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Page 61
Returning from Germany, he had astonished the reading public by the
vigour of his thoughts, put forth in the quaintest language. He
cannot write English, said the critics. No matter, said the public;
we can read what he does write, and that without yawning. And so Dr
Pessimist Anticant became popular. Popularity spoilt him for all
further real use, as it has done many another. While, with some
diffidence, he confined his objurgations to the occasional follies or
shortcomings of mankind; while he ridiculed the energy of the squire
devoted to the slaughter of partridges, or the mistake of some noble
patron who turned a poet into a gauger of beer-barrels, it was all
well; we were glad to be told our faults and to look forward to the
coming millennium, when all men, having sufficiently studied the works
of Dr Anticant, would become truthful and energetic. But the doctor
mistook the signs of the times and the minds of men, instituted
himself censor of things in general, and began the great task of
reprobating everything and everybody, without further promise of any
millennium at all. This was not so well; and, to tell the truth, our
author did not succeed in his undertaking. His theories were all
beautiful, and the code of morals that he taught us certainly an
improvement on the practices of the age. We all of us could, and many
of us did, learn much from the doctor while he chose to remain vague,
mysterious, and cloudy: but when he became practical, the charm was
gone.
His allusion to the poet and the partridges was received very well.
"Oh, my poor brother," said he, "slaughtered partridges a score of
brace to each gun, and poets gauging ale-barrels, with sixty pounds a
year, at Dumfries, are not the signs of a great era!--perhaps of the
smallest possible era yet written of. Whatever economies we pursue,
political or other, let us see at once that this is the maddest of the
uneconomic: partridges killed by our land magnates at, shall we say,
a guinea a head, to be retailed in Leadenhall at one shilling and
ninepence, with one poacher in limbo for every fifty birds! our poet,
maker, creator, gauging ale, and that badly, with no leisure for
making or creating, only a little leisure for drinking, and such like
beer-barrel avocations! Truly, a cutting of blocks with fine razors
while we scrape our chins so uncomfortably with rusty knives! Oh, my
political economist, master of supply and demand, division of labour
and high pressure--oh, my loud-speaking friend, tell me, if so much
be in you, what is the demand for poets in these kingdoms of Queen
Victoria, and what the vouchsafed supply?"
This was all very well: this gave us some hope. We might do better
with our next poet, when we got one; and though the partridges might
not be abandoned, something could perhaps be done as to the poachers.
We were unwilling, however, to take lessons in politics from so
misty a professor; and when he came to tell us that the heroes of
Westminster were naught, we began to think that he had written enough.
His attack upon despatch boxes was not thought to have much in it;
but as it is short, the doctor shall again be allowed to speak his
sentiments.
Could utmost ingenuity in the management of red tape avail
anything to men lying gasping,--we may say, all but dead;
could despatch boxes with never-so-much velvet lining and
Chubb's patent be of comfort to a people _in extremis_, I
also, with so many others, would, with parched tongue, call
on the name of Lord John Russell; or, my brother, at your
advice, on Lord Aberdeen; or, my cousin, on Lord Derby, at
yours; being, with my parched tongue, indifferent to such
matters. 'Tis all one. Oh, Derby! Oh, Gladstone! Oh,
Palmerston! Oh, Lord John! Each comes running with serene
face and despatch box. Vain physicians! though there were
hosts of such, no despatch box will cure this disorder!
What! are there other doctors' new names, disciples who
have not burdened their souls with tape? Well, let us call
again. Oh, Disraeli, great oppositionist, man of the bitter
brow! or, Oh, Molesworth, great reformer, thou who promisest
Utopia. They come; each with that serene face, and each,--
alas, me! alas, my country!--each with a despatch box!
Oh, the serenity of Downing Street!
My brothers, when hope was over on the battle-field, when no
dimmest chance of victory remained, the ancient Roman could
hide his face within his toga, and die gracefully. Can you
and I do so now? If so, 'twere best for us; if not, oh my
brothers, we must die disgracefully, for hope of life and
victory I see none left to us in this world below. I for
one cannot trust much to serene face and despatch box!
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