XI. 1821. keeping alive the attention. He neither disconcerted his CHAP. audience by abstract disquisition, nor exhausted them by statistical details, nor terrified them by vehemence of declamation. Alternately serious and playful, eloquent and fanciful, sarcastic and sportive, he knew how to throw over the most uninteresting subjects the play of fancy, and the light of original genius. Whatever the subject was, he touched it with a felicity which no other could reach. He never rose without awakening expectation, nor sat down without exciting regret. Gifted by nature with a poetic fancy and a brilliant imagination, an accomplished scholar, and a felicitous wit, he knew how to enliven every subject by the treasures of learning, the charms of poetry, and the magic influence of allusion. At times he rose to the very highest strains of eloquence; and if the whole English language is searched for the finest detached passages of splendid oratory, they will be found in the greatest number in his collected speeches. 5. If Mr Canning's reach of thought and consistency of conduct had been equal to these brilliant qualities, he His defects. would have been one of the very greatest statesmen, as unquestionably he was one of the first orators that England ever produced. But unfortunately this was very far from being the case; and he remains a lasting proof that, if literary accomplishment is one of the most inportant elements in oratorical power, it is very far from being the same in statesmanlike wisdom. Perhaps they cannot coexist in the same mind. Mr Burke himself, the greatest of political philosophers, was by no means an equally popular speaker-his voice seldom failed to clear the House of Commons. Mr Canning had too much of the irritability of genius in his temper, of the fervour of poetry in his thought, of the restlessness of ambition in his disposition, to be, when intrusted with the direction of affairs, either a safe or a judicious statesman. Passionately fond of popularity, XI. 1821, CHAP. accustomed to receive its incense, and reap at once the rewards of genius by the admiration which his brilliancy in conversation, his versatility in debate, awakened, he forgot that immediate applause is in general the precursor, not of lasting fame, but of dangerous innovation and permanent condemnation. He mistook the cheers of the multitude for the voice of ages. He forgot the reproof of the Greek philosopher, when his pupil was intoxicated with the applause of the mob: My son, if you had spoken wisely, you would have met with no such approbation." Hence he yielded with too much facility to the bent of the age in which he was called to power; he increased, instead of moderating, its fervour. His career as a statesman, in mature life, is little more than a contrast to his earlier speeches as a legislator. He was the first of that school, unfortunately become so numerous in later times, who sacrifice principle to ambition, and climb to power by adopting the principles which they have spent the best part of their life in combating. Unbounded present applause never fails to attend the unlooked-for and much-prized conversion. Time will show whether it is equally followed by the respect and suffrages of subsequent ages. 6. Viscount Chateaubriand. Mr Canning rose to power in England, by embodying in the most effective and brilliant form the spirit and wishes of his country at the time: as Napoleon said of himself, “Il marchait toujours avec l'opinion de cinq millions d'hommes." By a singular coincidence, another man of similar talents and turn of mind at the same time was elevated by the influence of the ruling party at the moment in France to the direction of its foreign affairs, and, equally with his English rival, embodied the ideas and wishes of the ruling majority on the other side of the Channel. VISCOUNT CHATEAUBRIAND has attained to such fame as a writer, that we are apt to forget that he was also a powerful statesmen; that he ruled the foreign affairs of his country during the most momentous period which XI. 1821. had elapsed since the fall of the Empire; and achieved CHAP. for its arms a more durable, if a less brilliant conquest than the genius of Napoleon had been able to effect. Like Mr Canning, he was a type of the "literary character." Mr Disraeli could not, in all history, discover two men whose productions and career evince in more striking colours its peculiarities, its excellencies, and defects. His imagination was brilliant, his disposition elevated, his soul poetical. Descended of an ancient and noble family-bred in early life in a solitary château in Brittany, washed by the waves of the Atlantic, the gloomy imagery which first filled his youthful mind affixed a character upon it which subsequently was rendered ineffaceable by the disasters and sufferings of the Revolution.* He had the spirit of chivalry in his soul, His * FRANCOIS RÉNÉ DE CHATEAUBRIAND was born on 4th September 1769, the same year with Marshal Ney, and which Napoleon declared was his own. His mother, like those of almost all eminent men recorded in history, was a very remarkable woman, gifted with an ardent imagination and a wonderful memory, qualities which she transmitted in great perfection to her son. family was very ancient, going back to the tenth century; but, till immortalised by Francois Réné, they lived in unobtrusive privacy on their paternal acres. After receiving the rudiments of education at home, he was sent at the age of seventeen into the army; he was engaged in the campaign of 1792, under the Prince of Condé, and the Prussians under the Duke of Brunswick, against Dumourier. He there, as he was marching along in his uniform as a pri vate, with his knapsack on his back, accidentally met the King of Prussia. Struck with his appearance, the king asked him where he was going: "Wherever danger is to be found," was the reply of the young soldier. "By that answer," said the king, touching his hat, "I recognise the noblesse of France." His regiment soon after revolted, in consequence of which he resigned his commission, and came to Paris, where he witnessed the storming of the Tuileries on 10th August 1792, and the massacres in the prisons on 2d September. Many of his nearest relations, in particular his sister-in-law, Madame de Chateaubriand, and his sister, Madame Rosambo, were executed along with Malesherbes, shortly before the fall of Robespierre. Obliged now to leave France to avoid death himself, he escaped to and took refuge in England, where he lived for some years in extreme poverty and obscure lodgings in London, supporting himself entirely by his pen, and, like Johnson, often scarce able, even by its aid, to earn his daily meal. He there wrote his first and least creditable work, the Essai Historique, many passages in which prove that even his ardent spirit had for a time been shaken by the infidelity and dreams of the Revolution. But he soon awakened to better feelings, and regained amidst suffering his destined and glorious career. Tired of his obscure and monotonous life, and disconcerted by the issue of a love affair in England, he set out for CHAP. but not the gaiety of the troubadour in his heart. XI. 1821. Generous, high-minded, and disinterested in the extreme, he was so inured in youth to the spectacle of woe, that it was stript of most of those terrors which render it so appalling to less experienced sufferers. Like the veteran who has seen his comrades for years fall around him, the America, with the Quixotic idea-indicative, however, of a mind as aspiring as that of Columbus-of discovering by land the long-sought north-west passage to the Pacific. He failed in that attempt, for which, indeed, he was possessed of no adequate means; but he saw the Falls of Niagara, dined with Washington; and in the solitudes of the Far West inhaled the spirit, while his eye painted on his mind the scenes, of savage nature. Many of the finest descriptions and allusions which adorn his works are drawn from the scenes which then became impressed on his memory; and, combined with those of the East, which he afterwards visited, constitute not the least charm of his writings. Finding that there was nothing to be done in the way of geographical discovery, with his limited means, in America, he returned to England in 1798, from whence, on the pacification of France, on the fall of the Directory and accession of Napoleon, he returned to Paris, and began his literary career. He was now in the thirty-second year of his age, and the mingled ardour, information, and poetic fervour of his mind appeared in their full perfection in the works which he gave to the public. Attala and Réné, a romance, of which the scene was laid in and the characters drawn from America, exhibited in the most brilliant form the imagery, ideas, and scenery of the Far West, seen through the eyes of chivalrous genius; while the Génie du Christianisme presented, on a larger scale, and in an immortal work, the combined fruits of study, observation, and experience, in illustrating the blessings which Christianity has conferred upon mankind. Such was the celebrity which these works almost immediately acquired, that they attracted the attention of Napoleon, who was anxious to enlist talent of all kinds in his service. He sent for Chateaubriand accordingly, and offered him the situation of Minister to the Republic of the Valais, as a first step in diplomatic service. He at once accepted it; but ere he had time to set out on his proposed mission, the murder of the Duke d'Enghien occurred, and while all Europe was in consternation at that dreadful event, he had the courage, while yet in Paris, to brave the Emperor's wrath by resigning his appointment. His friends trembled for his life in the first burst of Napoleon's fury; but he was sheltered by the Princess Eliza, and having made his escape from Paris, he turned his steps to the East, the historic land on which, from his earliest years, his romantic imagination had been fixed. He visited Greece and Constantinople, the isles of the Ægean and the stream of the Jordan, Jerusalem and Cairo, the pyramids, Thebes, and the ruins of Carthage. From this splendid phantasmagoria he drew the materials of two other great works, which appeared soon after his return to Paris; Les Martyrs, which embodied the most striking images which had met his eye in Greece and Egypt, and the Itineraire de Paris à Jerusalem, which gave the entire details of his journey. The wrath of Napoleon having now subsided, as it generally did after a time, even when most strongly provoked, he was allowed to remain at Paris, which he did in privacy, supporting himself by literary contributions to the few reviews and journals which the despotism of the Emperor XI. 1821. image of death had been so often before his eyes that it CHAP. had ceased to affect his imagination. He was ever ready at the call of duty, or the impulse of chivalrous feeling, to imperil his life or his fortune even in behalf of a cause which was obviously hopeless. "Fais ce que tu dois, advienne ce que pourra," was his maxim, as it ever permitted to exist, and by the sale of his acknowledged works, until 1814, when, as the approach of the Allies gave rational hopes of the restoration of the Bourbons, he composed in secresy, and published within a few days after their entry into Paris, his celebrated pamphlet, Buonaparte et les Bourbons, which had almost as powerful an effect as the victories of the Allies in bringing about the restoration of the exiled family. On the accession of Louis XVIII. parties were too much divided, and the influence of Talleyrand was too paramount, to allow of his being admitted into the Government; but, with his usual fidelity to misfortune, he accompanied Louis during the Hundred Days to Ghent, where he powerfully contributed by his pen to keep alive the hopes of the Royalists, and hold together the fragments of their shipwrecked party. On the second restoration the real or supposed necessity of taking Fouché into power made him decline any office under Government, although he was, at the earnest request of the Count d'Artois, created a peer of France in 1815. Subsequently the principles and policy of M. Decazes and the Duke de Richelieu were so much at variance with those which he professed, and had consistently maintained through life, that he not merely kept aloof from the Government, but became an active member of the Royalist Opposition, which, as usually happens in such cases, occasionally found themselves in a strange temporary alliance with their most formidable antagonists on the Liberal side. As they were in a minority in both Chambers, their only resource was the press, of the freedom of which Chateaubriand became an ardent supporter, as well from the consciousness of intellectual strength as from the necessities of his political situation. This added as much to his literary fame as it diminished his popularity with Government. Power has an instinctive dread, under all circumstances, of the unrestrained exercise of intellectual strength. He only obtained, under the semiLiberal administration of the first years of the Restoration, the temporary ap pointment of an embassy to Prussia; and it was not till the Royalists in good earnest succeeded to power, on the downfall of the Duke de Richelieu's second administration, that he was appointed ambassador to London, in the beginning of 1822, a situation which, in the following year, was exchanged for that of Minister for Foreign Affairs, which brought him into direct collision with Mr Canning, in one of the most interesting and momentous periods of the history of France and England. He held that situation only for two years: he had too much of the pride of intellect in his mind, of the irritability of genius in his disposition, to be a practicable minister under another leader. His noble and disinterested conduct in refusing the portfolio of Foreign Affairs on the accession of Louis Philippe, and preferring exile and destitution to power and rule obtained by the sacrifice of principle and honour, will form an interesting, and, for the honour of human nature, redeeming episode in a subsequent volume of this History.-Memoirs d'Outre-Tombe, par M. le Vicomte de CHATEAUBRIAND, vols. i. to viii.; and Biographie des Hommes Virants, ii. 144-149. |