denis, it is because he felt that such a fable offered an excellent lesson to kings, to ministers and bishops, and it had been well if they had not had worse tales told them." The latter part is as philosophical as the former is the reverse.

In these extraordinary productions of a Gothic age we may a.s.suredly discover Dante; but what are they more than the framework of his unimitated picture! It is only this mechanical part of his sublime conceptions that we can pretend to have discovered; other poets might have adopted these "Visions;" but we should have had no "Divina Commedia." Mr. Gary has finely observed of these pretended origins of Dante's genius, although Mr. Gary knew only the Vision of Alberico, "It is the scale of magnificence on which this conception was framed, and the wonderful development of it in all its parts, that may justly ent.i.tle our poet to rank among the few minds to whom the power of a great creative faculty can be ascribed." Milton might originally have sought the seminal hint of his great work from a sort of Italian mystery. In the words of Dante himself,

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda.

_Il Paradiso_, Can. i.

----From a small spark Great flame hath risen.

CARY.

After all, Dante has said in a letter, "I found the ORIGINAL of MY h.e.l.l in THE WORLD which we inhabit;" and he said a greater truth than some literary antiquaries can always comprehend![283]

OF A HISTORY OF EVENTS WHICH HAVE NOT HAPPENED.

Such a t.i.tle might serve for a work of not incurious nor unphilosophical speculation, which might enlarge our general views of human affairs, and a.s.sist our comprehension of those events which are enrolled on the registers of history. The scheme of Providence is carrying oil sublunary events, by means inscrutable to us,

A mighty maze, but not without a plan!

Some mortals have recently written history, and "Lectures on History,"

who presume to explain the great scene of human affairs, affecting the same familiarity with the designs of Providence as with the events which they compile from human authorities. Every party discovers in the events which at first were adverse to their own cause but finally terminate in their favour, that Providence had used a peculiar and particular interference; this is a source of human error and intolerant prejudice.

The Jesuit Mariana, exulting over the destruction of the kingdom and nation of the Goths in Spain, observes, that "It was by a particular providence that out of their ashes might rise _a new and holy Spain, to be the bulwark of the catholic religion_;" and unquestionably he would have adduced as proofs of this "holy Spain" the establishment of the Inquisition, and the dark idolatrous bigotry of that hoodwinked people.

But a protestant will not sympathise with the feelings of the Jesuit; yet the protestants, too, will discover particular providences, and magnify human events into supernatural ones. This custom has long prevailed among fanatics: we have had books published by individuals, of "particular providences," which, as they imagined, had fallen to their lot. They are called "pa.s.sages of providence;" and one I recollect by a crack-brained puritan, whose experience never went beyond his own neighbourhood, but who having a very bad temper, and many whom he considered his enemies, wrote down all the misfortunes which happened to them as acts of "particular providences," and valued his blessedness on the efficacy of his curses!

Without venturing to penetrate into the mysteries of the present order of human affairs, and the great scheme of fatality or of accident, it may he sufficiently evident to us, that often on a single event revolve the fortunes of men and of nations.

An eminent writer has speculated on the defeat of Charles the Second at Worcester, as "one of those events which most strikingly exemplify how much better events are disposed of by Providence, than they would be if the direction were left to the choice even of the best and the wisest men." He proceeds to show, that a royal victory must have been succeeded by other severe struggles, and by different parties. A civil war would have contained within itself another civil war. One of the blessings of his defeat at Worcester was, that it left the commonwealth's men masters of the three kingdoms, and afforded them "full leisure to complete and perfect their own structure of government. The experiment was fairly tried; there was nothing from without to disturb the process; it went on duly from change to change." The close of this history is well known.

Had the royalists obtained the victory at Worcester, the commonwealth party might have obstinately persisted, that had their republic not been overthrown, "their free and liberal government" would have diffused its universal happiness through the three kingdoms. This idea is ingenious; and might have been pursued in my proposed "History of Events which have not happened," under the t.i.tle of "The Battle of Worcester won by Charles the Second." The chapter, however, would have had a brighter close, if the sovereign and the royalists had proved themselves better men than the knaves and fanatics of the commonwealth. It is not for us to scrutinise into "the ways" of Providence; but if Providence conducted Charles the Second to the throne, it appears to have deserted him when there.

Historians, for a particular purpose, have sometimes amused themselves with a detail of an event which did not happen. A history of this kind we find in the ninth book of Livy; and it forms a digression, where, with his delightful copiousness, he reasons on the probable consequences which would have ensued had Alexander the Great invaded Italy. Some Greek writers, to raise the Parthians to an equality with the Romans, had insinuated that the great name of this military monarch, who is said never to have lost a battle, would have intimidated the Romans, and would have checked their pa.s.sion for universal dominion. The patriotic Livy, disdaining that the glory of his nation, which had never ceased from war for nearly eight hundred years, should be put in compet.i.tion with the career of a young conqueror, which had scarcely lasted ten, enters into a parallel of "man with man, general with general, and victory with victory." In the full charm of his imagination he brings Alexander down into Italy, he invests him with all his virtues, and "dusks their l.u.s.tre" with all his defects. He arranges the Macedonian army, while he exultingly shows five Roman armies at that moment pursuing their conquests; and he cautiously counts the numerous allies who would have combined their forces; he even descends to compare the weapons and the modes of warfare of the Macedonians with those of the Romans. Livy, as if he had caught a momentary panic at the first success which had probably attended Alexander in his descent into Italy, brings forward the great commanders he would have had to encounter; he compares Alexander with each, and at length terminates his fears, and claims his triumph, by discovering that the Macedonians had but one Alexander, while the Romans had several. This beautiful digression in Livy is a model for the narrative of an event which never happened.

The Saracens from Asia had spread into Africa, and at length possessed themselves of Spain. Eude, a discontented Duke of Guienne in France, had been vanquished by Charles Martel, who derived that humble but glorious surname from the event we are now to record. Charles had left Eude the enjoyment of his dukedom, provided that he held it as a fief from the crown; but blind with ambition and avarice, Eude adopted a scheme which threw Christianity itself, as well as Europe, into a crisis of peril which has never since occurred. By marrying a daughter with a Mahometan emir, he rashly began an intercourse with the Ishmaelites, one of whose favourite projects was to plant a formidable colony of their faith in France. An army of four hundred thousand combatants, as the chroniclers of the time affirm, were seen descending into Guienne, possessing themselves in one day of his domains; and Eude soon discovered what sort of workmen he had called, to do that of which he himself was so incapable. Charles, with equal courage and prudence, beheld this heavy tempest bursting over his whole country; and to remove the first cause of this national evil, he reconciled the discontented Eude, and detached the duke from his fatal alliance. But the Saracens were fast advancing through Touraine, and had reached Tours by the river Loire: Abderam, the chief of the Saracens, antic.i.p.ated a triumph in the mult.i.tude of his infantry, his cavalry, and his camels, exhibiting a military warfare unknown in France; he spread out his mighty army to surround the French, and to take them, as it were in a net. The appearance terrified, and the magnificence astonished. Charles, collecting his far inferior forces, a.s.sured them that they had no other France than the spot they covered.

He had ordered that the city of Tours should be closed on every Frenchman, unless he entered it victorious; and he took care that every fugitive should be treated as an enemy by bodies of _gens d'armes_, whom he placed to watch at the wings of his army. The combat was furious. The astonished Mahometan beheld his battalions defeated as he urged them on singly to the French, who on that day had resolved to offer their lives as an immolation to their mother-country. Eude on that day, ardent to clear himself from the odium which he had incurred, with desperate valour, taking a wide compa.s.s, attacked his new allies in the rear. The camp of the Mahometan was forced: the shrieks of his women and children reached him from amidst the ma.s.sacre; terrified he saw his mult.i.tude shaken. Charles, who beheld the light breaking through this dark cloud of men, exclaimed to his countrymen, "My friends, G.o.d has raised his banner, and the unbelievers peris.h.!.+" The ma.s.s of the Saracens, though broken, could not fly; their own mult.i.tude pressed themselves together, and the Christian sword mowed down the Mahometans. Abderam was found dead in a vast heap, unwounded, stifled by his own mult.i.tude. Historians record that three hundred and sixty thousand Saracens perished on _la journee de Tours_; but their fears and their joy probably magnified their enemies. Thus Charles saved his own country, and, at that moment, all the rest of Europe, from this deluge of people, which had poured down from Asia and Africa. Every Christian people returned a solemn thanksgiving, and saluted their deliverer as "the Hammer" of France. But the Saracens were not conquered; Charles did not even venture on their pursuit; and a second invasion proved almost as terrifying; army still poured down on army, and it was long, and after many dubious results, that the Saracens were rooted out of France. Such is the history of one of the most important events which has pa.s.sed; but that of an event which did not happen, would be the result of this famous conflict, had the Mahometan power triumphed! The Mahometan dominion had predominated through Europe! The imagination is startled when it discovers how much depended on this invasion, at a time when there existed no political state in Europe, no balance of power in one common tie of confederation!

A single battle, and a single treason, had before made the Mahometans sovereigns of Spain. We see that the same events had nearly been repeated in France: and had the Crescent towered above the Cross, as every appearance promised to the Saracenic hosts, the least of our evils had now been, that we should have worn turbans, combed our beards instead of shaving them, have beheld a more magnificent architecture than the Grecian, while the public mind had been bounded by the arts and literature of the Moorish university of Cordova!

One of the great revolutions of Modern Europe perhaps had not occurred, had the personal feelings of Luther been respected, and had his personal interest been consulted. Guicciardini, whose veracity we cannot suspect, has preserved a fact which proves how very nearly some important events which have taken place, might not have happened! I transcribe the pa.s.sage from his thirteenth book: "Caesar (the Emperor Charles the Fifth), after he had given an hearing in the Diet of Worms to Martin Luther, and caused his opinions to be examined by a number of divines, who reported that his doctrine was erroneous and pernicious to the Christian religion, had, to gratify the pontiff, put him under the ban of the empire, which so terrified Martin, that, if the injurious and threatening words which were given him by Cardinal _San Sisto_, the apostolical legate, had not thrown him into the utmost despair, it is believed it would have been easy, by giving him some preferment, or providing for him some honourable way of living, to make him renounce his errors." By this we may infer that one of the true authors of the reformation was this very apostolical legate; they had succeeded in terrifying Luther; but they were not satisfied till they had insulted him; and with such a temper as Luther's, the sense of personal insult would remove even that of terror; it would unquestionably survive it.[284] A similar proceeding with Franklin, from our ministers, is said to have produced the same effect with that political sage. What Guicciardini has told of Luther preserves the sentiment of the times.

Charles the Fifth was so fully persuaded that he could have put down the Reformation, had he rid himself at once of the chief, that having granted Luther a safeguard to appear at the Council of Worms, in his last moments he repented, as of a sin, that having had Luther in his hands he suffered him to escape; for to have violated his faith with a heretic he held to be no crime.

In the history of religion, human instruments have been permitted to be the great movers of its chief revolutions; and the most important events concerning national religions appear to have depended on the pa.s.sions of individuals, and the circ.u.mstances of the time. Impure means have often produced the most glorious results; and this, perhaps, may be among the dispensations of Providence.

A similar transaction occurred in Europe and in Asia. The motives and conduct of Constantine the Great, in the alliance of the Christian faith with his government, are far more obvious than any one of those qualities with which the panegyric of Eusebius so vainly cloaks over the crimes and unchristian life of this polytheistical Christian. In adopting a new faith as a _coup-d'etat,_ and by investing the church with temporal power, at which Dante so indignantly exclaims, he founded the religion of Jesus, but corrupted its guardians. The same occurrence took place in France under Clovis. The fabulous religion of Paganism was fast on its decline; Clovis had resolved to unite the four different princ.i.p.alities which divided Gaul into one empire. In the midst of an important battle, as fortune hung doubtful between the parties, the pagan monarch invoked the G.o.d of his fair Christian queen, and obtained the victory! St. Remi found no difficulty in persuading Clovis, after the fortunate event, to adopt the Christian creed. Political reasons for some time suspended the king's open conversion. At length the Franks followed their sovereign to the baptismal fonts. According to Pasquier, Naude, and other political writers, these recorded miracles,[285] like those of Constantine, were but inventions to authorise the change of religion. Clovis used the new creed as a lever by whose machinery he would be enabled to crush the petty princes his neighbours; and, like Constantine, Clovis, sullied by crimes of as dark a dye, obtained the t.i.tle of "The Great." Had not the most capricious "Defender of the Faith" been influenced by the most violent of pa.s.sions, the Reformation, so feebly and so imperfectly begun and continued, had possibly never freed England from the papal thraldom;

For Gospel light first beamed from Bullen's eyes.

It is, however, a curious fact, that when the fall of Anne Bullen was decided on, Rome eagerly prepared a reunion with the papacy, on terms too flattering for Henry to have resisted. It was only prevented taking place by an incident that no human foresight could have predicted. The day succeeding the decapitation of Anne Bullen witnessed the nuptials of Henry with the protestant Jane Seymour. This changed the whole policy.

The despatch from Rome came a day too late! From such a near disaster the English Reformation escaped! The catholic Ward, in his singular Hudibrastic poem of "England's Reformation," in some odd rhymes, has characterised it by a _navete_, which we are much too delicate to repeat. The catholic writers censure Philip for recalling the Duke of Alva from the Netherlands. According to these humane politicians, the unsparing sword, and the penal fires of this resolute captain, had certainly accomplished the fate of the heretics; for angry lions, however numerous, would find their numerical force diminished by gibbets and pit-holes. We have lately been informed by a curious writer, that protestantism once existed in Spain, and was actually extirpated at the moment by the crus.h.i.+ng arm of the Inquisition.[286] According to these catholic politicians, a great event in catholic history did not occur--the spirit of catholicism, predominant in a land of protestants--from the Spanish monarch failing to support Alva in finis.h.i.+ng what he had begun! Had the armada of Spain safely landed with the benedictions of Rome, in England, at a moment when our own fleet was short of gunpowder, and at a time when the English catholics formed a powerful party in the nation, we might now be going to ma.s.s.

After his immense conquests, had Gustavus Adolphus not perished in the battle of Lutzen, where his genius obtained a glorious victory, unquestionably a wonderful change had operated on the affairs of Europe; the protestant cause had balanced, if not preponderated over, the catholic interest; and Austria, which appeared a sort of universal monarchy, had seen her eagle's wings clipped. But "the Antichrist," as Gustavus was called by the priests of Spain and Italy, the saviour of protestantism, as he is called by England and Sweden, whose death occasioned so many bonfires among the catholics, that the Spanish court interfered lest fuel should become too scarce at the approaching winter--Gustavus fell--the fit hero for one of those great events which have never happened!

On the first publication of the "Icon Basilike," of Charles the First, the instantaneous effect produced on the nation was such, fifty editions, it is said, appearing in one year, that Mr. Malcolm Laing observes, that "had this book," a sacred volume to those who considered that sovereign as a martyr, "appeared a _week sooner_, it might have preserved the king," and possibly have produced a reaction of popular feeling! The chivalrous Dundee made an offer to James the Second, which, had it been acted on, Mr. Laing acknowledges, might have produced another change! What then had become of our "glorious Revolution," which from its earliest step, throughout the reign of William, was still vacillating amidst the unstable opinions and contending interests of so many of its first movers?

The great political error of Cromwell is acknowledged by all parties to have been the adoption of the French interest in preference to the Spanish; a strict alliance with Spain had preserved the balance of Europe, enriched the commercial industry of England, and, above all, had checked the overgrowing power of the French government. Before Cromwell had contributed to the predominance of the French power, the French Huguenots were of consequence enough to secure an indulgent treatment.

The parliament, as Elizabeth herself had formerly done, considered so powerful a party in France as useful allies; and anxious to extend the principles of the Reformation, and to further the suppression of popery, the parliament had once listened to, and had even commenced a treaty with, deputies from Bordeaux, the purport of which was the a.s.sistance of the French Huguenots in their scheme of forming themselves into a republic, or independent state; but Cromwell, on his usurpation, not only overthrew the design, but is believed to have betrayed it to Mazarin. What a change in the affairs of Europe had Cromwell adopted the Spanish interest, and a.s.sisted the French Huguenots in becoming an independent state! The revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the increase of the French dominion, which so long afterwards disturbed the peace of Europe, were the consequence of this fatal error of Cromwell's.

The independent state of the French Huguenots, and the reduction of ambitious France, perhaps to a secondary European power, had saved Europe from the scourge of the French revolution!

The elegant pen of Mr. Roscoe has lately afforded me another curious sketch of a _history of events which have not happened_.

M. de Sismondi imagines, against the opinion of every historian, that the death of Lorenzo de' Medici was a matter of indifference to the prosperity of Italy; as "he could not have prevented the different projects which had been matured in the French cabinet for the invasion and conquest of Italy; and therefore he concludes that all historians are mistaken who bestow on Lorenzo the honour of having preserved the peace of Italy, because the great invasion that overthrew it did not take place till two years after his death." Mr. Roscoe has philosophically vindicated the honour which his hero has justly received, by employing the principle which in this article has been developed. "Though Lorenzo de' Medici could not perhaps have prevented the important events that took place in other nations of Europe, it by no means follows that the life or death of Lorenzo was equally indifferent to the affairs of Italy, or that circ.u.mstances would have been the same in case he had lived, as in the event of his death." Mr.

Roscoe then proceeds to show how Lorenzo's "prudent measures and proper representations might probably have prevented the French expedition, which Charles the Eighth was frequently on the point of abandoning.

Lorenzo would not certainly have taken the precipitate measures of his son Piero, in surrendering the Florentine fortresses. His family would not in consequence have been expelled the city; a powerful mind might have influenced the discordant politics of the Italian princes in one common defence; a slight opposition to the fugitive army of France, at the pa.s.s of Faro, might have given the French sovereigns a wholesome lesson, and prevented those b.l.o.o.d.y contests that were soon afterwards renewed in Italy. _As a single remove at chess varies the whole game_, so the death of an individual of such importance in the affairs of Europe as Lorenzo de' Medici could not fail of producing such a change in its political relations as must have varied them in an incalculable degree." Pignotti also describes the state of Italy at this time. Had Lorenzo lived to have seen his son elevated to the papacy, this historian, adopting our present principle, exclaims, "A happy era for Italy and Tuscany HAD THEN OCCURRED! On this head we can, indeed, be only allowed to conjecture; but the fancy, guided by reason, may expatiate at will in this _imaginary state_, and contemplate Italy re-united by a stronger bond, flouris.h.i.+ng under its own inst.i.tutions and arts, and delivered from all those lamented struggles which occurred within so short a period of time."

Whitaker, in his "Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots," has a speculation in the true spirit of this article. When such dependence was made upon Elizabeth's dying without issue, the Countess of Shrewsbury had her son purposely residing in London, with two good and able horses continually ready to give the earliest intelligence of the sick Elizabeth's death to the imprisoned Mary. On this the historian observes, "And had this _not improbable event actually taken place, what a different complexion would our history have a.s.sumed from what it wears at present!_ Mary would have been carried from a prison to a throne. Her wise conduct in prison would have been applauded by all. From Tutbury, from Sheffield, and from Chatsworth, she would have been said to have touched with a gentle and masterly hand the springs that actuated all the nation, against the death of her tyrannical cousin," &c. So ductile is history in the hands of man! and so peculiarly does it bend to the force of success, and warp with the warmth of prosperity!

Thus important events have been nearly occurring, which, however, did not take place; and others have happened which may be traced to accident, and to the character of an individual. We shall enlarge our conception of the nature of human events, and gather some useful instruction in our historical reading by pausing at intervals; contemplating, for a moment, _on certain events which have not happened_!

OF FALSE POLITICAL REPORTS.

"A false report, if believed during three days, may be of great service to a government." This political maxim has been ascribed to Catharine de' Medici, an adept in _coups d'etat_, the _arcana imperii_! Between solid lying and disguised truth there is a difference known to writers skilled in "the art of governing mankind by deceiving them;" as politics, ill-understood, have been defined, and as, indeed, all party-politics are. These forgers prefer to use the truth disguised to the gross fiction. When the real truth can no longer be concealed, then they can confidently refer to it; for they can still explain and obscure, while they secure on their side the party whose cause they have advocated. A curious reader of history may discover the temporary and sometimes the lasting advantages of spreading rumours designed to disguise, or to counteract the real state of things. Such reports, set a going, serve to break down the sharp and fatal point of a panic, which might instantly occur; in this way the public is saved from the horrors of consternation, and the stupefaction of despair. These rumours give a breathing time to prepare for the disaster, which is doled out cautiously; and, as might be shown, in some cases these first reports have left an event in so ambiguous a state, that a doubt may still arise whether these reports were really dest.i.tute of truth! Such reports, once printed, enter into history, and sadly perplex the honest historian. Of a battle fought in a remote situation, both parties for a long time, at home, may dispute the victory after the event, and the pen may prolong what the sword had long decided. This has been no unusual circ.u.mstance; of several of the most important battles on which the fate of Europe has hung, were we to rely on some reports of the time, we might still doubt of the manner of the transaction. A skirmish has been often raised into an _arranged_ battle, and a defeat concealed in an account of the killed and wounded, while victory has been claimed by both parties!

Villeroy, in all his encounters with Marlborough, always sent home despatches by which no one could suspect that he was discomfited.

Pompey, after his fatal battle with Caesar, sent letters to all the provinces and cities of the Romans, describing with greater courage than he had fought, so that a report generally prevailed that Caesar had lost the battle: Plutarch informs us, that three hundred writers had described the battle of Marathon. Many doubtless had copied their predecessors; but it would perhaps have surprised us to have observed how materially some differed in their narratives.

In looking over a collection of ma.n.u.script letters of the times of James the First, I was struck by the contradictory reports of the result of the famous battle of Lutzen, so glorious and so fatal to Gustavus Adolphus; the victory was sometimes reported to have been obtained by the Swedes; but a general uncertainty, a sort of mystery, agitated the majority of the nation, who were staunch to the protestant cause. This state of anxious suspense lasted a considerable time. The fatal truth gradually came _out in reports changing in their progress_; if the victory was allowed, the death of the Protestant Hero closed all hope!

The historian of Gustavus Adolphus observes on this occasion, that "Few couriers were better received than those who conveyed the accounts of the king's death to declared enemies or concealed ill-wishers; nor did the report greatly displease the court of Whitehall, where the ministry, as it usually happens in cases of timidity, had its degree of apprehensions for fear the event should not be true; and, as I have learnt from good authority, imposed silence on the news-writers, and intimated the same to the pulpit in case any funeral encomium might proceed from that quarter." Although the motive a.s.signed by the writer, that of the secret indisposition of the cabinet of James the First towards the fortunes of Gustavus, is to me by no means certain, unquestionably the knowledge of this disastrous event was long kept back by "a timid ministry," and the fluctuating reports probably regulated by their designs.

The same circ.u.mstance occurred on another important event in modern history, where we may observe the artifice of party writers in disguising or suppressing the real fact. This was the famous battle of the Boyne. The French catholic party long reported that Count Lauzun had won the battle, and that William the Third was killed. Bussy Rabutin in some memoirs, in which he appears to have registered public events without scrutinising their truth, says, "I chronicled this account according as the first reports gave out; when at length the real fact reached them, the party did not like to lose their pretended victory."

Pere Londel, who published a register of the times, which is favourably noticed in the "Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres," for 1699, has recorded the event in this deceptive manner: "The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland; Schomberg is killed there at the head of the English." This is "an equivocator!" The writer resolved to conceal the defeat of James's party, and cautiously suppresses any mention of a victory, but very carefully gives a real fact, by which his readers would hardly doubt of the defeat of the Englis.h.!.+ We are so accustomed to this traffic of false reports, that we are scarcely aware that many important events recorded in history were in their day strangely disguised by such mystifying accounts. This we can only discover by reading private letters written at the moment. Bayle has collected several remarkable absurdities of this kind, which were spread abroad to answer a temporary purpose, but which had never been known to us had these contemporary letters not been published. A report was prevalent in Holland in 1580, that the kings of France and Spain and the Duke of Alva were dead; a felicity which for a time sustained the exhausted spirits of the revolutionists. At the invasion of the Spanish Armada, Burleigh spread reports of the thumb-screws, and other instruments of torture, which the Spaniards had brought with them, and thus inflamed the hatred of the nation. The horrid story of the b.l.o.o.d.y Colonel Kirk is considered as one of those political forgeries to serve the purpose of blackening a zealous partisan.

False reports are sometimes stratagems of war. When the chiefs of the League had lost the battle at Ivry, with an army broken and discomfited they still kept possession of Paris merely by imposing on the inhabitants all sorts of false reports, such as the death of the king of Navarre at the fortunate moment when victory, undetermined on which side to incline, turned for the Leaguers; and they gave out false reports of a number of victories they had elsewhere obtained. Such tales, distributed in pamphlets and ballads among a people agitated by doubts and fears, are gladly believed; flattering their wishes or soothing their alarms, they contribute to their ease, and are too agreeable to allow time for reflection.

The history of a report creating a panic may be traced in the Irish insurrection, in the curious memoirs of James the Second. A forged proclamation of the Prince of Orange was set forth by one Speke, and a rumour spread that the Irish troops were killing and burning in all parts of the kingdom! A magic-like panic instantly ran through the people, so that in one quarter of the town of Drogheda they imagined that the other was filled with blood and ruin. During this panic pregnant women miscarried, aged persons died with terror, while the truth was, that the Irish themselves were disarmed and dispersed, in utter want of a meal or a lodging!

In the unhappy times of our civil wars under Charles the First, the newspapers and the private letters afford specimens of this political contrivance of false reports of every species. No extravagance of invention to spread a terror against a party was too gross, and the city of London was one day alarmed that the royalists were occupied by a plan of blowing up the river Thames, by an immense quant.i.ty of powder warehoused at the river-side; and that there existed an organised though invisible brotherhood of many thousands with _consecrated knives_; and those who hesitated to give credit to such rumours were branded as malignants, who took not the danger of the parliament to heart. Forged conspiracies and reports of great but distant victories were inventions to keep up the spirit of a party, but oftener prognosticated some intended change in the government. When they were desirous of augmenting the army, or introducing new garrisons, or using an extreme measure with the city, or the royalists, there was always a new conspiracy set afloat; or when any great affair was to be carried in parliament, letters of great victories were published to dishearten the opposition, and infuse additional boldness in their own party. If the report lasted only a few days, it obtained its purpose, and verified the observation of Catharine de' Medici. Those politicians who raise such false reports obtain their end: like the architect who, in building an arch, supports it with circular props and pieces of timber, or any temporary rubbish, till he closes the arch; and when it can support itself, he throws away the props! There is no cla.s.s of political lying which can want for ill.u.s.tration if we consult the records of our civil wars; there we may trace the whole art in all the nice management of its shades, its qualities, and its more complicated parts, from invective to puff, and from inuendo to prevarication! we may admire the scrupulous correction of a lie which they had told, by another which they are telling! and triple lying to overreach their opponents. Royalists and Parliamentarians were alike; for, to tell one great truth, "the father of lies" is of no party![287]

As "nothing is new under the sun," so this art of deceiving the public was unquestionably practised among the ancients. Syphax sent Scipio word that he could not unite with the Romans, but, on the contrary, had declared for the Carthaginians. The Roman army were then anxiously waiting for his expected succours: Scipio was careful to show the utmost civility to these amba.s.sadors, and ostentatiously treated them with presents, that his soldiers might believe they were only returning to hasten the army of Syphax to join the Romans. Livy censures the Roman consul, who, after the defeat at Cannae, told the deputies of the allies the whole loss they had sustained: "This consul," says Livy, "by giving too faithful and open an account of his defeat, made both himself and his army appear still more contemptible." The result of the simplicity of the consul was, that the allies, despairing that the Romans would ever recover their losses, deemed it prudent to make terms with Hannibal. Plutarch tells an amusing story, in his way, of the natural progress of a report which was contrary to the wishes of the government; the unhappy reporter suffered punishment as long as the rumour prevailed, though at last it proved true. A stranger landing from Sicily, at a barber's shop, delivered all the particulars of the defeat of the Athenians; of which, however, the people were yet uninformed. The barber leaves untrimmed the reporter's beard, and flies away to vent the news in the city, where he told the Archons what he had heard. The whole city was thrown into a ferment. The Archons called an a.s.sembly of the people, and produced the luckless barber, who in confusion could not give any satisfactory account of the first reporter. He was condemned as a spreader of false news, and a disturber of the public quiet; for the Athenians could not imagine but that they were invincible! The barber was dragged to the wheel and tortured, till the disaster was more than confirmed. Bayle, referring to this story, observes, that had the barber reported a victory, though it had proved to be false, he would not have been punished; a shrewd observation, which occurred to him from his recollection of the fate of Stratocles. This person persuaded the Athenians to perform a public sacrifice and thanksgiving for a victory obtained at sea, though he well knew at the time that the Athenian fleet had been totally defeated. When the calamity could no longer be concealed, the people charged him with being an impostor: but Stratocles saved his life and mollified their anger by the pleasant turn he gave the whole affair. "Have I done you any injury?" said he. "Is it not owing to me that you have spent three days in the pleasures of victory?"

I think that this spreader of good, but fict.i.tious news, should have occupied the wheel of the luckless barber, who had spread bad but true news; for the barber had no intention of deception, but Stratocles had; and the question here to be tried, was not the truth or the falsity of the reports, but whether the reporters intended to deceive their fellow-citizens? The "Chronicle" and the "Post" must be challenged on such a jury, and all the race of news-scribes, whom Patin characterises as _hominum genus audacissimum mendacissimum avidissimum_. Latin superlatives are too rich to suffer a translation. But what Patin says in his Letter 356 may be applied: "These writers insert in their papers things they do not know, and ought not to write. It is the same trick that is playing which was formerly played; it is the very same farce, only it is exhibited by new actors. The worst circ.u.mstance, I think, in this is, that this trick will continue playing a long course of years, and that the public suffer a great deal too much by it."