Part 48 (1/2)

'Why dost not speak?

Think'st thou it honourable for a n.o.ble man _Still_ to remember wrongs?'

'Let it be _virtuous_ to be _obstinate_,' let there be no better principle of that ident.i.ty which we insist on in men, that firmness which we call manliness, and the cherished _wrong_ is honour.

It is but an interrogative point, but the height of our affirmation is taken with it. It is a figure of speech and _intensifies_ the affirmative with its irony.

'This a consul? No.'

'No more, but e'en a woman, and COMMANDED By such _poor_ pa.s.sion as the maid that milks, And does the meanest chares.' [QUEEN.]

'Give me that _man_ that is not _pa.s.sion's slave_.

Since my dear soul _was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish her election_, She hath seal'd thee for herself: _for_ thou hast been As one, in suffering _all_, that _suffers_ nothing.

But the man who rates so highly 'this single mould of Marcius,' and the wounded name of it, that he will _forge_ another for it 'i' the fire of burning Rome,' who will hurt the world to ease the rankling of his single wrong, who will plough Rome and harrow Italy to cool the fever of his thirst for vengeance; this is not the man, this is not the hero, this is not THE G.o.d, that the scientific review accepts.

Whoso has put him in the chair of state on earth, or in heaven, must 'revoke that ignorant election.' Whatever our 'perfect example in civil life' may be, and we are, perhaps, not likely to get it openly in the form of an historic '_composition_' on this author's stage, whatever name and shape it may take when it comes, this evidently is not it. This Caius Marcius is dismissed for the present from this Poet's boards. This curule chair that stands here empty yet, for aught that we can see, and this crown of 'olives of endless age,' is not for him.

'Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

Against him first.

'We proceed first by negatives, and conclude after every species of rejection.'

On the surface of this play, lies everywhere the question of the Common-Weal, in its relation to the good that is private and particular, scientifically reviewed, as a question in proportion,--as the question of the whole against the part,--of the greater against the less,--nay, as the question of that which is against that which is not. For it is a treatment which throws in pa.s.sing, the shadow of the old metaphysical suspicion and scepticism on that chaotic unaxiomatical condition of things which the scientific eye discovers here, for the new philosophy with all its new comprehension of the actual, with all its new convergency on practice, is careful to inform us that it observes, notwithstanding the old distinction between 'being and becoming.' This is an IDEAL philosophy also, though the notions of nature are more respected in it, than the spontaneous unconsidered notions of men.

It is the largeness of the objective whole, the historic whole and the faculty in man of comprehending it, and the sense of relation and obligation to it, as the highest historic law,--the _formal_, the _essential law_ of _kind_ in him, it is the breadth of reason, it is the circ.u.mference of conscience, it is the _grandeur_ of duty which this author arrays here scientifically against that oblivion and ignoring of the _whole_, that forgetfulness of the world, and the universal tie which the ignorance of the unaided sense and the narrowness of pa.s.sion and private affection create, whether in the one, or the few, or the many. It is the Weal of the whole against the will of the part, no matter where the limit of that partiality, or 'partliness,' as the '_poor_ citizen' calls it, is fixed whether it be the selfishness of the single self, or whether the household tie enlarges its range, whether it be the partiality of cla.s.s or faction, or the partiality of kindred or race, or the partiality of geographic limits, the question of the play, the question of the whole, of the worthier whole, is still pursued with scientific exaction. It is the conflict with axioms which is represented here, and not with wordy axioms only, not with abstractions good for the human mind only, in its abstract self-sustained speculations, but with historical axioms, axioms which the universal nature knows, laws which have had the consent of things since this nature began, laws which pa.s.sed long ago the universal commons.

It is the false unscientific state which is at war, not with abstract speculation merely, but with the nature of things and the received logic of the universe, which this man of a practical science wishes to call attention to. It is the crowning and enthroning of that which is private and particular, it is the anointing of pa.s.sion and instinct, it is the arming of the absolute--the demon--will; it is the putting into the hands of the ignorant part the sceptre of the whole, which strikes the scientific Reviewer as the thing to be noted here. And by way of proceeding by negatives first, he undertakes to convey to others the impression which this state of things makes upon his own mind, as pointedly as may be, consistently with those general intentions which determine his proceedings and the conditions which limit them, and he is by no means timid in availing himself of the capabilities of his story to that end. The true spectacle of the play,--the princ.i.p.al hieroglyphic of it,--the one in which this hieroglyphic criticism approaches the metaphysical intention most nearly, is one that requires interpretation. It does not report itself to the eye at once. The showman stops to tell us before he produces it, that it _is_ a symbol,--that this is one of the places where he 'prays in aid of similes,'--that this is a specimen of what he calls elsewhere 'allusive' writing. The true spectacle of the play,--the grand hieroglyphic of it,--is that view of the city, and the woman in the foreground kneeling _for it_, 'to her _son_, her _corrected_ son,'

begging for pardon of her corrected rebel--hanging for life on the chance of his changeful moods and pa.s.sions. It is _Rome_ that lies stretched out there upon her hills, in all her visible greatness and claims to reverence; it is Rome with her Capitolian crown, forth from which the Roman matron steps, and with no softer cus.h.i.+on than the flint, in the dust at the rebel's feet, kneels '_to show_'--as she tells us--to show as clearly as the conditions of the exhibition allow it to be exhibited, DUTY as mistaken,--'_as_ mistaken,'--_all the while_ between _the child_ and _parent_.

It is Jupiter that stoops; it is Olympus doing obeisance to the mole-hill; it is the divineness of the universal law--the _formal_ law in man--that is prostrate and suppliant in her person; and the Poet exhausts even his own powers of expression, and grows inarticulate at last, in seeking to convey his sense of this ineffable, impossible, historical pretension. It is as 'if Olympus to a mole-hill should _in supplication nod_; it is as if _the pebbles_ on the hungry beach should _fillip the stars_; as if _the mutinous winds_ should strike the proud cedars against the fiery sun, _murdering impossibility_, to make what _can not be_, slight work,'--what can not _be_.

That was the spectacle of the play, and that was the world's spectacle when the play was written. Nay, worse; a thousandfold more wild and pitiful, and confounding to the intellect, and revolting to its sensibilities, was the spectacle that the State offered then to the philosophic eye. The Poet has all understated his great case. He has taken the pattern-man in the private affections, the n.o.ble man of mere instinct and pa.s.sion, and put _him_ in the chair of state;--the man whom nature herself had chosen and anointed, and crowned with kingly graces.

'As waves before a vessel under sail So men obeyed him, and fell below his stern,'

'If he would but incline to the people, there never was a worthier man.'

Not to the natural private affections and instincts, touched with the n.o.bility of human sense,--not to the loyalty of the husband,--not to the filial reverence and duty of the son, true to that private and personal relations.h.i.+p at least; not to the gentleness of the patrician, true to that private patricians.h.i.+p also, must England owe her _weal_--such weal as she could beg and wheedle from her lord and ruler then. Not from the conquering hero with his fresh oakleaf on his brow, and the command of the G.o.d who led him in his speech and action,--and not from his lineal successor merely, must England beg her welfare then. It was not the venerable mother, or the gentle wife, with her dove's eyes able to make G.o.ds of earth forsworn, who could say then, 'The laws of England are at my commandment.'

Crimes that the historic pen can only point to,--not record,--low, illiterate, brutish stupidities, mad-cap folly, and wanton extravagancies and caprices, in their ideal impersonations--_these_ were the G.o.ds that England, in the majesty of her State, in the sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and _their_ kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To _these_,--men who meddled with affairs of State,--who took, even at such a time, the State to be _their_ business,--must address themselves; for these were the councils in which England's peace and war were settled then, and the Tribune could enter them only in disguise. His _veto_ could not get spoken outright, it could only be p.r.o.nounced in under-tones and circ.u.mlocutions. Not with n.o.ble, eloquent, human appeals, could the soul of power be reached and conquered then--the soul of him 'within whose eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,' the man of the thirty legions, to whom this _argument_ must be dedicated. 'Ducking observances,'

basest flatteries, sycophancies past the power of man to utter, personal humiliations, and prostrations that seemed to teach 'the mind a most inherent baseness,' _these_ were the weapons,--the required weapons of the statesman's warfare then. From these 'dogs of the commonalty' men who were indeed 'n.o.ble,' whose 'fame' did indeed 'fold in the orb o' the world,' must take then, as a purchase or a gift, deliverance from physical restraint, and life itself. These were the days when _England's_ victories were 'blubbered and whined away,' in such a sort, that 'pages blushed at it, and men of heart looked wondering at each other.'

And, when science began first to turn her eye on history, and propose to herself the relief of the human estate, as her end, and the scientific arts as her means, this was the spectacle she found herself expected to endure; this was the state of things she found herself called upon to sanction and conserve. She could not immediately reform it--she must produce first her doctrine of '_true_ forms,' her scientific definitions and precepts based on them, and her doctrine of constructions. She could not openly condemn it; but she could criticise and reject it by means of that method which is 'sometimes necessary in the sciences,' and to which 'those who would let in new light upon the human mind must have recourse.' She could seize the grand hieroglyphic of the heroic past, and make it 'point with its finger' that which was unspeakable,--her scorn of it. She could borrow the freedom of the old Roman lips, to rep.r.o.nounce, in her own new dialect,--not their antic.i.p.ation of her _veto_ only, but her eternal affirmation,--the word of her consuls.h.i.+p, the rule of her n.o.bility,--the n.o.bility of being,--being in the human,--the n.o.bility of manliness,--_the divinity of State_, the _true_ doctrine of it;--and, to speak _truly, 'Antiquitas seculi, juventus mundi._'

CHAPTER VIII.

METAPHYSICAL AID.