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points of view from without, I will offer a few words in conclusion on the intrinsic character of this drama. It has already been described as the genuine expression of a singular phasis of social existence, embodying the idea of human life possessed at a certain time by the particular race to which it belongs. Such, indeed, must always be the description of the drama as a living mode of art-an image of its time, namely, as seen reflected on the general surface of national mind, through the medium of its imagination. Hence, from that form of poetry we obtain not only a picture of the conceptions of a given epoch, but also a measure of the faculties by which it was conceived;-and this it is that makes the drama so precious to thoughtful observers.

In the Spanish, owing to the very narrowness of the field of vision, the result comes out with peculiar intensity and significance; nor is its meaning difficult to read. The notion it gives of the spiritual endowments of the nation is one in which high spirit, ingenious thought, quick senses, and vehement passions are more evident than depth of feeling, large mental capacity, or full moral development. That the land of Cervantes could not be devoid of sagacity or humour, evidence from the stage was not needed to inform us. It is rich, too, in brilliant imagery and pompous conceptions; but they are such as float somewhat

lightly on the surface of things-are rather picturesque than symbolic or many-sided; and carry with them much that is more specious than sound. Nor is there altogether unfelt a certain monotony, reminding us that the Spanish world of the seventeenth century, as well in its social relations as in its intellectual processes, revolved within a narrow circle. The private life of the Castilian of that period was visibly deficient in plenitude and variety; and his mind, when not busied by some of the passions

in which gambling must be included-seems to have mainly depended for occupation on outward excitements of a class that belongs to the infancy of civilization-processions, athletic games, and ceremonies or pageants, in which the show of finery was the sole attraction. One may conceive what a supreme resource the theatre would be in such a mode of life as this.

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* It would be no idle task to examine in detail the causes and purport of this difference between the only two modern theatres that can be termed national-i. e., the property not of a class, but of an entire people. The result would be found to agree with what history leads us to infer, due allowance being made for climate and race. The main discrepancy, it will be seen, is far too wide to be explained by local distinctions; nor is such explanation needed. In both countries the drama appears in a time of excitement, the offspring of great antecedent changes: here the resemblance ends, and the deviation on either side is significant. The immediate impulse in Spain was external-an accident or effect of motion in the current of public affairs. Of higher influences the action may be said to have ceased with the Moorish feud: from that point the moral health of the people had rapidly declined. Such freedom of thought as they had ever enjoyed was cramped by the Inquisition under Ferdinand and Isabella. Political liberty was crushed by Charles V. in Castile; in Aragon by Philip II. Thus, from the point at which the nation stood when the drama arose, nothing but decline was possible. In England, on the contrary, not only was the momentum of a superior kind, but its force, also, was lasting. The spur of national glory was not unfelt by the conquerors of the Armada; but the supreme impulse was from a power above this. For half a century the people had lived in the light of the Reformation; and, instead of losing their old franchises, were every day adding to their security. Thus, in the one country, the pride of empire or race, both decaying, and the last expiring flashes of chivalrous spirit, could not keep up the fire they had kindled: in the other, the freshening air of freedom and the spread of a purer religion, gave not only present

1859.] War in General, and Modern French Wars in Particular. 71

rhythmical beauty, felicity of invention, scenic artifice, and symmetry of arrangement.

It must, nevertheless, be said that what the Spanish theatre wants in the breadth of its arena, and in the moral and mental constitution of its figures, is largely compensated by the vivacity of the scene, and the marked physiognomy of the actors. The stock of essential properties may be limited; but such is the spirit, skill, and fancy with which they are combined and diversified -such is the warmth of expression and the grace of movement-that repetition is never felt, and the

intense local colour of every object, in the continual stir and vicissitude of new situations, rather excites than wearies the eye. The mode of national being thus presented to the spectator, with the principles and conventions on which it rests, are, moreover, not less striking than exceptional. They would deserve notice as a curious object of study, even were not a view of them indispensable to the knowledge of the Drama in which they are embodied. To trace some outlines of this peculiar system, as represented on the stage, will be attempted in the next chapter.

ON WAR IN GENERAL, AND MODERN FRENCH WARS IN PARTICULAR.

WARS, like offences, will come,

by whom war cometh. Yet if we look back upon history, it will seem as if wars were the main means by which the civilized world has been brought from swamp and forest and barren waste to its present condition, and man enabled to 'replenish the earth,' and nations superior in civilization to extend that civilization to inferior peoples. Human strife may be a proof of man's evil nature; but human conflicts on a large scale appear to have answered the same purpose in advancing the social state of mankind, as the physical convulsions and rapacious monsters of the geological epochs in improving the material condition of the globe. Except the Bible, we have no history till Herodotus, perhaps till Thucydides; but such glimpses into

energy but promise for the future.

primeval antiquity as traditions and classical fragments allow, indicate that some form of war was a mode of extending the arts and institutions of more favoured nations, as well as of increasing the human race (which in a narrow line of view it seems the object of war to destroy). Of the Cyclopeans or Pelasgians nothing is known; but from their architectural remains it may be inferred that they were a migrating people, superior in arts to the aborigines they came amongst, and that their visits, however beneficial eventually, were not welcome or peaceable at the beginning. The earliest public records existing relate to Egypt and Assyria; for whatever doubts may be entertained as to the interpretation of their hieroglyphics, buildings and graphic representations remain to speak for themselves. These may not esta

There, when the theatre was opened, the

darkness was already falling: here, all was growing day.

It has already been observed that the stage was the only free spot in Spain; ours, on the contrary, had open ground on all sides: hence a further difference arose, which is worth noting. The operation of the state of things in such a contrast being twofold, observe how it acts on one side. Where every other avenue was barred, the drama had all the genius of the time to itself; where many were accessible, it could not engross more than a part. It is obvious that, with this difference, the resources of the two theatres cannot be reduced to a common equation. Their respective proportions to the general mass of intellect are altogether different; and this inequality must not be lost sight of in any comparison of the two dramas, as types of intellectual power in either nation.

Note, as a corollary, that while both, by the nature of things, were destined to expire, in Spain poetry went out with the drama; in England it survived in other forms-still vigorous, though without the splendour and freshness of its dawn.

no

blish the stories of African, European, and Asiatic expeditions even beyond the Indus, which the fragments of antiquity record of Rameses and Sesostris of Egypt, of Ninus and Semiramis of Assyria, and of the mythological Bacchus; but they prove various and extensive conquests. There are data as to the social results of these expeditions; but it may be fairly held that the Assyrian empire and its civilization originated in some invasion from Egypt, if there be truth in the chronology and specu lations of modern Egyptologists. If the reverse opinion be held, that Egypt was civilized by a superior race from Babylonia or India, the conclusion that that civilization originated in conquest remains the same. Respecting primeval China, there are no definite facts. Ethnologists assert that the aborigines of India were an inferior and degraded race, dispossessed and driven to hill and jungle by an invading people, who originated a form of civilization that was ancient and mature even in the days of Alexander.

As history becomes more certain and fuller, the effects of wars can be more distinctly traced. The conquests of the Persians in Western Asia and in Egypt, the long hostility between Persia and Greece, finally ending in the expeditions of Xenophon and Alexander, produced great effects in the world. They directly enlarged geographical knowledge; they increased the intercommunication of stranger peoples by facilitating locomotion; they stimulated industry and extended commerce; by increasing commodities they added to the enjoyments of mankind, although such enjoyments may not be of the highest order; and finally, by establishing Alexandria, they gave rise to an emporium where the remotest East and West could meet together. But one of the greatest effects of war is to rouse the mind; and it is impossible to suppose that such changes in the rulers, the knowledge, and the habits of mankind were without effect upon the characters of men, modify ing the European (ancient philosophers called it corrupting him), if

they could not strengthen the Asiatic. If no palpably beneficial change was produced in national institutions, it was probably because the peoples and their institutions were grown too effete to benefit by grafting, when the more extensive and important changes through Alexander's conquests took place.

The conquests of the Romans were more evidently influential upon the world. Indeed, so far as reason can form a judgment, they were absolutely necessary to the formation of society in its present state. The subjugation of Italy was essential to the very existence of Rome. Hannibal's passage of the Alps was a geographical exploration as well as a military operation. The wars of Cæsar in Gaul, and Britain, and beyond the Rhine, procured for the world a definite knowledge of those regions not then attainable by other means; and knowledge attained by hostilities was not in those times a mere barren scientific knowledge, but was followed, like the Greek and Persian wars, by intercommunication of peoples hitherto strangers. The changes produced by Roman dominion in Gaul and Britain were beyond all question an advance in what men agree to call civilization. It is a common remark that the establishment of Roman rule, as a sequence of Roman conquest throughout ancient Europe, was necessary to the establishment of modern European civilization, especially as displayed in the supremacy of the law, local self-government (by means of municipalities), regular public administration, and those great public works-as roads and bridges, aqueducts and sewers -which contribute to the business, convenience, or comfort of life. Roman rule might be formal, harsh, and despotic; individual rulers might be corrupt and oppressive: whether the irregular violence of barbarian or of Athenian popular caprice might give rise to fewer evils than the regulated tyranny of Rome, may be a question; and as for human happiness, some philosophers maintain that miseries multiply and enjoyments decline in proportion as civilization advances. There can, however, be no doubt that but for Roman wars of con

1859.]

Moral Influence of Wars.

quest, and the institutions and modes of life Rome enforced upon the conquered, Europe, and consequently the world, would have been something very different to what it is; so different, indeed, as to be utterly inconceivable.

It is impossible to fix the proportion of misery caused by particular wars, as the feeling of the victims, which can only be conjecturally tested, forms a greater element of suffering than the actual inflictions. If the refinement of the vanquished be measured against the barbarism of the victors, the invasions of the hordes that effected the downfall of the Roman Empire probably produeed more wretchedness than any hostilities upon a great scale. Yet to all human appearance these invasions were absolute necessities, not merely if the world was to attain its actual state, but if mankind were to be raised from that corruption which attended the decay of ancient civilization. The moral influence of the conflicts that continually took place during the dark and middle ages is not so obvious as that of the barbarian invasions. Their necessity for the advancement of mankind to their actual condition is clear. The conquests of Charlemagne and of his precursors and successors, the expeditions of the Northmen, the invasion of England by William of Normandy, as well as many of the contests of feudal times, were, if not parts of a design to build up the modern system of Europe, apparently essential to that end. Historical critics differ as to the moral character of the Crusades. Those who have formed their opinions from the philosophers of the last century look upon them as the outbreaks of fanaticism. Some historical critics of the modern school consider them as the result of a sound instinctive fear; and that but for the check they opposed to Islamism, the Mahometans might have overrun Europe. About the influence of the Crusades on knowledge, commerce, art, and society, there can be no dispute. They enlarged the knowledge of the feudal ages, not only in such tangible matters as the facts of physical geogra phy, but in the productions of

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nature, the varieties of men, and of customs, characters, and creeds. They extended commerce, especially Italian commerce; thus not only increasing wealth and material comforts, but stimulating industry and improving navigation. The Crusades were also a cause of advancing other useful arts, if indeed they did not produce the revival of the fine arts in Western Europe. The transmission of Eastern tales gave an impulse to popular literature. The general stir to the Western mind was greater from the Crusades than any other event in medieval history, save the discovery of America and the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope.

It will be distinctly understood that in all this there is no affirmation (in the sense of Fate or Providence) as to the necessity of wars to advance mankind. Neither is it intended to assert that the actual history of man and his present condition were indispensable to the scheme of Divine government, or that even if the present condition of our race were predetermined, it might not have been brought about by other means. Such matters are not meddled with. This, and this alone, is affirmed-that from the first faint glimpses of history in Egypt, or from earlier tradition, up to the decline of feudalism about the middle of the fifteenth century, war was a great, and for a long time apparently the only, means by which man acquired a knowledge of the earth, extended civilization over inferior races, established the art of systematic government as opposed to mere patriarchal or arbitrary rule, and stirred-up the general mind to extended enterprise or new ideas; while though very far from being the only element of man's progression, it is an important ele

ment.

The principle here indicated as applicable to the ancient, dark, and middle ages, obtains to our day as between advanced and inferior peoples. The occupation of thinly populated regions by settlers of a civilized race-or in other words, modern colonization is indeed as plainly essential to the spread of man and his arts over the globe, as any conquests of the ancient

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world, and as plainly warfare. In America for nearly two centuries, and at the Cape up to our own day, undisguised hostilities have been continually waged between the natives and the colonists. In Australia, and in the United States at present, the power of the palefaces' may prevent organized resistance to the occupation of the lands, but the settlement is as clearly an affair of force as if the aborigines had been dispossessed of their territories after a defeat; their destruction appears as certain as if they were put to the sword at once. The Jewish settlement of the Holy Land and the earlier conquests of the Mahometans, have not been noticed, as involving religious questions. The Russian conquests in Asia, those of France in Barbary, and of England in the East, may be passed for the immediate purpose in hand, as their benefits to the human race are not yet certain. A like doubt applies to the devastations of Zinghis Khan and Tamerlane. These last, however, seem to bear upon a proposition which may have some truth in it-that for wars to be distinctly operative in the way spoken of, they must be waged by a superior upon an inferior people. And this idea may lend some countenance to the American notion of their mission' to 'annex' the entire continent.

This idea of superiority and inferiority, either intelligent or moral, receives some support from a survey of European wars since the downfall of feudalism. During the last four hundred years not only does war in Europe appear to have been less of a necessity as regards the material progress of the world than in the earlier ages, but to have produced less tangible results. It is not meant that national conflicts were inoperative. Such important events as great wars cannot be without influence upon the peoples by whom they are waged. In some cases conflicts of principle superseded material objects. The revolt of the Netherlands against Philip II., the religious wars of Germany, the civil wars of England, are the leading examples of this kind; and they have each influenced the political, social, and intellectual charac

ter of nations in a very high degree. But the material results of wars are here treated of; and no such material changes have followed the European wars under the modern system (the partition of Poland is an exceptional case altogether), as ensued from the subjugation of Gaul by Cæsar, or the conquest of England by William the Norman. If the cause of this be investigated it will, apart from the system of the balance of power, seem to originate in the closer approach to equality in arts, arms, and character among the peoples of modern Europe, than existed between such different races as the aborigines of Italy and their Pelasgic or Greek invaders, or the Romans and the Gauls.

And this equality may be dated from the downfall of feudalism, as that may be said to begin about the time of the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. The fall of the effete Byzantine Empire snapped the last frail link by which living society was connected with the ancient world. Printing as a practical art was completed at nearly the same date; learning was reviving; modern languages and literature had awoke, or were awakening to life. Within some fifty years of that event the Powers of Northern and Western Europe may be said to have assumed their present relative proportions. France was not quite so extensive, but her nationality, position, and comparative power were as established as now. The Low Countries -the present Holland and Belgium -were in their general characteristics much the same as at present, subject to the ever-changing effects of time. In those days there was an Elective Emperor of Germany instead of an hereditary Emperor of Austria; there were many more petty German rulers than at present, and no King of Prussia; but the Germany of that age was substantially the Germany of ours. Spain and Portugal were much as they are, bating the difference between vigorous and aspiring youth, and age prematurely decrepit through vices. There is a difference in the arrangements of the Scandinavian kingdoms; but the great change in the Northern

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