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superiors, as conveying intentional insult. | painters, sculptors, architects, and above Bishops sometimes get beyond this, mixing all, actors, the latter indubitably the most more with men of the world; but average jealous and sensitive of all the public proclergymen bear laughter directed against fessions. Their rivalries are often bitter themselves as badly as the women, whom in hatreds, -hatreds which sometimes conso many other respects they are apt to resem- vert men of considerable brain and great ble. There are jealousies enough among geniality on all other topics into angry chilpoliticians, jealousies sometimes so strong dren, who sulk for hours because they as to assume the form of hatreds; but they fancy their brothers or sisters have got generally end in very vehement dislikes, rather too much of the cake. Like all which find expression in speeches, and so artists, however, actors have this excuse, in great part exhale innocuously. They which barristers have not, that they must always be distinctive enough from serve a master essentially ignorant, incapaeach other not to clash directly, and the ble of trying them by the standards which cases are rare in which one Member or alone they think just; and of all irritating one Peer is directly and unmistakably in positions, a competitive examination before another's way. The same cause modifies, incompetent examiners is to competent canwith the help of the practice of anonymous didates the most intolerable. The best writing, the jealousy journalists would else excuse for the lawyers is, we believe, the experience, and perhaps express. Each excessive and almost unendurable temptaman in the profession differs essentially from each other, and becomes aware as time goes on that he cannot draw away his brother's audience or lose his own, unless he alienates it for himself. The trade rivalry of journals, supposed by outsiders to be so very bitter, and possibly sometimes felt by proprietors alarmed for their cash, is, we believe, almost entirely imaginary, no journal which has once won a position ever being injured except from within. We venture to say, absurd as many proprietors will deem the opinion, that a paper as good as the Times sold for a farthing would not reduce the circulation of the Times ten per cent. The new enterprise could not be the Times, or very closely resemble it; and people who want the Times, want it, and not something else, and if attracted by the farthing paper, would only buy that too.

tions under which the successful among them work. No career in the world offers prizes at once so splendid and so few. A rival or two out of the way, and that little note may come which makes "plain Jock Campbell" in a morning a great magnate, first in rank among Cabinet Ministers, President of the Peers, a man legally enti tled to deferential audience and to a direct share in legislation for the remainder of his days. No wonder that members of an overworked profession,- no work in England except that of a journeyman baker is comparable with the work of a barrister in high practice with a coronet to maintain in full view, should scrutinize those rivals somewhat closely, should be jealous of the slightest indifference to their own claims, should, after perhaps years of tantalizing expectation, be unjust to those preferred, The jealousies of the Bar, however, are or those who have for long been the possias keen as those of artists, and probably ble subjects of such preference. We read for the same reason, namely, that success recently a horrible yet pathetic story in depends so much upon public admiration; some magazine of the mad hatred felt by and the contest thus rouses the most re- patients in a convict hospital for any patient morseless of the passions — interested or any doctor to whom the attendant Sister vanity. It is trying to human nature to of Mercy spoke with unusual friendliness. see a man succeed when you could have She was their one object of interest, and done it so much better yourself, and are jealousy became a murderous passion. standing there in the marketplace ready, if Something of the same kind of feeling must only you are chosen, to do it with such a be felt by competitors for the Woolsack, or will. That the method of achieving suc- the great posts which directly lead to it, a cess involves incessant contest before the feeling demanding a strong will to subdue public does not matter much, for politicians among men every circumstance of whose also struggle under that condition, and training has tended to develop the personal hate their opponents very much less than ambition, the fiery though not petty vanity their friends. It is the degree in which of success, which so many other careers success depends upon appreciation which keep down. does the mischief, just as it does among

From The Saturday Review. NAPOLEON LE BIEN-INTENTIONNE.

selling, ruler; as the man without whose implied assent no great change in European MACHIAVELLI has a remark upon Pope politics could be effected; as one who had Julius II. to the effect that the successful never any but selfish aims, but whose aims reign of that warlike ecclesiastic was owing, were prudently conceived and surely carried not simply to his own character, but to the out. And if we go further back in his history, extent to which his character suited and we shall see him in a third guise, widely difharmonized with the age in which he lived. fering from either of these two as a hareIf, he says, Julius had lived in an age brained enthusiast, whose visionary schemes averse to bold enterprise, he would have were rather topics of mirth to sensible men proved, not a successful, but a very unsuc- than susceptible of serious consideration. cessful, ruler. The truth of such a remark Can three portraits of character differ more as this has its limits; for there can be no from each other than these three do? And doubt that capacity and strength of charac-yet it is quite certain that the Emperor canter are in a great measure tested by the not be described rightly without an admixvery fact of a man being able to adapt him-ture of all three of these delineations. self to the age in which he lives. A fool The surest way of understanding what a stands fast, concentred in himself; a wise man is, is to see what he admires. Now man discerns the signs of the times, and Louis Napoleon has never left the world in knows how far he must give way to them doubt as to the character towards which he before he can effect any thing by his own invariably looks with special admiration. influence. Still, for all that, a man's suc-"To understand the epoch in which one cess and reputation must greatly depend on lives" is with him the keynote of all praise; circumstances that lie purely outside his con- to misunderstand it is the keynote of all trol; and the same temper, guided by an blame. The Emperor, then, has chosen as equal amount of insight, may subject one his motto, "to understand his epoch;" he man to blame, and gain for another, under has tried, more than anything else, to asaltered circumstances, boundless praise. similate himself to the men of his time, and And when circumstances change quickly, to be the propagator and champion of modthe same man may in a short time appear under marvellously different aspects. Thus it was that the profound sagacity, as it was once thought, of Louis-Philippe did, after his abdication, entirely vanish from the minds of men, and, instead of it, there appeared in him marvellous blindness and misguided folly.

ern ideas. It is this effort which has introduced into his character that extreme complication of which we have spoken.

For

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to understand the epoch in which one lives" is rather the motto of a speculative than of a practical mind. Practical men may, if they can and if they will, consider the thoughts of the age as a whole; it is betWe have been led into these remarks by ter that they should do so, but their not dothe tone which is held towards the Empe- ing so will not entail on them immediate ror of the French in the very able letters ruin. But to practical men, and most of from a Parisian correspondent, a French- all to the rulers of countries, it is destrucman, which the Times has now been pub- tion not to have a quick eye to their immelishing for some weeks past. The Emperor diate environment, to have ready expediis spoken of in these letters with undisguised ents for emergencies, to be alive to superfihostility, but hostility of a kind wholly dif- cial changes of feeling and the variable workferent from, and even opposite to, the vehe-ings of the machinery of States. Thus the ment denunciations that were employed necessities of a practical man differ wholly against him by his political opponents some from that "understanding of his epoch years ago. He is nicknamed " Napoleon which is the prime necessity of a speculatist. the Well-intentioned;" he is spoken of as a And in history or fiction the characters man who invariably desires to do the right which are the most inexplicable problems thing, but who as invariably fails from con- are those in which the speculative and pracfusedness of mind and a stupid habit of tical efforts, the "desire to understand ❤ bungling. Such a representation of him and the "necessity to act," have co-existed has, no doubt, a measure of truth and a side by side, but yet have not sufficiently measure of prejudiced caricature. But what amalgamated with or influenced each other. first occurs to one is, what an inversion this Such a character was Cromwell, and such a is of the view generally entertained in Eu- character was Hamlet. rope at the time of Magenta and Solferino, and for some years later! Then he was looked upon as an unscrupulous, and on occasions cruel, but subtle and deep-counLIVING AGE. VOL. XIII. 544

Of all practical men, the despot has need to be most practical. If he fails in this, his downfall is at once certain, and far greater than any that can befall men in a meaner

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station. It may be his wish to understand; | the constant vigilance, required in the manbut to employ hard physical force is his ne-agement of a great empire by a single percessity. Now the First Napoleon was the son for a number of years not to speak watchword; none could look with such gaining such an empire was seized - is only scorn as he did on the "idealists," on the possible for those who have been blinded men who tried to look a little deeper than by a doubtless just animosity against the their neighbours. To understand the ma- oppressor of his country. And yet it is pernoeuvring of battalions, the friendly or in- fectly true that the ability of Louis Napoimical dispositions of his neighbours, the leon has by no means displayed itself with means of keeping down obstinate, refrac-any very striking brilliancy; it has subtory people, was all very well; but to understand anything further, of what practical use was it? Thus his figure was at once colossal and simple; and if he fell, it was because Europe was too great to be dominated over even by his imperial capacity. He had no secret enemy of conflicting impulses in his own mind.

model despot. "To govern was his of the skill with which the opportunity of

jected itself to disparagement; and it is clear also how this has happened. No intellect can produce an effective or splendid result which does not work on a single design. The design may be good or bad; this does not matter, as far as the splendour of the result is concerned, though it matters much to its excellence; but it is a first neWe should be doing the present Emperor cessity that it should be simple, and not injustice if we did not say that his singu- ambiguous or confused. Such a design the larly complex character appears to us to First Napoleon had: it consisted simply in contain nobler elements than any which this, to make as many people as he could were exhibited by the First Napoleon. He subservient to his will and submissive to his certainly has no contempt for idealists; he power. But the present Napoleon has had has in himself much of the idealist. His de-a double mind, an ambiguous design; his sire to understand his epoch is even noble; enterprises have been prompted half by and he has always endeavoured, as far as chivalrous feeling and half by selfish intrest. was consistent with the maintenance of his If he has desired to promote the noble aspower, to further the good of his genera-pirations of humanity, he has also, and at tion. But, then, "as far as is consistent least equally, desired to be the founder of with the maintenance of his power" this a dynasty. With such duplicity of purpose, qualification is so vast that few can believe what grand result could be attained? It is that posterity will look back upon Louis Na- possible to be grand in virtue; it is possible poleon as, on the whole, a benefactor of to be grand even in wickedness. But to mankind. A Greek tragedian would have the man who hangs between good and evil, represented him as a man afflicted by an to the Laodicean, to him who is unstable in Ate-by an inexplicable curse, arising out all his ways, what grandeur is possible? of some action of his own which turns all With the right hand to lay the foundationhis good endeavours and struggles into mis-stone of a united Italy, with the left hand chief and calamity. It is easy to see that to obstruct and harass the builders; to give at the outset these two impulses co-existed in him -the fresh and honourable desire for the good of mankind, the enthusiasm for liberty, for national life and vigour; but, alongside of this, the desire to be himself the chief agent in human affairs. It is easy to see, likewise, that whenever these two impulses have come into collision, the latter has always gained the mastery over the former. Nor can the moral verdict of reprobation on such a career be doubtfully delivered; though there is much to mitigate our hatred of the man.

It is, however, the ability and not the character the intellectual and not the moral nature of Louis Napoleon that is the most interesting subject of discussion, and that on which the greatest variety of opinion exists. Certainly we do not agree with those who disparage or think slightingly of it. To underrate the tension of brain,

Lombardy, and filch Savoy and Nice; to send the troops of Victor Emanuel against Naples, and to keep his fleet from off Gaeta; to be desirous to propagate ideas, and to be able only to propagate bullets; above all, to wish ardently and promise perpetually to give to France that self-government which is the greatest gift a ruler can give his people, and which, if he could give it, would reflect eternal honour to his name, and yet to be obliged, not only to refrain from giving the gift, but to spend all his energy in preventing the French people from wresting it from him-surely no ruler was ever placed in a position so little calculated to display his ability to advantage. If, indeed, the French Emperor could have had an uninterrupted course of material success, there would have been much to soothe his failure in a nobler ambition, He has a preference for the higher

standard; he would like to be the benefac-| beneficent acts he has chosen not to win. tor of France and of Europe in respect of He cannot expect to found a dynasty; and, great thoughts and aspirations, to found in- when he dies, what motive will any man stitutions that should live, and be the re- have for remembering him one moment liever of the wants of mankind; but failing longer? this, he would have not disliked carrying his arms over conquered provinces, and winning a name among the great military monarchs of the world. But this has been denied him; he has seen neighbours overtop

From Public Opinion.

ST. ANDREW'S UNIVERSITY.

[Times, March 24.]

THOSE Who have not had a university ed

him and win brilliant success, while he has MR. FROUDE'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT been defeated; he has lost material no less than spiritual triumphs; partly through the force of circumstances, and partly from the thwarting influence of the less selfish ele-ucation, and those, also, who have to regret ments of his own mind. And yet, when we that, while at college, they neglected their speak of the less selfish elements, it is sin- opportunities, are receiving much comfort gular how much of petty desire has mixed itself even with these. In that inimitable letter to M. Ollivier, published the other day than which surely no man ever wrote a more stinging satire on himself-the predominance of his wish to be famous over his wish to do good is manifested with the greatest naïveté. "He desires," he says, to do something striking "; not to potter in a weak vacillating manner, not to make some small concession here and withhold some small concession there, but to blaze out before the eyes of the world; not to do what he has persistently done, but to do what he has never done. There can be no doubt where Dante would have placed Louis Napoleon among the angels who were rejected alike by heaven and hell:

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quel cattivo coro
Degli angeli che non furon ribelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sè foro.
Cacciarli i ciel per non esser men belli,
Nè lo profondo inferno gli riceve,
Ch' alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d'elli.

We have said that we do not agree with those who think meanly of the ability of Louis Napoleon. But we agree with them decidedly so far, that that mysterious subtlety for which he used to be so famous is not the subtlety of a man who is all-penetrative himself and shrouds himself up from the eyes of others, but the subtlety of a man whose thoughts are as mysterious, as much without a clue, to himself as to any one else. It is the subtlety of a Hamlet, not that of a Talleyrand. Such men as he can win the remembrance, only by winning the love, of mankind. It is a coarser nature, a nature of stronger fibre, a Cæsar or a First Napoleon, that concentrates and rivets men's attention by the display of tremendous force. This kind of success Louis Napoleon has not been able to attain: the noble success that is won by a consistent course of just and

from very competent authorities. Mr. Anthony Froude cannot but know a good deal about it. On the one hand he went through all the successive stages of that process by which a well-born lad in these days is converted into an educated English gentleman - that is, a person supposed to know enough about everything, to have received a capacity for learning more, and to be equal to most probable emergencies. Mr. Froude obtained honours, a fellowship, literary friends, and a start in life.

The comfort he offers to persons of no education, or what is called neglected education, and to those who, by their own neglect, have thwarted the intentions of their friends, is that the best of all education is that which teaches a man to earn his bread, to be honest and true, to know just as much as he can be quite sure of, and will certainly be of use to him. It may naturally be asked to whom it is that Mr. Froude addresses considerations with so good a basis in truth, but so contrary to the all-knowing, all-reaching, spirit of this age. Mr. Froude has just been elected Rector of the University of St. Andrew's, and they are to be found in his inaugural address.

We are always coming back to Dame Nature at last, and, when we have wandered into mazes of our own making, the best philosophy is that which brings us home again. Mr. Froude recalls us to those first and universal instincts and necessities which shape our lives, and ought to rule our studies. There is no education, he says, like doing doing something good and useful, doing anything allowable so as it be doing. Our forefathers taught every child to do something or other. There was profit in doing, and progress in doing. Body, mind, and heart, friends and estate, all prospered in doing. For doing something must be known, and that indicates the knowledge to be acquired. When the

66

[Scotsman, March 23.]

world went mad after intellectual theories and and the addition of more studies and more transcendental dogmas, there came hordes subjects to the old, narrow outline, has not of scholars and students, multitudinous imparted to the education of an English schools and universities, in which poverty gentleman either greater certainty of knowland actual mendicancy were very properly edge or more practical power. Mr. Froude associated with knowledge by which nobody evidently feels himself competent to meascould live a day, and which added nothing ure, at least on one subject, the ignorance to the common stock of the world. The prevailing in the educated, or what should present form of the delusion which dissoci- be the educated, classes. They know ates knowledge from use, and mistakes for nothing; or what they do know they know a finality that which should be only the wrong, and to no good purpose. Meanmeans, is cramming," and that which goes while the world, while it flies from ignowith it- -a servile cherishing of old-world rance, attempts to learn still more; and thought and information. A man is now they who know nothing well must show a expected to know all the 'ologies, all coun- smattering of everything. All this is true, tries, all histories, all languages, or at least too true. It must be so, when Mr. Froude something about everything there is, or ever tells us so, for he ought to know; and it has been, under the sun. It is quite im- confirms our sad suspicion. possible, Mr. Froude says, that any man can possess very much and profitable knowledge of all things, or even many things. He is a bit of an historian himself; that or nothing; and upon glancing over an examination-paper in history for young men at college, he found one or two questions that perhaps he could answer. To minds engaged in the process of accumulation, all statements become verbal formulas, without life or meaning. Upon that other knowledge, which deals neither with men nor with things, but which professes to define the infinite and express the unknown, Mr. Froude is evidently sure of the full sympathy and concurrence of his northern hearers. A keen air has invigorated his mind, and he tells the descendants of Papists, the admirers of Knox, and the near descendants of Covenanters that all the matters with which the mind can deal belong to the age, that one controversy and one trial only succeeds another, and that the good and true man who would have been brought to the stake three or four centuries ago, has now to undergo a similar ordeal of mental perplexities, battle with prejudices, and entanglement with human inventions.

ONE question particularly interesting to our time upon which Mr. Froude touched was the manner in which literature is paid. He charges this generation with so paying for literature as to insure bad work—the more words, the more pay; it ought to be the reverse." Mr. Ruskin brings the same charge against us with regard to art. A moment's consideration will show that truth is here slightly sacrificed to epigrammatical point. As a matter of fact, a few writers and not so few as Mr. Froude would lead his hearers and readers to understand - who have obtained the popular ear may command any price for their productions, however short. For them, the less work the more pay. Witness the unparalleled sums paid to Mr. Tennyson or Mr. Dickens. But with this reservation, which excludes from Mr. Froude's remarks many writers who are deservedly popular, there are reasons for thinking that Mr. Froude is right, and that the adjustment of wages for literature is awry. Those who know the history of the literature of this or any other country will be disposed to say the same; for There are several praises it would be im- they will remember that Shelley, the greatpossible to deny to this address. It is est poet of the last generation, could not really interesting. It throws the light of have earned by his poems enough to keep experience, of wit, and even of genius, on him in shoestrings; that Southey was driven the folly of trying to teach a youth every- to apprentice work, and finally to idiotcy, thing while he can do nothing, and while he by his manly struggle to make of literature really knows nothing. He exhibits the at once a calling and a career; that Leigh man stuffed with words and ideas hardly Hunt could only keep his head above water better than words, possessed with the con- by means of a pension thrown by Governceit of universal knowledge and universal ment to him when in a sinking condition; capacity, when a slight change of place and that Hazlitt, who might have been a greater circumstances would bring out the lamenta-Lessing had he been but well paid, was ble truth that he can do nothing but break forced to prepare for market gaudy goods, stones on the road-if, indeed, his physi- dazzling paradoxes; and that Coleridge, cal strength has survived his educational for the same reason, left writing good training. The world is full of such wrecks, poetry to write very bad politics. Such is

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