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land . Pestilence , he says , is the inevitable concomitant of such heterogeneous gatherings : — " Take up -what history you like , choose any quarter of the globe , any siecle , any nation , any metropolis , any great city , and still the fact will encounter you . You have near you good and truly learned men , who will refer you to the historic proofs that the most widelyspreading and most exterminating pestilences of Great Britain followed upon , and were traceable to , sudden and enormous influx of foreigners . But , if you will judge for yourself , read the reign of Edward III ., and there you will trace the tragic consequences of such influx at the founding of the order of the Garter . What followed at Windsor ? The Black Death , the early
history of which is still the subject of intense curiosity among the learned , and has been , within the last few years , reprinted both in Germany and in England . That freak of Edward cost England more than a third of its population . " Again , in 1483 , Richmond brought with him , to deliver his country from a so-called tyrant , a motley army of aliens , and thus introduced the Sweating Sickness , develaped in the invading army soon after their landing at Milford Haven . In some towns one-half of the population perished by it . If the work of the learned Caius , the founder of Caius College , be too professional for your perusal , you will find that my Lord Bacon , at a subsequent period , embodied an account of it in his great work .
" Will you go with us to the East ? What have been the consequences of the great Oriental sacred gatherings in that quarter ? Please to ask your East India Company how many thousands of deaths by malignant diseases were traceable to such national meetings ? For Italy , in the mediaeval ages , the records of the Medici will suffice . You will there learn how frequently pest recurred from accidental and forced collections of people , driven from one city to another by the calamities of war ; so frequently , indeed , that the mere contingency of approaching risk prompted authority to shut the city gates , and with them the gates of mercy , on their fellow-creatures . * * * The piety of the good St .
Louis availed not to save him and a great part of his army from a similar catastrophe . Surely , men are not so insensate as to expect an immunity from a law which is not allowed to be inoperative , even when too many are gathered together in His name , as Christian history also suffices to show , and as has been exemplified even in our own time in various parts of Europe ? If you dislike to read medical authors , turn to Froissart . If you require modern documents for modern calamities , you can have them from your India-house , from your Board of Control , from your Army and Navy Medical Boards . That is not clearer to minds
the sun shines at mid-day our than the embryo danger of your monster Exhibition , however noble that monster is intended to be . It is that same law which influenced the introduction of the pestilence of 1483 , 1485 , 1506 , 1517 , 1528 , 1529—a law as clearly definable as that two multiplied by two make four . It is notable that the second recurrence here cited took place just two years after all England had offered up prayers and thanksgivings for the withdrawal of what has ever been considered a divine scourge , and just at the period when the short-sighted wisdom of the learned had led them to infer that the calamities of
the past were the best guarantee against the danger of the future . The same law influenced the introduction of the plague in 1 GG 5 ; for both restorations brought with them a motley influx of foreigners . Whether moved by the consideration of the jealousy which might accrue from the presence of an army of loreigners , or struck by the repeated examples of pest occurring in his own time , arising out of a contingent plus population , that wise and sagacious Monarch , Henry IV ., dismissed with largess all his alien supporters , and , thanking them warmly for the services they had rendered him , remitted them to their vessels at Plymouth , to sail from thence to Brittany , —not allowing them to await either the issue of his contest with llichard , or for his own coronation contingent upon the deposal of that Monarch .
*• All well-informed men are aware that those heavy ¦ visitations of ancient times were traceable , like cholera , as coming from Asia ; but it is equall y notorious that , when international intercourse was limited , throughout four outbreaks Germany and the Netherlands were exempt , while at the fifth , in these last countries , pest developed itself at the great conference at Marpurgh , between Luther and Zuinglius , on transubstantiation , — a curious omen for the present religious tendencies of England . ' Your chronicles will show you that even meetings of Tudimental Parliaments and common assizes have frequently been the means of exciting sudden outbreaks , uniformly ascribed to excessive animalization of houses not capacious enough for their ordinary and contingent inhabitants . We will not here speak of the
centralization of large armies . Military annals will tell you that it was only at the expense of millions of lives that heroes , taking the initiative , at length learned how to obviate the danger . The sudden influx of conquerors in the cities and forts of the conquered have in our own time been seen to be fatal to both . The ancient records of Windsor will show that crowded guests have proved as equally fatal to their host as the visit of Athenian interlopers on the return of the Heraclidrc to the Peloponnesus . When we consider that it took forty-seven years and then
external atmosphere , like that of all crowded cities , is surcharged with noxious vapours , the solitary hovel is safer than the crowded mansion . London saw a great influx of foreigners in 1814 , and , although of a class under official regulations , and chiefly under the surveillance of superiors , the records or bills of mortality will show a great increase of disease , if we are not much deceived . Napoleon made a mere infant demonstration in 1803 , a miniature of your grand scheme , and even that comparatively small influx of population increased the mortality of Paris .
_ _ __ " Let us consider the habits of all foreigners visiting any of the metropolitan cities of Europe . They mostly congregate in quarters where their fellow-countrymen had for centuries been wont to assemble . In London , lodgings are expensive . The purlieus of Leicester-square are a favourite quarter for them . Cupidity of lodginghouse keepers induces them to receive an overplus . Upwards of threescore foreigners have been known to
lodge , or rather to bundle , in one house in Castle-street , three in a bed . Such could never be the case with the more opulent ; but in all great visitations the wealthy and industrious are followed by irregular adventurers of all sorts . What number of visitors may we be allowed to ask , does your committee expect ? We have heard of 40 , 000 . We have heard of 100 , 000 . We have heard of a million . And we think the lasc a nearer approximation to the probable truth . "
It is quite clear we must give up the Exhibition the over animalization of London was never contemplated ; and the destructive presence of " beastly foreigners " renders the scheme a terror . To be serious , there is an evil pointed out by the author of this pamphlet , though he may exaggerate its magnitude and raise an alarmist cry which will , perhaps , prevent his view being fairly consideredand this evil the committee ought very seriously to ponder on . To provide accommodation for such vast numbers -will be a task of excessive difficulty , but
the bare fact of housing so many must not be considered sufficient , for , as this pamphlet shows , unless the numbers be distributed over a proportionate space the progress of disease -will be frightful . Has this been thought of ?
to developc the English plague m Germany , only through the contingency of a religious conference , while , on the other hand , a conference for glory spread the Black Death throughout this country , we cannot ¦ hut our eyes on the light which history throws upon us . It matters not how large the habitation or how small the hovel , or how large the town or how small the village , if both are over-animalizod the solitary hovel is less dangerous than the metropolis . A given number of cubic feet of air is essential to man ' s health , and provided the
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after her departure with , her words in my heart and her kiss upon my brow . " No , M . Iiamartine , you did not believe anything of the kind ; you knew perfectly well it was your mother , not an angel , and only your love of dressing up for effect made you write that sentence . "Oh ! but you forget Lamartine is a poet , " exclaims some reader , " and in saying he believed she was an angel , he only means she had an angelic effect : it is a mere figure of speech . " Precisely ; and by these figures of speech he desecrates the truth for the sake of vulgar rhetoric ,
and makes that disgusting which might otherwise have been touching ; by these " figures" he contrives to make his whole narrative unvcracious . In the same offensive style he describes the beauty of his sisters as they issue from church—one of them he says was the pride of the town . The common people pointed her out to strangers with a feeling of personal pride . Passers by looked back to gaze on her ; the shops , the walls , the very paving-stones were in love with
her I ( les boutiques , les murs , et les paves en etaient epris !) This might pass as the caprice of a poet ' s fancy , but , in an autobiography said gravely of a sister , it is to our tastes provokingly unpleasant ; so also is the comparison a little further on , where he says the other sister clung to her * ' as if her delicate form stood in need of support against the wind or against the breath of the multitude ! " That may be imaginative . We are prosaic enough to think it simply foolish . It would be tedious to multiply examples ; the opening
sentence strikes the key note of the whole . En vous addressant , mon cher Girardin , ce troisieme volume de ces Notes intimes que le public a appele ' es Confidences Now , what an idle unveracity to say the public gave the name of Confidences to his work , when he , Iiamartine , christened it himself , or at any rate allowed some friend to christen it bo , and the public never heard of it till it appeared so named ! What must be the state of that man ' s mind who can print a foolish untruth like the above , merely , one must suppose , to turn a phrase r
Leaving all considerations of style , and addressing ourselves solely to the matter communicated , our readers will be surprized to hear that the whole volume is occupied with a long-spun account of his return home , descriptions of houses , and of unknown , uninteresting people , with a long rigmarole story of an Italian love affair between two of his friends , and about as much biography as would fill ten pages . Bookmaking of the most shameless garrulity ; and , let us add , of the most uninteresting : that is the characteristic of this volume . From out its tedium
we select two passages—not to have wasted the reader ' s time and our own with mere grumbling . The first is a glimpse of provincial life . Having described the leading people of Macon , he draws this picture of THE CABD PLAYERS . " This numerous and elegant society assembled every evening in the salon of one of these houses ; the company grouped themselves round the card tables , with the exception of two or three late comers , who , having arrived after the games hnd commenced , were exchanging a few words in an undertone by the chimney-piece , and
of the young girls who sat in silence behind their mothers , and whispered together as if they were in church , or in their convents . An austere and religious silence presided in all the salons during these everlasting games of whist or revcrsi . The game , moderate as were the stakes , bowed all those heads , threw all those men and women into an almost grotesque state of meditation , which was only interrupted by short phrases , looks , and gestures , by turns radiant or despairing . ^ The points were five sous , sometimes less ; but man is a being so essentially impassioned that he throws passion into frivolities when he cannot throw it into great things . Besides , the evening play in these salons was a habit of the
LAMARTINE ' 8 EARLY LIFE . NouveWt Confidences . Par Alphonse de Lamartine . W . Jeffs . When last week we commented on the immense greed of money which seemed to actuate the excessive literary activity of Lamartine , we had no conception that the work we then announced would turn out such a shameless example of book-making and garrulous vanity as we find it . There was affectation enough , and , let us add , want of truth and taste enough , in the former volumes to prepare us for a work which would still further loosen the
foundations of that respect we feel for Lamartine ' s genius , and for much of his public life , but , shocking as were many passages , disagreeable as the volumes were from the omnipresent untruthfulness in delineating the veriest trifles , there was at least some compensation in the story of Graziella ( though he played so degrading a part in it ) , and in some of the glimpses of his early life . But the present volume is without such compensation . It is the delirium of self-complacency , and is fatuous without being amusing . When a man writes of his own life we are liberal in
allowance of vanity ; we suffer him to arrange the lights and shadows as he pleases , to lay on the colours as thick as conscience will permit him . Let him seat himself upon Olympus , we will not too closely scrutinize his claims . But he must be in , earnest . He must believe himself actually seated there . He must have faith in his own grandeur , untroubled by misgivings . Now , Lamartine , by some strange maladroitness , contrives to rob all he says of like the air of truthHis vanity is insuffer
anything . - able because he affects superiority to it ; his talk about himself is disagreeable , because you cannot for a moment believe him , or believe that he himself believes it . Splendour of diction and loftiness of sentiment only seem to add to the theatrical glitter . The atmosphere is impregnated with a poison—want of truthfulness—which , you inhale at every step . His autobiography has all the vulgar tricks of a commonplace novel , without its interest . Every passage
is dresaed up for effect , and the effect is missed , lhe unveracity of the * book is marvellous . The incrcdulus odi prevents enjoyment . To give but a sample—a trifle , but indicative : —on returning homo he finds next morning his mother seated at his bedside , and retails a long speech of ten pages , which he pretends she poured forth to him . Observe , ho gives it in the very words she is said to have uttered ! That finished she knelt , prayed , and retired with soft steps ; whereupon he says : " I believed that an angel had been visiting me , and I remained a long while motionless
ancien regime , adhered to out of respect for the traditions of another epoch . Flay had all the seriousness of a duty belonging to good society , a duty to be accomplished under penalty of being considered an ill-bred man or useless woman ; the morning ' s religious ceremonies in church were not imposed or followed with more solemnity . You were despised if you neglected it , esteemed and sought after if you excelled in it . I remember five or six men of the lowest grade of mediocrity , who were never mentioned but with extreme reverence , because , people said with more respect than they would have felt for a great artist , ' they played boston and reversi in a superior manner . ' You could very well live and die on that reputation !"
Our next passage shall be a GLIMPSE OP A POET ' S LIFE . " Watching the sun rise over the tops of the oaks of the park ; opening my window that the swallows might flutter frei'ly beneath the ceiling ; reading in my bed old books to the hum of life which ascended from the court and farmyard ; listening to the bell of the goat which led out the flock of sheep after the dew had disappeared ; breakfasting with my uncle off the cream of his cows ,
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Oct . 12 , 1850 . ] © ft * HtWUVt . 691
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 12, 1850, page 691, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1856/page/19/
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