The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
magnify Thy Name, Almighty God!'
Yet when he adds:
'But Thy most dreaded instrument
In working out a pure intent,
Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter—
Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter.'
they shrink from the thought and the image. It is too dreadful for ready acquiescence.
But there is another side to the subject, and a deeper view. See how the hero preacher, the saintly-hearted Robertson—as pure and tender a spirit as ever breathed—puts the matter:
'Take away honor and imagination and poetry from war, and it becomes carnage. Doubtless. And take away public spirit and invisible principles from resistance to a tax, and Hampden becomes a noisy demagogue. * * * * Carnage is terrible. Death, and human features obliterated beneath the hoof of the war horse, and reeking hospitals, and ruined commerce, and violated homes, and broken hearts—they are all awful. But there is something worse than death. Cowardice is worse. And the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it is worse than death—aye, worse than a hundred thousand deaths—when a people has gravitated down into the creed that the wealth of nations consists not in generous hearts, in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference of duty to life—not in MEN, but in silk and cotton, and something they call 'capital.' Peace is blessed—peace arising out of charity. But peace springing out of the calculations of selfishness is not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, that wealth accumulate and men decay, better far, that every street in every town of our country should run blood.'
Now it may be that it is God's purpose to save us by the war we are now engaged in from such a 'gravitation'—to save us by war from calamities far worse than any that war can bring upon us. But be this as it may, one thing we must all admit, that horrible as war is, and dreadful as are its miseries, no nation is fit to be a nation that will not defend itself by arms, if war is forced upon it. And no nation is safe, or worthy of a place among nations, if it is not prepared to maintain its existence against invasion from without or rebellion from within. Beside, to be prepared for war is one of the best securities against war.
But the best, the only sufficient foundation for this preparation, must be laid in the education of the young—an education not exclusively military for any, but while professionally military for a sufficient number, yet as to the rest, military in just and due proportion—an education which, as John Milton says, 'fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and of war.' 'The nation,' says Wordsworth, in the preface to one of his grand odes, 'the nation would err grievously, if she suffered the abuse which other states have made of the military power, to prevent her from perceiving that no people ever was or can be independent, free, or secure, much less great in any sane application of the word, without martial propensities and an assiduous cultivation of the military virtues.'
THE NOBLE DEAD
'Those great spirits, that went down like suns
And left upon the mountain-tops of death
A light that made them lovely.'
CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES
I love Cambridge, and must write very kindly about it. For in the first place, I met there with some of the best men I have ever known. And secondly, it has educated some very noted geniuses and fine poets. I do not envy the American who can linger in its cloisters, ramble in the college walks and survey the colleges themselves with an unmoved spirit. Out of its courts marched Bacon, Newton, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor; Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron issued from it but the other day, for what are a few years in the biography of genius? And was it not but yesterday that Tennyson wrote his prize poem there? It was hallowed ground to me, worthy of not unmixed reverence, but of much reverence was it worthy.
I went straightway to the residence of Dr. Whewell, master of Trinity College, and he received me very cordially. His works are well known in America, and I knew them, and directly made complimentary allusions to them, which, did not displease him. 'Sir, you are welcome,' he said, pressing my hand. 'You are very welcome, sir.' He proceeded to talk of America, and spoke of Edward Everett, and his visit to Cambridge in 1842, and of the speech he made. Everett made a decidedly favorable impression. 'We had a visit from another of your countrymen, last year,' said Dr. W. 'Parker of Boston—Theodore Parker. A man of genius, but I believe a rationalist in religion. He saw but few of our men, and, indeed, we were not disposed to receive him. It would have created a scandal. But he is a very clever man.' After tea, I repaired with the Doctor to his study, and had a pleasant chat with him about American literature. We discussed the merits of Longfellow, Bryant, Irving, Cooper, Channing, Bancroft and Emerson. Of the last-mentioned writer, he said, 'He is not like Carlyle, though the newspaper critics are constantly associating them together. I have no sympathy with his opinions, but I am refreshed by reading him. He is a strong man, sir, and your country will be proud of him. Amongst our young men here his opinions are making great strides. 'Tis the vice of the age. Germany has had the disease, and is near recovery. England and America have caught the epidemic. But pantheism, sir, will not live, though here and at Oxford the students are reading Hegel, Strauss, Bruno-Bauer, and Feuerbach. At Oxford,' he added, 'these pernicious doctrines are demoralizing the university. Blanco White and John Sterling were but the pioneers of a large party of university men, who are preparing to avow their disbelief in Christianity.' The Doctor was right. Francis Newman, brother of the Puseyite Newman, who seceded to the Romish Church, and belongs now to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri,—Froude, brother of the deceased Puseyite Froude,—Foxton, an ordained priest of the Church of England, and Travers, another priest and vicar, have quitted Oxford and the Church, and published heretical works, or are preaching heretical doctrines; while, according to the testimony of Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Dr. Vaughan of Harrow, the doctrines of the German theologists have been embraced by half the undergraduates there.
The town of Cambridge is uninteresting. The streets are narrow and dismal, nor have they any ancient buildings or architectural oddities, except the Round Church, to arrest the stranger's attention, as Shrewsbury and Chester have. The surrounding country is level as a prairie, broken only toward the southeast, by the ridiculous dustheaps called the Gog-Magog Hills. These hills belong to the curiosities of Cambridge, and are as famous in university annals as the colleges themselves. Robert Hale scarcely joked when he said to a friend who visited him during his residence at Cambridge, and who asked him for these hills, 'When that man yonder moves out of the way, you will see them.' They are four miles from the town, and on the estate of the Godolphin family, of which the Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne, the S. G. O. of the London Times newspaper, is the present representative.
I was greatly disappointed with the Cam. It is a narrow, muddy stream, varying in depth from five to twenty feet. There is a deep pool near the village of Grantchester, two miles from the town, in which Byron used to bathe, and which bears his name. I would have the stranger that visits Cambridge go to see Grantchester churchyard. It is reached by a pleasant walk across fields, and is really a beautiful spot. Many students who have died at college are buried here. Another walk of three miles along the old coach road, leading to Oxford, will bring him to the Madingley, with its park and mansion, the seat of the Cotton family. Before he leaves this part of the country he should also visit Ely, distant twelve miles, and see the venerable cathedral.
There are seventeen colleges and halls at Cambridge. The halls enjoy equal privileges with the colleges, which is not the case at Oxford. The colleges are: Trinity, St. John's, King's, Queen's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, Caius (pronounced Keys), Sydney-Sussex, Magdalene (pronounced Maudlen), Christ's, Pembroke, Emmanuel, St. Peter's and Downing. The halls are: Trinity, Catherine, and Clare. Bacon, Newton, Byron, Tennyson, and Macaulay were of Trinity College; Milton was of Christ's, Gray of Pembroke, Wordsworth of St. John's, and Coleridge of Jesus. There is an amusing anecdote of Byron current in the university, which I do not remember to have seen in print. The roof of the library of Trinity College is surmounted by three figures in stone, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. These figures are accessible only from the window of a particular room in Neville's Court, which was occupied