Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside Antijack. The church is in danger! the church is in danger!
Mr. Forester. I am very well aware that the time has been when the voice of reason could be drowned by clamour, and by rallying round the banners of corruption and delusion a mass of blind and bigoted prejudices, that had no real connection with the political question which it was the object to cry down: but I see with pleasure that those days are gone. The people read and think: their eyes are opened; they know that all their grievances arise from the pressure of taxation far beyond their means, from the fictitious circulation of papermoney, and from the corrupt and venal state of popular representation. These facts lie in a very small compass; and till you can reason them out of this knowledge, you may vociferate ‘The church is in danger’ for ever, without a single unpaid voice to join in the outcry. very bad thing for the people to read: so it certainly is. Oh for the happy ignorance of former ages! when the people were dolts, and knew themselves to be so. An ignorant man, judging from instinct, judges much better than a man who reads, and is consequently misinformed.
Mr. Vamp. Unless he reads the Legitimate Review.
Mr. Paperstamp. Darkness! darkness! Jack the Giantkiller’s coat of darkness! That is your only wear.
Mr. Any side Antijack. There was a time when we could lead the people any way, and make them join with all their lungs in the yell of war: then they were people of sound judgment, and of honest and honourable feelings: but when they pretend to feel the pressure of personal suffering, and to read and think about its causes and remedies — such impudence is intolerable.
Mr. Fax. Are they not the same people still? If they were capable of judging then, are they not capable of judging now?
Mr. Any side Antijack. By no means: they are only capable of judging when they see with our eyes; then they see straight forward; when they pretend to use their own, they squint. They saw with our eyes in the beginning of the Antijacobin war. They would have determined on that war, if it had been decided by universal suffrage.
Mr. Fax. Why was not the experiment tried?
Mr. Anyside Antijack. It was not convenient. But they were in a most amiable feraient of intolerant loyalty.
Mr. Forester. Of which the proof is to be found in the immortal Gagging Bills, by which that intolerant loyalty was coerced.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. The Gagging Bills? Hem! ha! What shall we say to that? (To Mr. Vampi)
Mr. Vamp. Say? The church is in danger!
Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, Mr. Killthedead, and Mr. Anyside Antijack. The church is in danger! the church is in danger!
Mr. Forester. Why was a war undertaken to prevent revolution, if all the people of this country were so well fortified in loyalty? Did they go to war for the purpose of forcibly preventing themselves from following a bad example against their own will? For this is what your argument seems to imply?
Mr. Fax. That the people were in a certain degree of ferment is true: but it required a great deal of management and delusion to turn that ferment into the channel of foreign war.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. Well, sir, and there was no other way to avoid domestic reform, which every man who desires is a ruffian, a scoundrel, and an incendiary, as much so as those two rascals Rousseau and Voltaire, who were the trumpeters of Hebert and Marat. Reform, sir, is not to be thought of; we have been at war twenty-five years to prevent it; and to have it, after all, would be very hard. We have got the national debt instead of it: in my opinion a very pretty substitute.
Mr. Derrydown sings —
And I’ll hang on thy neck, my love, my love,
And I’ll hang on thy neck for aye!
And closer and closer I’ll press thee, my love,
Until my dying day.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. I am happy to reflect that the silly question of reform will have very few supporters in the Honourable House: but few as they are, the number would be lessened if all who come into Parliament by means which that question attempts to stigmatise would abstain from voting upon it. Undoubtedly such practices are scandalous, as being legally, and therefore morally wrong: but it is false that any evil to the legislature arises from them.
Mr. Forester. Perhaps not, sir; but very great evil arises through them from the legislature to the people. Your admission, that they are legally, and therefore morally wrong, implies a very curious method of deriving morality from law; but I suspect there is much immorality that is perfectly legal, and much legality that is supremely immoral. But these practices, you admit, are both legally and morally wrong; yet you call it a silly question to propose their cessation; and you assert that all who wish to abolish them, all who wish to abolish illegal and immoral practices, are ruffians, scoundrels, and incendiaries.
Mr. Killthedead’. Yes, and madmen moreover, and villains.
We are all upon gunpowder! The insane and the desperate are scattering firebrands! We shall all be blown up in a body: sinecures, rotten boroughs, secret-service-men, and the whole honourable band of gentlemen pensioners, will all be blown up in a body! A stand! a stand! it is time to make a stand against popular encroachment!
Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Paperstamp. The church is in danger!
Mr. Any side Antijack. Here is the great blunderbuss that is to blow the whole nation to atoms! the Spencean blunderbuss! (Saying these words he produced a pop-gun from his pocket and shot off a paper pellet in the ear of Mr. Paperstamp,
Who in a kind of study sate Denominated brown; which made the latter spring up in sudden fright, to the irremediable perdition of a decanter of (
Sherris sack,’ over which Mr. Feathernest lamented bitterly.)
Mr. Forester. I do not see what connection the Spencean theory, the impracticable chimaera of an obscure herd of fanatics, has with the great national question of parliamentary reform.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. Sir, you may laugh at this popgun, but you will find it the mallet of Thor. The Spenceans are far more respectable than the parliamentary reformers, and have a more distinct and intelligible system!!!
Mr. Vamp. Bravo! bravo! bravo! There is not another man in our corps with brass enough to make such an assertion, but Mr. Anyside Antijack. (Reiterated shouts of Bravo! from Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paper stamps and Mr. Killthedead.’)
Mr. Killthedead. Make out that, and our job is done.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. Make it out! Nonsense! I shall take it for granted: I shall set up the Spencean plan as a more sensible plan than that of the parliamentary reformers: then knock down the former, and argue against the latter, a fortiori. (The shouts of Bravo! here became perfectly deafenings the critico-poetical corps being by this tune much more than half-seas-over.’)
Mr. Killthedead. — The members for rotten boroughs are the most independent members in the Honourable House, and the representatives of most constituents least so.
Mr. Fax. How will you prove that?
Mr. Killthedead. By calling the former gentlemen, and the latter mob representatives.
Mr. Vamp. Nothing can be more logical.
Mr. Fax. Do you call that logic?
Mr. Vamp. Excellent logic. At least it will pass for such with our readers.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. We, and those who think with us, are the only wise and good men.
Mr. Forester. May I take the liberty to inquire what you mean by a wise and a good man?
Mr. Anyside Antijack. A wise man is he who looks after the one thing needful; and a good man is he who has it. The acme of wisdom and goodness in conjunction consists in appropriating as much as possible of the public money; and saying to those from whose pockets it is taken, ‘I am perfectly satisfied with things as they are. Let well alone!’
Mr. Paperstamp. We shall make out a very good case; but you must not forget to call the present public distress an awful dispensation: a little pious cant goes a great way towards turning the thoughts of men from the dangerous and jacobinical propensity
of looking into moral and political causes for moral and political effects.
Mr; Fax. But the moral and political causes are now too obvious, and too universally known, to be obscured by any such means. All the arts and eloquence of corruption may be overthrown by the enumeration of these simple words: boroughs, taxes, and paper-money.
Mr. Any side Antijack. Paper-money! What, is the ghost of bullion abroad?
Mr. Forester. Yes! and till you can make the buried substance burst the paper cerements of its sepulchre, its ghost will continue to walk like the ghost of Caesar, saying to the desolated nation: I am thy evil spirit!’
Mr. Anyside Antijack. I must say, I am very sorry to find a-gentleman like you taking the part of the swinish multitude, who are only fit for beasts of burden, to raise subsistence for their betters, pay taxes for placemen, and recruit the army and navy for the benefit of legitimacy, divine right, the Jesuits, the Pope, the Inquisition, and the Virgin Mary’s petticoat.
Mr. Paperstamp. Hear! hear! hear! Hear the voice which the stream of Tendency is uttering for elevation of our thought!
Mr. Forester. It was once said by a poet, whose fallen state none can more bitterly lament than I do:
We shall exult if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant; not a venal band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear, And honour which they do not understand. in the light of a merry-andrew, be it so. But if he assume the garb of moral austerity, and pour forth against corruption and oppression the language of moral indignation, there would at least be some decency, if, when he changes sides, he would let the world see that conversion and promotion have not gone hand in hand.
Mr. Feathernest. What decency might be in that, I know not: but of this I am very certain, that there would be no wisdom in it.
Mr. Anyside Antijack. No! no! there would be no wisdom in it.
Mr. Feathemest. Sir, I am a wise and a good man: mark that, sir; ay, and an honourable man.
Mr. Vamp. ‘ So are we all, all honourable men!’
Mr. Anyside Antijack. And we will stick by one another with heart and hand —
Mr. Killthedead. To make a stand against popular encroachment —
Mr. Feathemest. To bring back the glorious ignorance of the feudal ages —
Mr. Paperstamp. To rebuild the mystic temples of venerable superstition —
Mr. Vamp. To extinguish, totally and finally, the light of the human understanding —
Mr. Anyside Antijack. And to get all we can for our trouble!
Mr. Feathernest. So we will all say.
Mr. Paperstamp. And so we will all sing.
QUINTETTO
MR. FEATHERNEST, MR. VAMP, MR. KILLTHEDEAD, MR. PAPERSTAMP, AND MR. ANYSIDE ANTIJACK
To the tune of ‘Turning, turning., turning.; as the wheel goes round.’
RECITATIVE — MR. PAPERSTAMP
Jack Horner’s CHRISTMAS PIE my learned nurse Interpreted to mean the public purse.
From thence a plum he drew. O happy Horner! Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner?
THE FIVE
While round the public board all eagerly we linger, For what we can get we will try, try, try:
And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. FEATHERNEST
By my own poetic laws, I’m a dealer in applause For those who don’t deserve it, but will buy, buy, buy:
So round the court I linger, and thus I get a finger, A finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE
And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. VAMP
My share of pie to win, I will dash through thick and thin, And philosophy and liberty shall fly, fly, fly:
And truth and taste shall know, that their everlasting foe Has a finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE
And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. KILLTHEDEAD
I’ll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle, For war doth increase sa-la-ry, ry, ry:
And I’ll shake the public ears with the triumph of Algiers, And thus I’ll get a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE
And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. PAPERSTAMP
And while you thrive by ranting, I’ll try my luck at canting, And scribble verse and prose all so dry, dry, dry:
And Mystic’s patent smoke public intellect shall choke, And we’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE
We’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. ANYSIDE ANTIJACK
My tailor is so clever, that my coat will turn for ever And take any colour you can dye, dye, dye:
For my earthly wishes are among the loaves and fishes, And to have my little finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE
And we’ll all have a finger, a finger, a finger, We’ll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
CHAPTER XL
THE HOPES OF THE WORLD
THE MOUNTAIN-ROADS BEING now buried in snow, they were compelled, on leaving Mainchance Villa, to follow the most broad and beaten track, and they entered on a turnpike road which led in the direction of the sea.
‘I no longer wonder,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘that men in general are so much disposed as I have found them to look with supreme contempt on the literary character, seeing the abject servility and venality by which it is so commonly debased.’
Mr. Forester. What then becomes of the hopes of the world, which you have admitted to consist entirely in the progress of the mind, allowing, as you must allow, the incontrovertible fact of the physical deterioration of the human race?
Mr. Fax. When I speak of the mind, I do not allude either to poetry or to periodical criticism, nor, in any great degree, to physical science; but I rest my hopes on the very same basis with Mr. Mystic’s fear — the general diffusion of moral and political truth.
Mr. Forester. For poetry, its best days are gone. Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton will return no more.
Mr. Fax. Lucretius we yet may hope for.
Mr. Forester. Not till superstition and prejudice have been shorn of a much larger portion of their power. If Lucretius should arise among us in the present day, exile or imprisonment would be his infallible portion. We have yet many steps to make before we shall arrive at the liberality and toleration of Tiberius! And as to physical science, though it does in some measure weaken the dominion of mental error, yet I fear, where it proves itself in one instance the friend of human liberty, it will be found in ninety-nine the slave of corruption and luxury.
Mr. Fax. In many cases science is both morally and politically neutral, and its speculations have no connection whatever with the business of life.
Mr. Forester. It is true; and such speculations are often called sublime: though the sublimity of uselessness passes my comprehension. But the neutrality is only apparent: for it has in these cases the real practical effect, and a most pernicious one it is, of withdrawing some of the highest and most valuable minds from the only path of real utility, which I agree with you to be that of moral and political knowledge,,to pursuits of no more real importance than that of keeping a dozen eggs at a time dancing one after another in the air.
Mr. Fax. If it be admitted, on the one hand, that the progress of luxury has kept pace with that of physical science, it must be acknowledged, on the other, that superstition has decayed in at least an equal proportion; and I think it cannot be denied that the world is a gainer by the exchange.
Mr. Forester. The decay of superstition is immeasurably beneficial; but the growth of luxury is not, therefore, the less pernicious. It is lamentable to reflect that there is most indige
nce in the richest countriesy and that the increase of superfluous enjoyment in the few is counterbalanced by the proportionate diminution of comfort in the many. Splendid equipages and sumptuous dwellings are far from being symbols of general prosperity. The palace of luxurious indolence is much rather the symbol of a thousand hovels, by the labours and privations of whose wretched inhabitants that baleful splendour is maintained. Civilisation, vice, and folly grow old together. Corruption begins among the higher orders, and from them descends to the people; so that in every nation the ancient nobility is the first to exhibit symptoms of corporeal and mental degeneracy, and to show themselves unfit both for council and war. If you recapitulate the few titled names that will adorn the history of the present times, you will find that almost all of them are new creations. The corporeal decay of mankind I hold to be undeniable: the increase of general knowledge I allow: but reason is of slow growth; and if men in general only become more corrupt as they become more learned, the progress of literature will oppose no adequate counterpoise to that of avarice, luxury, and disease.
The evil I mean is indigence, and the reader will be surprised when I tell him that it is greatest in the richest countries; and, therefore, in England, which I believe is the richest country in Europe, there is more indigence than in any other; for the number of people that are there maintained on public or private charity, and who may therefore be called beggars, is prodigious. What proportion they may bear to the whole people, I have never heard computed: but I am sure it must be very great. And I am afraid in those countries they call rich, indigence is not confined to the lower sort of people, but extends even to the better sort: for such is the effect of wealth in a nation, that (however paradoxical it may appear) it does at last make all men poor and indigent; the lower sort through idleness and debauchery, the better sort through luxury, vanity, and extravagant expense. Now, I would desire to know from the greatest admirers of modern times, who maintain that the human race is not degenerated, but rather improved, whether they know any other source of human misery, besides vice, disease, and indigence, and whether these three are not in the greatest abundance in the rich and flourishing country of England? I would further ask these gentlemen, whether, in the cities of the ancient world, there were poor’s houses, hospitals, infirmaries, and those other receptacles of indigence and disease which we see in the modern cities? And whether, in the streets of ancient Athens and Rome, there were so many objects of disease, deformity, and misery to be seen as in our streets, besides those which are concealed from public view in the houses above mentioned? In later times, indeed, in those cities, when the corruption of manners was almost as great as among us, some such things might have been seen as we are sure they were to be seen in Constantinople, under the later Greek Emperors.’ — Ancient Metaphysics, vol iii p. 194.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 33
