The Life of Lord Lawrence and its Lessons
THIS model biography, published in 1883, has already passed through six editions. It has produced remarkable results in the mean time. In the United States it has been received with far more honour than is usually accorded to biographies of illustrious Englishmen. We learn that the United States Government has paid it the unique compliment of ordering a copy to be placed on board every ship in the navy and in every public library in the United States. Such a compliment is by no means undeserved. Mr. Bosworth Smith has performed a patriotic and philanthropic work. He has done a service to England and a kindness to humanity by writing the life of Lord Lawrence as he has written it. That such a work has been so generally and enthusiastically welcomed is a significant and interesting commentary on the intellectual and moral progress of the present generation of Englishmen and Americans, and reassuring as to their future policy in dealing with those whom they still haughtily designate “inferior races.”
We purpose in the following pages to gather from this remarkable book some of the practical lessons which we believe it was the aim of the author to inculcate by means of the character and deeds of one of the most interesting and suggestive natures which it has ever been our good fortune to contemplate. There are few books, it seems to us, which could be put with as much advantage into the hands of young men who, entering the civil, military, or naval services of England or the United States, aspire to positions of honour, of responsibility and of trust.
A writer in the Quarterly Review (April, 1883), himself, we believe, an old Indian official, tells us that “some months after the funeral at Westminster, when it became known that the widow of Lord Lawrence had committed the task of writing her husband’s history to a Harrow Master—to one who had never seen India— there were grievous misgivings and great searchings of heart among the Anglo-Indian legions.” It was feared that a civilian who had never visited either India or the Colonies would not have sufficient grasp of the subject—that his ignorance of details and lack of local experience would lead him into serious mistakes.
It was, indeed, a bold undertaking for a comparatively youngman with the antecedents of the author, practically a stranger to India and Indian affairs, to come forward as a historian and critic of matters apparently so entirely out of his line; to treat of a period which has not yet passed into the domain of history, seeing that so many who acted amid the scenes described are still living; to deal with facts and principles, with the merits and demerits of various actors, in which not a few survivors still feel a keen interest, and with regard to which they entertain views more or less decided.
It required no little courage to write fully and freely on so important a subject—rather on so many important subjects—with the consciousness that such high authorities as Lord Napier of Magdala, Captain Eastwick, Sir Richard Temple, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Charles Raikes, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Ashley Eden, Sir Frederic Goldsmid, &c., were waiting to read the record, and to bring to its perusal not only a deep personal interest, but a thorough knowledge of the subject of the biography and of the times and scenes of his activity.
But, after all, considering the large number of works which have been written on India, by men of eminent ability and vast local knowledge, what seemed to be now needed was not so much narrative and description, as critical appreciation of events and personal character; and it is really refreshing to sit down to the perusal of a work not only undefaced by technicalities unintelligible to the ordinary reader, but displaying a practical sagacity capable of forming a distinct view of all the mingled objects with which it has to deal, while it conveys lessons of the highest importance at this particular time, when Indian affairs are becoming more and more a topic of general interest in England.
Mr. Bosworth Smith has not dealt with what may be called the subterraneous elements of the Indian question, which only a few can appreciate or understand, but with what is above ground, and clear to the apprehension of all classes and colours, of all creeds and races. That which gives is real and enduring value to the book is not only that it is eloquent, but that its eloquence is instinct with faith and love; not only that its paragraphs are glowing, but that they glow with passion for goodness, for truth, and for liberty. Whatever else the book lacks, these elements will cause it to live. Two of the Anglo-Indians, whose criticisms we have read, have had an
opportunity of correcting what, from their standpoints, seem to be mistakes or omissions in the author. But, upon the whole, they give the work their indorsement. Very few are the real blemishes which their vast experience of the circumstances and details of Lord Lawrence’s career could detect or point out.
It is acknowledged on all hands, that, in spite of the enormous difficulties in the way, Mr. Bosworth Smith has been able to give a true picture of a hero and of a stormy period, which even the severest criticism cannot seriously impair—a picture which will, we may believe, influence for good every successive generation of Englishmen. The blows he has dealt, heavy at times, at the cause of war, aggression, cruelty and the pride of race, may be resented in certain quarters now, but they point to a glorious future for England, and for weaker and so-called inferior races over whom she now bears, or may hereafter be called to bear rule. They tend to strengthen, to perpetuate and to diffuse the traditional instincts of his country for the useful and the just. Wherever the book is read in the British colonies, especially among races alien to the Anglo-Saxon, it will inspire confidence and give assurance as to the real aims and motives of the British Government in its colonial administration.
We purpose in the following pages to gather from this remarkable book some of the practical lessons which we believe it was the aim of the author to inculcate by means of the character and deeds of one of the most interesting and suggestive natures which it has ever been our good fortune to contemplate. There are few books, it seems to us, which could be put with as much advantage into the hands of young men who, entering the civil, military, or naval services of England or the United States, aspire to positions of honour, of responsibility and of trust.
A writer in the Quarterly Review (April, 1883), himself, we believe, an old Indian official, tells us that “some months after the funeral at Westminster, when it became known that the widow of Lord Lawrence had committed the task of writing her husband’s history to a Harrow Master—to one who had never seen India— there were grievous misgivings and great searchings of heart among the Anglo-Indian legions.” It was feared that a civilian who had never visited either India or the Colonies would not have sufficient grasp of the subject—that his ignorance of details and lack of local experience would lead him into serious mistakes.
It was, indeed, a bold undertaking for a comparatively youngman with the antecedents of the author, practically a stranger to India and Indian affairs, to come forward as a historian and critic of matters apparently so entirely out of his line; to treat of a period which has not yet passed into the domain of history, seeing that so many who acted amid the scenes described are still living; to deal with facts and principles, with the merits and demerits of various actors, in which not a few survivors still feel a keen interest, and with regard to which they entertain views more or less decided.
It required no little courage to write fully and freely on so important a subject—rather on so many important subjects—with the consciousness that such high authorities as Lord Napier of Magdala, Captain Eastwick, Sir Richard Temple, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Charles Raikes, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Ashley Eden, Sir Frederic Goldsmid, &c., were waiting to read the record, and to bring to its perusal not only a deep personal interest, but a thorough knowledge of the subject of the biography and of the times and scenes of his activity.
But, after all, considering the large number of works which have been written on India, by men of eminent ability and vast local knowledge, what seemed to be now needed was not so much narrative and description, as critical appreciation of events and personal character; and it is really refreshing to sit down to the perusal of a work not only undefaced by technicalities unintelligible to the ordinary reader, but displaying a practical sagacity capable of forming a distinct view of all the mingled objects with which it has to deal, while it conveys lessons of the highest importance at this particular time, when Indian affairs are becoming more and more a topic of general interest in England.
Mr. Bosworth Smith has not dealt with what may be called the subterraneous elements of the Indian question, which only a few can appreciate or understand, but with what is above ground, and clear to the apprehension of all classes and colours, of all creeds and races. That which gives is real and enduring value to the book is not only that it is eloquent, but that its eloquence is instinct with faith and love; not only that its paragraphs are glowing, but that they glow with passion for goodness, for truth, and for liberty. Whatever else the book lacks, these elements will cause it to live. Two of the Anglo-Indians, whose criticisms we have read, have had an
opportunity of correcting what, from their standpoints, seem to be mistakes or omissions in the author. But, upon the whole, they give the work their indorsement. Very few are the real blemishes which their vast experience of the circumstances and details of Lord Lawrence’s career could detect or point out.
It is acknowledged on all hands, that, in spite of the enormous difficulties in the way, Mr. Bosworth Smith has been able to give a true picture of a hero and of a stormy period, which even the severest criticism cannot seriously impair—a picture which will, we may believe, influence for good every successive generation of Englishmen. The blows he has dealt, heavy at times, at the cause of war, aggression, cruelty and the pride of race, may be resented in certain quarters now, but they point to a glorious future for England, and for weaker and so-called inferior races over whom she now bears, or may hereafter be called to bear rule. They tend to strengthen, to perpetuate and to diffuse the traditional instincts of his country for the useful and the just. Wherever the book is read in the British colonies, especially among races alien to the Anglo-Saxon, it will inspire confidence and give assurance as to the real aims and motives of the British Government in its colonial administration.
No amount of residence and Government service in India would have given the qualifications for the production of such a work; nor would any amount of mere scholarship have made a biographer of Lord Lawrence such as Mr. Bosworth Smith has proved himself to be. The book might have been written with greater local knowledge; it might have been more at home in technical details; it might even have given a fuller picture of the outward form—the flesh and blood and bones—of Lord Lawrence; but we know of no other living writer who, after having drawn the sketch, prepared the skeleton, constructed the body, could have informed it with the life, the soul, the spirit of the hero. Mere scholarship, or mere geographical or political knowledge of India, would have been helpless to make Lord Lawrence move among us, as he now moves, living, breathing, teaching, inspiring.
Sudet multum frustraque laboret
Ausus idem.
Something else was needed, and that Mr. Smith possesses, namely, that thorough sympathy with his subject which arises from similitude of character.
The task was not only within the compass of his mental powers, but entirely congenial to his intellectual and moral tastes. We did not need the assurance of the author that he entered upon his work with a “keen sense of responsibility and with a genuine enthusiasm.” This is apparent on every page. Judging from the tone and tendency of the previous works by which Mr. Bosworth Smith became known to the literary world, we cannot imagine that he would have undertaken this, if he had not satisfied himself beforehand that the life and labours of the subject were such as to furnish an opportunity for enforcing those lessons of justice and truth, of tolerance and freedom, which it has been his aim to inculcate. Mohammed and Mohammedanism, and Carthage and the Carthaginians were composed not for the purpose merely of filling a blank in religious and historical literature, but for high moral ends. No statesman can read his work on Carthage, and no theologian or Christian missionary can read his work on Mohammedanism without getting clear views as to the highest and most effective methods of dealing with questions which frequently confront them in their respective callings.
There is, as we have said, a certain resemblance of mind and spirit between the biographer and his subject. In his delineations, we may readily believe that Mr. Smith is not unfrequently revealing his own life and personal experiences. His vivid descriptions of Lord Lawrence’s character give a clue to his own. His representations of that remarkable man are not always pure, dramatic expressions, but they are also self-revelations. He himself has lived inwardly the life he so successfully portrays. He has enjoyed the felicitous domestic surroundings to which, in the experiences of Lord Lawrence, he is so fond of recurring, and with ever-fresh delight.
It cannot be doubted that the wife of John Lawrence exerted a most beneficial influence upon him in softening the hard outline which, in consequence of his peculiar calling, his character was apt to assume. And in this the biographer resembles his subject. It is said that in all his literary labours—a fact which is more than hinted at in his graceful dedication of Mohammed and Mohammedanism—Mrs. Bosworth Smith has taken an important part, and, in the work before us—if we mistake not—traces of her influence are everywhere to be seen. It is not our wish to intrude upon the sacredness of domestic privacy, but we are gratified to be able to pay this tribute to one to whose devoted and self-sacrificing labours the world is more largely indebted than it knows, for a great deal that Mr. Bosworth Smith has been enabled to teach it.
In a country like India, the help of such a woman to an English official, who holds a responsible position, or to any thoughtful European, is simply incalculable. Even the letters written from home by such women to their relatives or friends in that distant land have an inspiring effect. Colonel Sleeman, in his Rambles of an Indian Official, touchingly refers to this in addressing his sister:--
Were anyone to ask your countrymen in India (he says to her) what had been their greatest source of pleasure while there, perhaps nine in ten would say, the letters which they receive from their sisters at home. . . . And while thus contributing so much to our happiness, they, no doubt, tend to make us better citizens of the world and servants of Government than we should otherwise be; for, in our “struggles through life” in India, we have all, more or less, an eye to the approbation of those circles which our kind sisters represent—who may therefore be considered in the exalted light of a valuable species of unpaid magistracy to the Government of India.
John Lawrence, throughout the greater part of his career in India, lived under the sweet but effective influence of such a “magistracy,” unpaid, indeed, by Government recognition or pecuniary stipend, but reaping a constant reward from the consciousness of duty done or help given to a loved one to rise, in his great work, to higher levels—a reward to her “more precious than gems or stores of gold.”
Only a writer of spirit kindred to that of Lord Lawrence, “ in reading over thousands of letters “ written by his subject for the purpose of preparing a readable biography, would have so borne in mind the cause of the weak and oppressed, as to have noticed that “not a single expression occurred which would wound the pride of the most sensitive of natives,” and that “ not in one single instance does he use the opprobrious term which is the very first to come to the mouth of too many young officers or casual visitors to India.”
The following will be read with admiration and gratitude by thousands in India, in Africa, in America, who are “guilty of a skin not coloured,” like the white man’s:--
Englishmen there have been, and still are in India, who, priding themselves on their race or their colour, their superior strength of body and strength of will, despise the natives, keep aloof from them, call them by the opprobrious name of “niggers,” and strike and maltreat them in a way in which they would not venture to treat a European. But such Englishmen have happily always been in a small minority. They may be found sometimes among the youngest and most empty-headed officers of the army, or among the frivolous and fashionable and scandal-loving society of the great towns. But they are not to be found in the ranks of the civil service, or among those soldier-statesmen who have built up and have preserved our Indian Empire. It is not in the writings, the conversation, or the acts of men like Sir Thomas Munro, or Lord Metcalfe, like Outram or Havelock, like Henry or John Lawrence, and of the hundreds of good men and true, of whom these are, after all, but the most brilliant representatives, that we can find a word or deed indicative of other than the deepest and most affectionate interest in the helpless and voiceless millions over whom they rule. . . . These are the men who know the natives, who sympathise with them and have learned to love them; who, in the spirit of a truly imperial race, look upon themselves as the servants of those whom they rule, and rule by serving them; who do everything that in them lies to bridge over the yawning gulf, which, by our fate or by our fault, still separates colour from colour, race from race and creed from creed.[1]
Sudet multum frustraque laboret
Ausus idem.
Something else was needed, and that Mr. Smith possesses, namely, that thorough sympathy with his subject which arises from similitude of character.
The task was not only within the compass of his mental powers, but entirely congenial to his intellectual and moral tastes. We did not need the assurance of the author that he entered upon his work with a “keen sense of responsibility and with a genuine enthusiasm.” This is apparent on every page. Judging from the tone and tendency of the previous works by which Mr. Bosworth Smith became known to the literary world, we cannot imagine that he would have undertaken this, if he had not satisfied himself beforehand that the life and labours of the subject were such as to furnish an opportunity for enforcing those lessons of justice and truth, of tolerance and freedom, which it has been his aim to inculcate. Mohammed and Mohammedanism, and Carthage and the Carthaginians were composed not for the purpose merely of filling a blank in religious and historical literature, but for high moral ends. No statesman can read his work on Carthage, and no theologian or Christian missionary can read his work on Mohammedanism without getting clear views as to the highest and most effective methods of dealing with questions which frequently confront them in their respective callings.
There is, as we have said, a certain resemblance of mind and spirit between the biographer and his subject. In his delineations, we may readily believe that Mr. Smith is not unfrequently revealing his own life and personal experiences. His vivid descriptions of Lord Lawrence’s character give a clue to his own. His representations of that remarkable man are not always pure, dramatic expressions, but they are also self-revelations. He himself has lived inwardly the life he so successfully portrays. He has enjoyed the felicitous domestic surroundings to which, in the experiences of Lord Lawrence, he is so fond of recurring, and with ever-fresh delight.
It cannot be doubted that the wife of John Lawrence exerted a most beneficial influence upon him in softening the hard outline which, in consequence of his peculiar calling, his character was apt to assume. And in this the biographer resembles his subject. It is said that in all his literary labours—a fact which is more than hinted at in his graceful dedication of Mohammed and Mohammedanism—Mrs. Bosworth Smith has taken an important part, and, in the work before us—if we mistake not—traces of her influence are everywhere to be seen. It is not our wish to intrude upon the sacredness of domestic privacy, but we are gratified to be able to pay this tribute to one to whose devoted and self-sacrificing labours the world is more largely indebted than it knows, for a great deal that Mr. Bosworth Smith has been enabled to teach it.
In a country like India, the help of such a woman to an English official, who holds a responsible position, or to any thoughtful European, is simply incalculable. Even the letters written from home by such women to their relatives or friends in that distant land have an inspiring effect. Colonel Sleeman, in his Rambles of an Indian Official, touchingly refers to this in addressing his sister:--
Were anyone to ask your countrymen in India (he says to her) what had been their greatest source of pleasure while there, perhaps nine in ten would say, the letters which they receive from their sisters at home. . . . And while thus contributing so much to our happiness, they, no doubt, tend to make us better citizens of the world and servants of Government than we should otherwise be; for, in our “struggles through life” in India, we have all, more or less, an eye to the approbation of those circles which our kind sisters represent—who may therefore be considered in the exalted light of a valuable species of unpaid magistracy to the Government of India.
John Lawrence, throughout the greater part of his career in India, lived under the sweet but effective influence of such a “magistracy,” unpaid, indeed, by Government recognition or pecuniary stipend, but reaping a constant reward from the consciousness of duty done or help given to a loved one to rise, in his great work, to higher levels—a reward to her “more precious than gems or stores of gold.”
Only a writer of spirit kindred to that of Lord Lawrence, “ in reading over thousands of letters “ written by his subject for the purpose of preparing a readable biography, would have so borne in mind the cause of the weak and oppressed, as to have noticed that “not a single expression occurred which would wound the pride of the most sensitive of natives,” and that “ not in one single instance does he use the opprobrious term which is the very first to come to the mouth of too many young officers or casual visitors to India.”
The following will be read with admiration and gratitude by thousands in India, in Africa, in America, who are “guilty of a skin not coloured,” like the white man’s:--
Englishmen there have been, and still are in India, who, priding themselves on their race or their colour, their superior strength of body and strength of will, despise the natives, keep aloof from them, call them by the opprobrious name of “niggers,” and strike and maltreat them in a way in which they would not venture to treat a European. But such Englishmen have happily always been in a small minority. They may be found sometimes among the youngest and most empty-headed officers of the army, or among the frivolous and fashionable and scandal-loving society of the great towns. But they are not to be found in the ranks of the civil service, or among those soldier-statesmen who have built up and have preserved our Indian Empire. It is not in the writings, the conversation, or the acts of men like Sir Thomas Munro, or Lord Metcalfe, like Outram or Havelock, like Henry or John Lawrence, and of the hundreds of good men and true, of whom these are, after all, but the most brilliant representatives, that we can find a word or deed indicative of other than the deepest and most affectionate interest in the helpless and voiceless millions over whom they rule. . . . These are the men who know the natives, who sympathise with them and have learned to love them; who, in the spirit of a truly imperial race, look upon themselves as the servants of those whom they rule, and rule by serving them; who do everything that in them lies to bridge over the yawning gulf, which, by our fate or by our fault, still separates colour from colour, race from race and creed from creed.[1]
Footnotes:
1 Life of Lord Lawrence; by R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. (vol. i, pp. 157, 158).
1 Life of Lord Lawrence; by R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. (vol. i, pp. 157, 158).
Throughout his life, even in the early Delhi and Punjab days, John Lawrence had set his face strongly against practices which it is easier to understand than to describe, and which wore then all too common among our countrymen in India. No one whose character was not above suspicion in these respects could hope to stand well with him, even in the early times. . . . No one ever dropped an impure word or made an impure allusion in his presence. No one over scoffed at religion, whether his own or that of the natives. No one ever spoke contemptuously or harshly of the natives themselves without receiving from him a stern and sometimes a sledge-hammer rebuke. On one occasion, a lady who was sitting at the Vice-regal table allowed herself to sneer at the Bible. Sir John Lawrence looked sternly on her and said, with all his dignity, but with more of sorrow than of anger in his words, “ How can you speak like that of God and of God’s book, in the presence of these young men?” The next minute he was talking with her of other subjects as if nothing had happened. But the rebuke had done its work on her and on the assembled company. On another occasion, a young officer in the army, who was talking, after the manner of his kind, contemptuously of the natives, happened, in Sir John’s hearing, to speak of them as “those niggers.” “I beg your pardon,” said Sir John, “of what people were you speaking?” And hero again the rebuke did its work right well. Thus the Vice-regal Court was in his time what, happily, it has been in the case of most of our Viceroys, and what the English Court has been throughout the reign of Queen Victoria—the centre, as far as its chief occupant could make it so, of everything that was pure, everything that was lovely, everything that was of good report and from it, as from a fresh fountain, flowed forth lessons of purity, of simplicity, of reverence, of manliness, of hard work, of all the domestic charities which were felt more or less through all ranks of English society in India. Would that it had always been so in India before and since! Would that it may always be so hereafter! Would that intelligent and inquiring natives may never find one of their most forcible arguments against Christianity in the language, in the actions, in the policy, in the surroundings of its so-called Christian rulers![2]
This is the first time, so far as we know, that this subject—one of great importance to the. coloured races of the globe, and which is generally considered too delicate to be handled or too insignificant to deserve attention—has been treated with such dignity and seriousness and in a work destined to wield so wide an influence. The intelligent English-speaking African, even more than the Indian, has frequently, in his reading and in his travels, to encounter gratuitous insults, and from quarters where he would naturally not look for them. A few months ago, an English Dissenting clergyman, whom we will call Mr. A., was a passenger from New York to Liverpool on one of the White Star steamers. He had lived in the Southern States of America, and though now living in London and in charge of a respectable congregation there he could not conceal the prejudices which had grown upon him in America. There sat opposite to him at the Captain’s table— assigned seats there by the consideration and courtesy of the Captain himself—two passengers of African descent—one, a lady of education and culture, wife of a diplomatic officer of the United States, on the way to join her husband; the other, the presiding officer of a literary institution in Africa. Mr. A. did not feel at home in the company of his coloured fellow-passengers, and not unfrequently went out of his way, in speech and manner, to exhibit and emphasise his uncomfortable state. There sat on his right hand another English Dissenting clergyman who had been spending a few weeks in America, but who possessed all the qualities of a Christian gentleman and scholar. This gentleman was often shocked by the utterances of his brother minister in defence of Negro slavery, and always rebuked him for them. On one occasion, at the dinner-table, while the passengers sitting near them were proposing and answering conundrums, in which the African passengers participated, he suddenly said: “ Now, tell me, where is the Negro mentioned in the Bible? Several answers were given, which he would not accept as correct. At last, when it was “given up,” he blurted out, with rude and vulgar emphasis, the wretched pun, “Nigger demus,” to the general disgust of the company.
Mr, James Parton, in a remarkable article, published, not very long ago, in the North American Review, on ‘Antipathy to the Negro,’ says:--
This colour repugnance is usually observed to be strongest in the meanest. Among the educated people of the Southern States it was never half so strong as in the “white trash” and in the adventurers from other regions who had an interest in flattering the poor “white trash.” The man who made the disturbance about the coloured person in the omnibus was generally a snob more or less disguised. He might be a gorgeous gambler, a sham D.D., a pushing store keeper, a small politician; but, commonly, the soul of a scamp was in him. In the North it was never. the really educated man or women who felt aggrieved at the presence of a decent coloured man.
Would that these sentences conveyed “ the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” But, if we are to judge from outward appearances, they do not do so. We cannot see the soul. But there are, we regret to say, some outwardly respectable persons in England, as well as in America, who speak and write in a manner which indicates the kind of soul referred to by Mr.
Parton. One of the most flagrant cases is that of Dr. Edward A. Freeman in his last work on America. During a visit which we paid, in 1882, to the United States, we found a feeling of wide-spread indignation among the intelligent coloured classes in view of the insult offered them by Dr. Freeman, in his articles on the United States. These articles appeared in the Fortnightly Review and Longman’s Magazine, They are now republished in a volume.[3]
The following are some of his more offensive utterances:--
The bestowal of citizenship on the Negro[4] is one of those cases which show what law can do, and what it cannot. The law may declare the Negro to be the equal of the white man; it cannot make him his equal. To the old question, “Am I not a man and a brother? “I venture to answer: No. The Negro may be a man and a brother in some secondary sense; he is not a man and a brother in the same full sense in which every Western Aryan is a man and a brother.
The eternal laws of Nature, the eternal distinction of colour, forbid the assimilation of the Negro. We are told that education has done, and is doing, much for the younger members of the once-enslaved race. But education cannot wipe out the eternal distinction that has been drawn by the hand of Nature.
I cannot help thinking that those in either hemisphere who were most zealous for the emancipation of the Negro must, in their heart of hearts, feel a secret shudder at the thought that, though morally impossible, it is constitutionally possible that, two years hence, a black man may be chosen to sit in the seat of Washington and Garfield.[5]
To me at least the Negro is repulsive. Of the two, one is more inclined to hail a man and a brother in the Indian than in the Negro. Such Indians as I saw were certainly less ugly than the Nogroes. But then they lacked the grotesque air which often makes the Negro’s ugliness less repulsive. Not repulsive, like the Negro, from the mere lines of the face, they were repulsive from the utter lack of intellectual expression.
Very many approved when I suggested that the best remedy for whatever was amiss would be if every Irishman should kill a Nergo and be hanged for it. Those who dissented, dissented most commonly on the ground that, if there were no Irish and no Negroes, they would not be able to get any domestic servants.[6]
Dr. Freeman knows that there are many Negroes, men and women, in America, who can read, and will read, his book, and he thoughtlessly flings these insults into their faces. He knows, also, that these people are manfully struggling to rise against a heavy burden of prejudice and contempt, and he wantonly piles up arguments against them for the use of their oppressors. Is Dr. Freeman a Christian, or has he, for the nonce, thrown off his incrustation of modern culture to give full play to the pure latent Briton? Or is it the old Norman pride?
The jargon of describing the Negro as “unfit for freedom” being now, to a great extent, obsolete, his personal peculiarities, as he is seen chiefly in the countries of his exile, must be brought forward for ridicule, in order to intensify the prejudice against him and perpetuate the social hostility by which he is oppressed. Prejudice is, partly, an instinct, and, partly, a result of surrounding circumstances. Sometimes it has a mercenary quality, or, rather, originates in mercenary motives. The prejudice against the Negro, in America, is both instinctive and circumstantial; in Englishmen, it may be only instinctive, the result of race-pride or exclusiveness; but it has, at times, in Englishmen in America, partaken of a mercenary nature. It used to be said, in the days of slavery, that Englishmen who had accepted Southern hospitality always had Southern sympathies. Possibly the inability of the historian of the Norman Conquest on this subject may be accounted for by the fact that he has a son who has become a Virginia planter. Shortly after the civil war, it was, and it probably still is, the fashion, with some leading spirits of Virginia, to denounce Negro education and enfranchisement as necessarily hostile to the industrial interests of the country; and Dr. Freeman could not escape the contagion, while on a visit to his son, in 1881-82, Indeed, he says himself, referring to this very subject, “What I venture to say on the housetops has been whispered in my ear in closets by not a few in America, who fully understand the state and needs of their country.”
This is the first time, so far as we know, that this subject—one of great importance to the. coloured races of the globe, and which is generally considered too delicate to be handled or too insignificant to deserve attention—has been treated with such dignity and seriousness and in a work destined to wield so wide an influence. The intelligent English-speaking African, even more than the Indian, has frequently, in his reading and in his travels, to encounter gratuitous insults, and from quarters where he would naturally not look for them. A few months ago, an English Dissenting clergyman, whom we will call Mr. A., was a passenger from New York to Liverpool on one of the White Star steamers. He had lived in the Southern States of America, and though now living in London and in charge of a respectable congregation there he could not conceal the prejudices which had grown upon him in America. There sat opposite to him at the Captain’s table— assigned seats there by the consideration and courtesy of the Captain himself—two passengers of African descent—one, a lady of education and culture, wife of a diplomatic officer of the United States, on the way to join her husband; the other, the presiding officer of a literary institution in Africa. Mr. A. did not feel at home in the company of his coloured fellow-passengers, and not unfrequently went out of his way, in speech and manner, to exhibit and emphasise his uncomfortable state. There sat on his right hand another English Dissenting clergyman who had been spending a few weeks in America, but who possessed all the qualities of a Christian gentleman and scholar. This gentleman was often shocked by the utterances of his brother minister in defence of Negro slavery, and always rebuked him for them. On one occasion, at the dinner-table, while the passengers sitting near them were proposing and answering conundrums, in which the African passengers participated, he suddenly said: “ Now, tell me, where is the Negro mentioned in the Bible? Several answers were given, which he would not accept as correct. At last, when it was “given up,” he blurted out, with rude and vulgar emphasis, the wretched pun, “Nigger demus,” to the general disgust of the company.
Mr, James Parton, in a remarkable article, published, not very long ago, in the North American Review, on ‘Antipathy to the Negro,’ says:--
This colour repugnance is usually observed to be strongest in the meanest. Among the educated people of the Southern States it was never half so strong as in the “white trash” and in the adventurers from other regions who had an interest in flattering the poor “white trash.” The man who made the disturbance about the coloured person in the omnibus was generally a snob more or less disguised. He might be a gorgeous gambler, a sham D.D., a pushing store keeper, a small politician; but, commonly, the soul of a scamp was in him. In the North it was never. the really educated man or women who felt aggrieved at the presence of a decent coloured man.
Would that these sentences conveyed “ the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” But, if we are to judge from outward appearances, they do not do so. We cannot see the soul. But there are, we regret to say, some outwardly respectable persons in England, as well as in America, who speak and write in a manner which indicates the kind of soul referred to by Mr.
Parton. One of the most flagrant cases is that of Dr. Edward A. Freeman in his last work on America. During a visit which we paid, in 1882, to the United States, we found a feeling of wide-spread indignation among the intelligent coloured classes in view of the insult offered them by Dr. Freeman, in his articles on the United States. These articles appeared in the Fortnightly Review and Longman’s Magazine, They are now republished in a volume.[3]
The following are some of his more offensive utterances:--
The bestowal of citizenship on the Negro[4] is one of those cases which show what law can do, and what it cannot. The law may declare the Negro to be the equal of the white man; it cannot make him his equal. To the old question, “Am I not a man and a brother? “I venture to answer: No. The Negro may be a man and a brother in some secondary sense; he is not a man and a brother in the same full sense in which every Western Aryan is a man and a brother.
The eternal laws of Nature, the eternal distinction of colour, forbid the assimilation of the Negro. We are told that education has done, and is doing, much for the younger members of the once-enslaved race. But education cannot wipe out the eternal distinction that has been drawn by the hand of Nature.
I cannot help thinking that those in either hemisphere who were most zealous for the emancipation of the Negro must, in their heart of hearts, feel a secret shudder at the thought that, though morally impossible, it is constitutionally possible that, two years hence, a black man may be chosen to sit in the seat of Washington and Garfield.[5]
To me at least the Negro is repulsive. Of the two, one is more inclined to hail a man and a brother in the Indian than in the Negro. Such Indians as I saw were certainly less ugly than the Nogroes. But then they lacked the grotesque air which often makes the Negro’s ugliness less repulsive. Not repulsive, like the Negro, from the mere lines of the face, they were repulsive from the utter lack of intellectual expression.
Very many approved when I suggested that the best remedy for whatever was amiss would be if every Irishman should kill a Nergo and be hanged for it. Those who dissented, dissented most commonly on the ground that, if there were no Irish and no Negroes, they would not be able to get any domestic servants.[6]
Dr. Freeman knows that there are many Negroes, men and women, in America, who can read, and will read, his book, and he thoughtlessly flings these insults into their faces. He knows, also, that these people are manfully struggling to rise against a heavy burden of prejudice and contempt, and he wantonly piles up arguments against them for the use of their oppressors. Is Dr. Freeman a Christian, or has he, for the nonce, thrown off his incrustation of modern culture to give full play to the pure latent Briton? Or is it the old Norman pride?
The jargon of describing the Negro as “unfit for freedom” being now, to a great extent, obsolete, his personal peculiarities, as he is seen chiefly in the countries of his exile, must be brought forward for ridicule, in order to intensify the prejudice against him and perpetuate the social hostility by which he is oppressed. Prejudice is, partly, an instinct, and, partly, a result of surrounding circumstances. Sometimes it has a mercenary quality, or, rather, originates in mercenary motives. The prejudice against the Negro, in America, is both instinctive and circumstantial; in Englishmen, it may be only instinctive, the result of race-pride or exclusiveness; but it has, at times, in Englishmen in America, partaken of a mercenary nature. It used to be said, in the days of slavery, that Englishmen who had accepted Southern hospitality always had Southern sympathies. Possibly the inability of the historian of the Norman Conquest on this subject may be accounted for by the fact that he has a son who has become a Virginia planter. Shortly after the civil war, it was, and it probably still is, the fashion, with some leading spirits of Virginia, to denounce Negro education and enfranchisement as necessarily hostile to the industrial interests of the country; and Dr. Freeman could not escape the contagion, while on a visit to his son, in 1881-82, Indeed, he says himself, referring to this very subject, “What I venture to say on the housetops has been whispered in my ear in closets by not a few in America, who fully understand the state and needs of their country.”
Footnotes:
2 Ibid; vol. ii, pp. 511, 512.
3 Some Impressions of the United States; by Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D.—London. 1883.
4 Dr. Freeman writes the word with a small “ n.”
5 Dr. Freeman is an ardent and untiring opponent of the Mohammedan religion, which teaches that it is morally possible and religiously right that, if a black man has the necessary qualifications, he should rise to the head of the Government, and sit in the seat of the Sultan—a doctrine which, in the history of Islam, has often been practically carried out. Ought the Negro to follow Dr. Freeman’s teaching on this subject, or Mohammed’s?
6 Some Impressions of the United States; chap. x.
2 Ibid; vol. ii, pp. 511, 512.
3 Some Impressions of the United States; by Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D.—London. 1883.
4 Dr. Freeman writes the word with a small “ n.”
5 Dr. Freeman is an ardent and untiring opponent of the Mohammedan religion, which teaches that it is morally possible and religiously right that, if a black man has the necessary qualifications, he should rise to the head of the Government, and sit in the seat of the Sultan—a doctrine which, in the history of Islam, has often been practically carried out. Ought the Negro to follow Dr. Freeman’s teaching on this subject, or Mohammed’s?
6 Some Impressions of the United States; chap. x.
Dr. Freeman is, probably, not aware that the “whisperers” in “closets” are numbered by loyal Americans among the "unreconstructed,” who feel regret for the absence of those laws and regulations by which the Negro was doomed to be a perpetual chattel, and which fostered that race hostility, which, by the excess of its violence, served not indeed to prevent the amalgamation of the races—for that was going on continually—but as the pillar and buttress of slavery. The agitation against the Negro by Americans in some parts of America is intelligible and, perhaps, natural, though it is, in a great measure, unjust and unreasonable. But it is strange indeed that an Englishman should go out of his way to add fuel to the fire, and, it can only be accounted for, by the fact, that, in the Southern States, foreigners have thought it prudent, at times, not only to profess to share, but even to excite, the popular antipathy against the Negro, that they might utilise it for their own ends. Dr. Freeman, indeed, warns the reader in his preface that “ the impressions are those of one who looks at things for Ms own purposes, and from his own point of view.” Mr. Herbert Spencer, who visited the United States not long after Dr. Freeman, did not, in recording his impressions of the country, say a single word which might increase the load of odium under which the Negro labours, and he was probably as keen in his appreciation of the “ state and needs of America” as his distinguished countryman. But, true to his English instincts, that eminent philosopher did not think it creditable to “hit a man when he is down.” The absence of any “axe to grind,” and freedom from obligations incurred in any particular section of the country, left his nobler nature its full play.
But Dr. Freeman parades his antipathy not only to the Negro, but to the Irish, the Indian, the Chinese. He selects for his persecution the weaker races. There are blows to give, he thinks, but none to take. We do not object to his criticisms, coarse as we deem them, of the looks of the different races; for good looks or bad looks in individuals or classes depend upon the standpoint from which the objects are viewed. Stanley tells us that when he came out of the interior of Africa, where, for two years, he had been accustomed to the black or bronze colour of the natives, the white complexion of the foreigners he met on the coast at first repelled him. He says:--
The sight of the pale faces of the Embomma merchants gave me the slightest suspicion of a shiver. The pale colour, after so long gazing on rich black and richer bronze, had something of an unaccountable ghastliness.
I could not divest myself of the feeling that they must be sick; yet, as I compare their complexions with what I now view, I should say they wore olive, sunburnt, dark.[7]
Win wood Reade, in his African Sketch-Book, gives an amusing and suggestive account of the impressions of an intelligent African youth in the interior of Africa, on his first seeing a white man. We would commend to Dr. Freeman a perusal of that account, if, with all his research, he has not yet learned that what may be “ugly” in Europe is not necessarily “ugly” in China, India, or Africa. If Dr. Freeman were bound to travel in Africa, we venture to predict that the natives would never make any disparaging comments— whatever their opinions—upon his personal appearance, where he would be likely to hear them; and this, from an innate good breeding, which, though they lack mental culture, is ever visible, in spite of what may be called their unpolished exterior.
But does it not occur to such writers as Dr. Freeman that the world is tired of hearing stereotyped phrases of contempt for the African? For three hundred years this has been going on. The world is tired, and is now changing its tone. The enquiry among the most earnest men is, What can be done to lift up this race? How shall that vast continent, from which millions have been torn to engage in unrequited toil for strangers, be delivered from the disadvantages of ages? These are the problems to which some of the best and most vigorous minds of the age are directing their attention. The Rip Van Winkles have lost their influence. The rising generation of English scholars has very little sympathy with the narrow, racial prejudices of their fathers. And, with such teachers to guide them, as Mr. Bosworth Smith, the youth now in the schools of England, when they come upon the stage of action, will eliminate from their literary and scientific discussions those relics of barbarism—the opprobrious terms now applied to foreign and weaker races—and they will wonder how, with all the refinement and culture of their predecessors, there could have been exhibited that odious selfishness, that want of magnanimity and consideration for others, which often disfigure their literary productions.
It is a significant sign of the times and of the progress of liberal sentiments in England that the great reputation of Mr. Carlyle, who believed that “God had put a whip in the hand of every white man to flog the Negro,” is undergoing the shock and revision which were sure to come when that large population, which he characterised as “ mostly fools,” recovered from the fascination of one who, as time goes on, will seem to them, more and more, a stupendous charlatan. We were amused, not long since, at the excitement and bitterness created in certain quarters by Mr. Froud’s straightforward honesty in publishing the picture which, with severe but repulsive truthfulness, Mr. Carlyle had drawn of himself. The worshippers of a generation have revolted at the hideousness of their fetish; and the enlightened Negro feels a sense of relief that the real character of one who sneered at the philanthropies of Christianity and the humanities of the age, and ridiculed what he called “ Nigger emancipation,” has been disclosed, and by his own hands. The agencies for good are mightier than the agencies for evil. A righteous Nemesis may be slow, but it is sure. The ploughman of Ayrshire has proved a deeper thinker and truer prophet than “ the philosopher of Chelsea.” The song of the rustic poet will ring down the ages when the sensationalisms and affectations of his cynical countryman are all buried in their merited oblivion.[8]
For a’ that and a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That man to man the world o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
As it has happened to Mr. Carlyle, so will it happen to all who use the gifts bestowed upon them by the common Father of all to-ridicule or oppress any portion of His creatures. They will be classed, in the ultimate judgment, even of men, with poltroons and cowards, who think it necessary to pull down others in order to assure a standing and opportunity for themselves; and in the great hereafter they will rank with Dante’s contemptible herd--
le genti dolorose,
C’hanno porduto il ben dell’ intelletto,
* * * * * * * *
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
Misericordia e Giustezia gli sdegna.[9]
But Dr. Freeman parades his antipathy not only to the Negro, but to the Irish, the Indian, the Chinese. He selects for his persecution the weaker races. There are blows to give, he thinks, but none to take. We do not object to his criticisms, coarse as we deem them, of the looks of the different races; for good looks or bad looks in individuals or classes depend upon the standpoint from which the objects are viewed. Stanley tells us that when he came out of the interior of Africa, where, for two years, he had been accustomed to the black or bronze colour of the natives, the white complexion of the foreigners he met on the coast at first repelled him. He says:--
The sight of the pale faces of the Embomma merchants gave me the slightest suspicion of a shiver. The pale colour, after so long gazing on rich black and richer bronze, had something of an unaccountable ghastliness.
I could not divest myself of the feeling that they must be sick; yet, as I compare their complexions with what I now view, I should say they wore olive, sunburnt, dark.[7]
Win wood Reade, in his African Sketch-Book, gives an amusing and suggestive account of the impressions of an intelligent African youth in the interior of Africa, on his first seeing a white man. We would commend to Dr. Freeman a perusal of that account, if, with all his research, he has not yet learned that what may be “ugly” in Europe is not necessarily “ugly” in China, India, or Africa. If Dr. Freeman were bound to travel in Africa, we venture to predict that the natives would never make any disparaging comments— whatever their opinions—upon his personal appearance, where he would be likely to hear them; and this, from an innate good breeding, which, though they lack mental culture, is ever visible, in spite of what may be called their unpolished exterior.
But does it not occur to such writers as Dr. Freeman that the world is tired of hearing stereotyped phrases of contempt for the African? For three hundred years this has been going on. The world is tired, and is now changing its tone. The enquiry among the most earnest men is, What can be done to lift up this race? How shall that vast continent, from which millions have been torn to engage in unrequited toil for strangers, be delivered from the disadvantages of ages? These are the problems to which some of the best and most vigorous minds of the age are directing their attention. The Rip Van Winkles have lost their influence. The rising generation of English scholars has very little sympathy with the narrow, racial prejudices of their fathers. And, with such teachers to guide them, as Mr. Bosworth Smith, the youth now in the schools of England, when they come upon the stage of action, will eliminate from their literary and scientific discussions those relics of barbarism—the opprobrious terms now applied to foreign and weaker races—and they will wonder how, with all the refinement and culture of their predecessors, there could have been exhibited that odious selfishness, that want of magnanimity and consideration for others, which often disfigure their literary productions.
It is a significant sign of the times and of the progress of liberal sentiments in England that the great reputation of Mr. Carlyle, who believed that “God had put a whip in the hand of every white man to flog the Negro,” is undergoing the shock and revision which were sure to come when that large population, which he characterised as “ mostly fools,” recovered from the fascination of one who, as time goes on, will seem to them, more and more, a stupendous charlatan. We were amused, not long since, at the excitement and bitterness created in certain quarters by Mr. Froud’s straightforward honesty in publishing the picture which, with severe but repulsive truthfulness, Mr. Carlyle had drawn of himself. The worshippers of a generation have revolted at the hideousness of their fetish; and the enlightened Negro feels a sense of relief that the real character of one who sneered at the philanthropies of Christianity and the humanities of the age, and ridiculed what he called “ Nigger emancipation,” has been disclosed, and by his own hands. The agencies for good are mightier than the agencies for evil. A righteous Nemesis may be slow, but it is sure. The ploughman of Ayrshire has proved a deeper thinker and truer prophet than “ the philosopher of Chelsea.” The song of the rustic poet will ring down the ages when the sensationalisms and affectations of his cynical countryman are all buried in their merited oblivion.[8]
For a’ that and a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That man to man the world o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
As it has happened to Mr. Carlyle, so will it happen to all who use the gifts bestowed upon them by the common Father of all to-ridicule or oppress any portion of His creatures. They will be classed, in the ultimate judgment, even of men, with poltroons and cowards, who think it necessary to pull down others in order to assure a standing and opportunity for themselves; and in the great hereafter they will rank with Dante’s contemptible herd--
le genti dolorose,
C’hanno porduto il ben dell’ intelletto,
* * * * * * * *
Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
Misericordia e Giustezia gli sdegna.[9]
Footnotes:
7 Through the Dark Continent, vol. ii, p. 462.
8 How much there is (says Professor Max Müller) in Carlyle’s histories that, might safely be consigned to oblivion.—India, p. 16.
9 Inferno, iii.
7 Through the Dark Continent, vol. ii, p. 462.
8 How much there is (says Professor Max Müller) in Carlyle’s histories that, might safely be consigned to oblivion.—India, p. 16.
9 Inferno, iii.
We are glad to notice that, in the midst of an interesting and’ absorbing narrative of the siege and capture of Delhi, Mr. Bosworth Smith pauses to record his indignation at baseness and brutality, and to brand with just condemnation the deeds of Captain Hodson.. We do not care to reproduce here the horrible charges which, on substantial evidence, direct and collateral, are preferred against the man; but this we may say, that in our opinion Hodson was, morally speaking, one of the worst specimens of all of whom we have ever heard or read as claiming relationship with Englishmen.
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[10]
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It is consolatory to believe that there were only two other Englishmen like Hodson in India, and we are glad that their names are not given by the biographer. Mr. Bosworth Smith’s reference to a life of this man by his brother, “extolling him as a model of Christian chivalry and honour,” reminds us of a passage in Macaulay’s terrible indictment of Barere, And as it fell to the lot of Barere, under the caustic pen of that brilliant essayist, so has it fallen to the lot of Hodson, under the indignant and incisive pen of Mr. Bosworth Smith. We imagine that from the eminence of infamy on which Mr. Smith has placed his character, no attempt to prove him a “model Christian” will ever take it down.
The animadversions on the proceedings of Frederick Cooper seem to us even more necessary than the impaling of Hodson. Hodson was an exceptional character, rough-hewn and of a base nature. Cooper represented the ordinary English official of whom hundreds go to India and the colonies. He was of finer nature and higher culture than Hodson, and his example, if not reprobated and condemned, as it has been in this book, might be followed by the large number who, in the English service, are likely to secure positions similar to that which he held.
We do not see, however, that full justice has been meted out to John Nicholson. There is about this man, we must admit, a great deal that is attractive; and, perhaps, in the fearful crisis through which British India was then passing, such a character—” turbulent and imperious”—was necessary. He was evidently courageous, deserving to the full, no doubt, the enconiums bestowed upon him by Lord Lawrence in an after-dinner speech at the “Great Durbar of Lahore;” but we confess that our admiration is marred when we read the curt and apparently unfeeling note in which he announced to the Chief Commissioner the death of a man who had fallen by his nervous and fatal shot--
Sir,—I have the honour to report that a man came into my compound to-day intending to kill me, and that I shot him dead.
Your obedient servant,
JOHN NICHOLSON.
His cool and apparently indifferent remark after hacking to death a brave enemy who had stood manfully prepared to die at his post, has a touch of the unmanly in it. The Reviewer in the Quarterly, thinks that Nicholson is aptly described by the lines which Horace applies to Achilles--
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura sibi negat, nihil non arrogat armis.
Whatever else he possessed, he seems to us to have been devoid of many of the elements of the real hero. Whether we contemplate him from a military or ethical point of view, we cannot but regard his character as seriously incomplete and defective. “ In the English,” says Mr. Bosworth Smith, “ as in all imperial races, there is an element of the wild beast.” Nicholson exemplifies this remark. Perhaps in all conquering races this indomitable element is a necessity—this overbearing and insolent spirit, which alone knows how to conquer. But we shudder in the presence of a nature so relentless and implacable.
No one can fail to read with interest and admiration the following passing tribute paid to the weak—the natives who bore their part in the capture of Delhi:--
The coolness and the courage of the old Sikh Artillerymen, who had been picked out by Sir John Lawrence in person, and of the despised Muzbi Sikhs, whom he had also sent down to Delhi, were as conspicuous as that of the Europeans themselves. And the passive endurance of the water-carriers and native servants, who, amidst the hatreds of colour and race which the fierce conflict had engendered, had not always received the best of treatment at their masters’ hands, and were now expected to wait on those same masters amidst storms of shot and shell, was, perhaps, more wonderful than either.[11]
Mr. Bosworth Smith is not a philanthropic agitator, but he is intensely patriotic. He is intensely English, swayed by the noblest feelings of his people. He is anxious for the honour of England. He wishes that England should be everywhere feared and loved, especially in her colonies. He believes that England, upon the whole, possesses more of the elements and possibilities of beneficent and conservative rule than any other European nation; and he never loses an opportunity to point out that it is the aim of the Imperial Government that righteousness should at all times enter as a dominant, predominant factor in English policy toward weaker races. But he is also, at the same time, aware that, under colonial rule, such a policy is not always carried out. He is anxious that it should be. He is anxious that full scope should be given for the just ambition of native races, and that their abilities should be utilised in every way compatible with the rights and welfare of all; and he believes that such a course comes “ within the range of practical politics.” He looks upon the possibilities of the British Empire precisely as Dean Stanley looked upon the possibilities of the Church of England, as able to make room, not for one race only, nor for one element of human nature only, but for all the races and all the various elements of the whole world. Not that he would bring them all to a dead uniformity. He would respect the religious and social institutions of alien and non-Christian races, and he would not interfere with their harmless customs.
The animadversions on the proceedings of Frederick Cooper seem to us even more necessary than the impaling of Hodson. Hodson was an exceptional character, rough-hewn and of a base nature. Cooper represented the ordinary English official of whom hundreds go to India and the colonies. He was of finer nature and higher culture than Hodson, and his example, if not reprobated and condemned, as it has been in this book, might be followed by the large number who, in the English service, are likely to secure positions similar to that which he held.
We do not see, however, that full justice has been meted out to John Nicholson. There is about this man, we must admit, a great deal that is attractive; and, perhaps, in the fearful crisis through which British India was then passing, such a character—” turbulent and imperious”—was necessary. He was evidently courageous, deserving to the full, no doubt, the enconiums bestowed upon him by Lord Lawrence in an after-dinner speech at the “Great Durbar of Lahore;” but we confess that our admiration is marred when we read the curt and apparently unfeeling note in which he announced to the Chief Commissioner the death of a man who had fallen by his nervous and fatal shot--
Sir,—I have the honour to report that a man came into my compound to-day intending to kill me, and that I shot him dead.
Your obedient servant,
JOHN NICHOLSON.
His cool and apparently indifferent remark after hacking to death a brave enemy who had stood manfully prepared to die at his post, has a touch of the unmanly in it. The Reviewer in the Quarterly, thinks that Nicholson is aptly described by the lines which Horace applies to Achilles--
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura sibi negat, nihil non arrogat armis.
Whatever else he possessed, he seems to us to have been devoid of many of the elements of the real hero. Whether we contemplate him from a military or ethical point of view, we cannot but regard his character as seriously incomplete and defective. “ In the English,” says Mr. Bosworth Smith, “ as in all imperial races, there is an element of the wild beast.” Nicholson exemplifies this remark. Perhaps in all conquering races this indomitable element is a necessity—this overbearing and insolent spirit, which alone knows how to conquer. But we shudder in the presence of a nature so relentless and implacable.
No one can fail to read with interest and admiration the following passing tribute paid to the weak—the natives who bore their part in the capture of Delhi:--
The coolness and the courage of the old Sikh Artillerymen, who had been picked out by Sir John Lawrence in person, and of the despised Muzbi Sikhs, whom he had also sent down to Delhi, were as conspicuous as that of the Europeans themselves. And the passive endurance of the water-carriers and native servants, who, amidst the hatreds of colour and race which the fierce conflict had engendered, had not always received the best of treatment at their masters’ hands, and were now expected to wait on those same masters amidst storms of shot and shell, was, perhaps, more wonderful than either.[11]
Mr. Bosworth Smith is not a philanthropic agitator, but he is intensely patriotic. He is intensely English, swayed by the noblest feelings of his people. He is anxious for the honour of England. He wishes that England should be everywhere feared and loved, especially in her colonies. He believes that England, upon the whole, possesses more of the elements and possibilities of beneficent and conservative rule than any other European nation; and he never loses an opportunity to point out that it is the aim of the Imperial Government that righteousness should at all times enter as a dominant, predominant factor in English policy toward weaker races. But he is also, at the same time, aware that, under colonial rule, such a policy is not always carried out. He is anxious that it should be. He is anxious that full scope should be given for the just ambition of native races, and that their abilities should be utilised in every way compatible with the rights and welfare of all; and he believes that such a course comes “ within the range of practical politics.” He looks upon the possibilities of the British Empire precisely as Dean Stanley looked upon the possibilities of the Church of England, as able to make room, not for one race only, nor for one element of human nature only, but for all the races and all the various elements of the whole world. Not that he would bring them all to a dead uniformity. He would respect the religious and social institutions of alien and non-Christian races, and he would not interfere with their harmless customs.
Footnotes:
10 Iliad, ii.
11 Life of Lord Lawrence; vol, ii, p. 184.
10 Iliad, ii.
11 Life of Lord Lawrence; vol, ii, p. 184.
Those acquainted with the character and temper of the men who, happily for humanity, come to the head of the Government at home from both the great parties, know that Mr. Bosworth Smith by no means exaggerates when he represents Henry and John Lawrence as the embodiment of the spirit and intention of the Imperial Government. “ Taking them both together,” he says, “ the chivalry, the generosity, the sympthy of the one; the strength, the judgment, the magnanimity of the other; the name of Lawrence may, now and forever, present to the people of India the noblest impersonation of English rule—a rule unselfish and unaggressive, benevolent and energetic, wise and just,”[12]
Considering the peculiarities of human nature, the excellencies and defects which are almost always found in some of the ablest rulers, it is not to be wondered at that the beneficent conceptions of the Imperial Government should find realisation in the administrative acts of but comparatively few of its representatives abroad; and this, because the majority of men lack that imaginative sympathy which enables us to put ourselves in the place of others.
Of one of the most distinguished of the British rulers of India Mr. Bosworth Smith says:--
Lord Dalhousie seems, from his letters, hundreds of which lie before me, to have been unable to clothe himself sufficiently with the feelings, the prejudices, the aspirations, the ideas of those over whom he ruled; and he was unable, therefore, to understand how the natives of India, recognising, as many of them did the general benevolence of our intentions and the undoubted beneficence of our rule, were yet disposed to look back with yearning and regret on the days when, if they were oppressed, plundered, murdered, they were so by men of their own race, their own language, or their own creed. . . . Nor is there in the whole of his letters, brilliant and incisive and racy, as they all are, a single sentence which inclines the reader to pause and say, as he does again and again, when he is reading the much less brilliant and incisive letters of Metcalf, or Outram, of Henry or John Lawrence, “Here is a man whose chief claim to rule India was that ho so thoroughly understood her people. If, therefore, there has been no abler, or more commanding, or more conscientious, or more successful Governor-General of India than Lord Dalhousie, there have been, in my opinion, Governors-General who were more sympathetic with the natives and more beloved.[13]
The West African settlements, the only ones of the British colonies with which we are acquainted, notwithstanding all the drawbacks of climate, have numbered among their rulers, especially within the last twenty years, some of the best representatives of the English spirit, The names of Sir Arthur E. Kennedy, Sir John Pope Hennessy, Sir Samuel Rowe, Governor A. E. Havelock, will long be remembered on these shores as reflecting one of the best traditions of Downing Street.
One of the chief faults of the Indian administration, to which Mr. Bosworth Smith often incidentally alludes, is that it leaves so few outlets for native talent, has so little real insight into the native character, and is too anxious to engraft Western progress wholesale on Eastern conservatism and stagnation. It is gratifying to know that in the colonies in West Africa— thanks to the enlightened efforts of some of the rulers to whom we have referred—matters, in these respects, are improving. The fault which administrators find with the natives is a want of regular and continuous development. Their later career does not seem to fulfil the promise of their earlier years. But this happens, more or less, in all countries and among all races. Everywhere the talents and conduct of boys or young men develop themselves very differently. Some are precocious, expand with a show of rapidity, and then, all at once, stand still or deteriorate. But, in the West African settlements, this is perhaps more noticeable, and so it will be in all colonies where Englishmen rule over an alien and weaker race. The remedy is, “more outlets for native talent,” greater “insight into native character,” and less anxiety to engraft European progress wholesale on African conservatism and stagnation. A more comprehensive system of education and better teachers would, in a short time, give the natives all the accomplishments in which they are now so deficient; and they would soon prove that Nature has not denied them the talents and the perseverance necessary to adopt the manners and the habits suited to positions of responsibility and trust under an enlightened government.
The following is worthy of reproduction, preservation, and wide circulation: After the fall of Delhi, some of John Lawrence’s friends wrote to him expressing their earnest hope that he would “ plough up Delhi;” others, that he would at least destroy the Great Mosque. In reply to the latter proposal, he writes to Pelham Burn, who had consulted him in the matter, “I will on no account consent to it. We should carefully abstain from the destruction of religious edifices, either to favour friends or to annoy foes.” And, when some of the chief authorities in his province—and many of them his intimate friends—came in solemn deputation to him to urge the same step, and pointed out, as a convincing argument, that to destroy the finest place of Muslim worship in the world would be felt as a blow to their religion by Muslims everywhere, he first reasoned out the matter calmly with them, but finding that he could produce no effect, he jumped up from his seat, and, slapping the foremost of them on his back, said, “ I’ll tell you what it is: there are many things you could persuade me to do, but you shall never persuade me to do this; so you may as well spare your pains.” [14]
Thus the mosques of Delhi were not desecrated; that the inhabitants were not left to shift for themselves as homeless outcasts; that the whole city, with its glorious buildings and its historic memories, was not levelled with the ground and the plough driven over its site; in one word, that the lasting shame emblazoned in letters of blood and fire in the annals of Imperial Rome, by her ruthless destruction of Carthage and Corinth, is not written in equally indelible characters in the annals of English rule in India, was duo, in great part at least, to the justice and the humanity, the statesmanship and the Christian spirit of John Lawrence.[15]
Lord Lawrence did not parade his religion, says his biographer:
No more sincere Christian ever lived. Ho walked as in the sight of God, He read the Bible every morning of his life with prayer, and regarded it as the only, and as the sufficient, guide to heaven. But he rarely talked on religious questions, and still more rarely did he make use of the phraseology which was current in religious circles of the strictly Evangelical type. The religious expressions made use of in his letters are of the simplest and most childlike kind.[16]
The following testimony is borne by Captain Eastwick, an intimate friend, who himself partakes largely of the Lawrence spirit. The hospitalities of his pleasant home in London are always accessible to the deserving stranger of whatever race or colour. He says:
No man understood better than Lord Lawrence that living for others is the first step towards living for God, The extent to which he laboured in this sphere of Christian charity is known only to the cherished partner of his earthly pilgrimage, the partaker of his joys and sorrows, and the sole sharer of every secret of his inner life. . . . From the earliest period of my acquaintance with him he was a decided Christian; a simple, God-fearing man, who, to the best of his ability, translated into daily practice the precepts of the Bible.[17]
Considering the peculiarities of human nature, the excellencies and defects which are almost always found in some of the ablest rulers, it is not to be wondered at that the beneficent conceptions of the Imperial Government should find realisation in the administrative acts of but comparatively few of its representatives abroad; and this, because the majority of men lack that imaginative sympathy which enables us to put ourselves in the place of others.
Of one of the most distinguished of the British rulers of India Mr. Bosworth Smith says:--
Lord Dalhousie seems, from his letters, hundreds of which lie before me, to have been unable to clothe himself sufficiently with the feelings, the prejudices, the aspirations, the ideas of those over whom he ruled; and he was unable, therefore, to understand how the natives of India, recognising, as many of them did the general benevolence of our intentions and the undoubted beneficence of our rule, were yet disposed to look back with yearning and regret on the days when, if they were oppressed, plundered, murdered, they were so by men of their own race, their own language, or their own creed. . . . Nor is there in the whole of his letters, brilliant and incisive and racy, as they all are, a single sentence which inclines the reader to pause and say, as he does again and again, when he is reading the much less brilliant and incisive letters of Metcalf, or Outram, of Henry or John Lawrence, “Here is a man whose chief claim to rule India was that ho so thoroughly understood her people. If, therefore, there has been no abler, or more commanding, or more conscientious, or more successful Governor-General of India than Lord Dalhousie, there have been, in my opinion, Governors-General who were more sympathetic with the natives and more beloved.[13]
The West African settlements, the only ones of the British colonies with which we are acquainted, notwithstanding all the drawbacks of climate, have numbered among their rulers, especially within the last twenty years, some of the best representatives of the English spirit, The names of Sir Arthur E. Kennedy, Sir John Pope Hennessy, Sir Samuel Rowe, Governor A. E. Havelock, will long be remembered on these shores as reflecting one of the best traditions of Downing Street.
One of the chief faults of the Indian administration, to which Mr. Bosworth Smith often incidentally alludes, is that it leaves so few outlets for native talent, has so little real insight into the native character, and is too anxious to engraft Western progress wholesale on Eastern conservatism and stagnation. It is gratifying to know that in the colonies in West Africa— thanks to the enlightened efforts of some of the rulers to whom we have referred—matters, in these respects, are improving. The fault which administrators find with the natives is a want of regular and continuous development. Their later career does not seem to fulfil the promise of their earlier years. But this happens, more or less, in all countries and among all races. Everywhere the talents and conduct of boys or young men develop themselves very differently. Some are precocious, expand with a show of rapidity, and then, all at once, stand still or deteriorate. But, in the West African settlements, this is perhaps more noticeable, and so it will be in all colonies where Englishmen rule over an alien and weaker race. The remedy is, “more outlets for native talent,” greater “insight into native character,” and less anxiety to engraft European progress wholesale on African conservatism and stagnation. A more comprehensive system of education and better teachers would, in a short time, give the natives all the accomplishments in which they are now so deficient; and they would soon prove that Nature has not denied them the talents and the perseverance necessary to adopt the manners and the habits suited to positions of responsibility and trust under an enlightened government.
The following is worthy of reproduction, preservation, and wide circulation: After the fall of Delhi, some of John Lawrence’s friends wrote to him expressing their earnest hope that he would “ plough up Delhi;” others, that he would at least destroy the Great Mosque. In reply to the latter proposal, he writes to Pelham Burn, who had consulted him in the matter, “I will on no account consent to it. We should carefully abstain from the destruction of religious edifices, either to favour friends or to annoy foes.” And, when some of the chief authorities in his province—and many of them his intimate friends—came in solemn deputation to him to urge the same step, and pointed out, as a convincing argument, that to destroy the finest place of Muslim worship in the world would be felt as a blow to their religion by Muslims everywhere, he first reasoned out the matter calmly with them, but finding that he could produce no effect, he jumped up from his seat, and, slapping the foremost of them on his back, said, “ I’ll tell you what it is: there are many things you could persuade me to do, but you shall never persuade me to do this; so you may as well spare your pains.” [14]
Thus the mosques of Delhi were not desecrated; that the inhabitants were not left to shift for themselves as homeless outcasts; that the whole city, with its glorious buildings and its historic memories, was not levelled with the ground and the plough driven over its site; in one word, that the lasting shame emblazoned in letters of blood and fire in the annals of Imperial Rome, by her ruthless destruction of Carthage and Corinth, is not written in equally indelible characters in the annals of English rule in India, was duo, in great part at least, to the justice and the humanity, the statesmanship and the Christian spirit of John Lawrence.[15]
Lord Lawrence did not parade his religion, says his biographer:
No more sincere Christian ever lived. Ho walked as in the sight of God, He read the Bible every morning of his life with prayer, and regarded it as the only, and as the sufficient, guide to heaven. But he rarely talked on religious questions, and still more rarely did he make use of the phraseology which was current in religious circles of the strictly Evangelical type. The religious expressions made use of in his letters are of the simplest and most childlike kind.[16]
The following testimony is borne by Captain Eastwick, an intimate friend, who himself partakes largely of the Lawrence spirit. The hospitalities of his pleasant home in London are always accessible to the deserving stranger of whatever race or colour. He says:
No man understood better than Lord Lawrence that living for others is the first step towards living for God, The extent to which he laboured in this sphere of Christian charity is known only to the cherished partner of his earthly pilgrimage, the partaker of his joys and sorrows, and the sole sharer of every secret of his inner life. . . . From the earliest period of my acquaintance with him he was a decided Christian; a simple, God-fearing man, who, to the best of his ability, translated into daily practice the precepts of the Bible.[17]
Footnotes:
12 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 160.
13 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 434, 435.
14 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 222.
15 Ibid, p. 226.
16 Ibid,, vol. ii, p. 270
17 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 325.
12 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 160.
13 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 434, 435.
14 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 222.
15 Ibid, p. 226.
16 Ibid,, vol. ii, p. 270
17 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 325.
The celebrated letter of Lord Lawrence, in reply to Colonel Herbert Edwards, wherein he lays down the course which a Christian Government should pursue in dealing with non-Christian subjects, has been generally studied in Asia, Europe, Africa and America, and furnishes very important hints to Christian missionaries and missionary committees. It shows the “ insight, grasp, calmness and toleration of a Christian statesman.” The letter was written, under his instructions, by his Secretary, now Sir Richard Temple, who has borne, since that time, a part in the government of nearly every province in India, and is distinguished as an enlightened friend of Christian missions. We quote one or two striking passages:--
Sir John Lawrence, I am pleased to state, says the Secretary, entertains the earnest belief that all those measures which are really and truly Christian can bo carried out in India, not only without danger to British rule, but, on the contrary, with every advantage to its stability. Christian things done in a Christian way will never, the Chief Commissioner is convinced, alienate the Heathen. About such things there are qualities which do not provoke or excite distrust, nor harden to resistance. It is when unchristian things are done in the name of Christianity, or when Christian things are done in an unchristian way, that mischief and danger are occasioned.
The greatness of Lord Lawrence was English greatness. He cannot be regarded as an isolated phenomenon in the modern history of England. He embodied in himself the characteristics of the English people. He was the result of the soundness of the central character of England. The beginning of his career in India witnessed the beginning, in England, of that series of reforms which, in the last fifty years, have changed the whole of the economic and political character of Great Britain. No other period in the modern parliamentary history of that great country has been so fruitful of beneficent measures; in none has there been such a variety of philanthropic legislation. During the first decade of John Lawrence’s residence in India, the Reform Bill, the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery, the Bill for the Removal of the Disabilities of the Jews, the Poor Law Amendment, the Tithe Commutation Acts, were fully discussed and passed by Parliament.
In the subsequent decade, under the guidance of Sir Robert Peel, the same spirit of improvement was displayed in financial and commercial changes, ending with the abolition of the Corn Laws and of the Navigation Laws. The speeches delivered in Parliament and elsewhere in England during the discussion of these measures, were all, no doubt, eagerly read and studied by John Lawrence in his remote sphere of labour, and they were in themselves a liberal education. Living in a strange country, among a strange people and unfamiliar surroundings, and anxious to keep abreast of events as they happened at home, it is probable that he enjoyed greater opportunity and had greater inducements for studying and mastering the questions which came before him in letters and newspapers, than he would have had in England. While in the districts of Delhi and Paniput, he was accumulating those treasures of experience, he was, at the same time, getting instruction from the noble utterances of such able teachers as Brougham, Macaulay, Thomas Powell Buxton, and acquiring those habits of which the results are seen all through his subsequent labours, whether in the Indian Council, the Palace at Calcutta, or the House of Lords. His mind was getting direction from the great orations of Bright, Cobden, Peel, Gladstone, Disraeli. He grew up and his first official deeds were performed during the time that the greatest orators of the present century were swaying the minds of the English people, creating an enthusiasm for the masses, and finding co-operation in the Muse of the greatest contemporary poet, who taught in stirring song that
Kind hearts are moro than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Under such influences was the character of John Lawrence formed —a character which, it cannot be doubted, was the result of the constitutional history and national character of England, It was an evolution—a blossom which took shape from the rising sap, and was tinted by the light of English history.
It is matter for gratulation that the Life of Lord Lawrence has been added to the literature of Great Britain—a literature upon which the sun never sets, and which may be compared to a beautiful and variegated landscape. The traveller over it is surprised and delighted at each turn of the road. There are stretches which, beautiful with fragrant flowers, minister to the æsthetic intuitions and necessities of his nature; along these he loves to linger; but the only feeling that remains, after he has passed them, is one of exhilaration. There are others where luscious fruits abound, which, besides delighting the eye, regale the appetite and satisfy a craving deeper than mere artificial taste. Here he finds not only delight, but profit, There are beautiful and charming works in English literature which are only beautiful; they do not nourish. There are others which feed the hungry, while they send the rich empty away; others, still, minister to the taste of the rich, while they leave the poor to starve; while others once more afford sustenance to the needy and guidance and help to the rich. The Life of Lord Lawrence belongs to the last class. Mr. Bosworth Smith has fulfilled the conditions laid down by the poet for complete success in literary art:--
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulce
Leotorem delectando pariterque monendo.[18]
Sir John Lawrence, I am pleased to state, says the Secretary, entertains the earnest belief that all those measures which are really and truly Christian can bo carried out in India, not only without danger to British rule, but, on the contrary, with every advantage to its stability. Christian things done in a Christian way will never, the Chief Commissioner is convinced, alienate the Heathen. About such things there are qualities which do not provoke or excite distrust, nor harden to resistance. It is when unchristian things are done in the name of Christianity, or when Christian things are done in an unchristian way, that mischief and danger are occasioned.
The greatness of Lord Lawrence was English greatness. He cannot be regarded as an isolated phenomenon in the modern history of England. He embodied in himself the characteristics of the English people. He was the result of the soundness of the central character of England. The beginning of his career in India witnessed the beginning, in England, of that series of reforms which, in the last fifty years, have changed the whole of the economic and political character of Great Britain. No other period in the modern parliamentary history of that great country has been so fruitful of beneficent measures; in none has there been such a variety of philanthropic legislation. During the first decade of John Lawrence’s residence in India, the Reform Bill, the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery, the Bill for the Removal of the Disabilities of the Jews, the Poor Law Amendment, the Tithe Commutation Acts, were fully discussed and passed by Parliament.
In the subsequent decade, under the guidance of Sir Robert Peel, the same spirit of improvement was displayed in financial and commercial changes, ending with the abolition of the Corn Laws and of the Navigation Laws. The speeches delivered in Parliament and elsewhere in England during the discussion of these measures, were all, no doubt, eagerly read and studied by John Lawrence in his remote sphere of labour, and they were in themselves a liberal education. Living in a strange country, among a strange people and unfamiliar surroundings, and anxious to keep abreast of events as they happened at home, it is probable that he enjoyed greater opportunity and had greater inducements for studying and mastering the questions which came before him in letters and newspapers, than he would have had in England. While in the districts of Delhi and Paniput, he was accumulating those treasures of experience, he was, at the same time, getting instruction from the noble utterances of such able teachers as Brougham, Macaulay, Thomas Powell Buxton, and acquiring those habits of which the results are seen all through his subsequent labours, whether in the Indian Council, the Palace at Calcutta, or the House of Lords. His mind was getting direction from the great orations of Bright, Cobden, Peel, Gladstone, Disraeli. He grew up and his first official deeds were performed during the time that the greatest orators of the present century were swaying the minds of the English people, creating an enthusiasm for the masses, and finding co-operation in the Muse of the greatest contemporary poet, who taught in stirring song that
Kind hearts are moro than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Under such influences was the character of John Lawrence formed —a character which, it cannot be doubted, was the result of the constitutional history and national character of England, It was an evolution—a blossom which took shape from the rising sap, and was tinted by the light of English history.
It is matter for gratulation that the Life of Lord Lawrence has been added to the literature of Great Britain—a literature upon which the sun never sets, and which may be compared to a beautiful and variegated landscape. The traveller over it is surprised and delighted at each turn of the road. There are stretches which, beautiful with fragrant flowers, minister to the æsthetic intuitions and necessities of his nature; along these he loves to linger; but the only feeling that remains, after he has passed them, is one of exhilaration. There are others where luscious fruits abound, which, besides delighting the eye, regale the appetite and satisfy a craving deeper than mere artificial taste. Here he finds not only delight, but profit, There are beautiful and charming works in English literature which are only beautiful; they do not nourish. There are others which feed the hungry, while they send the rich empty away; others, still, minister to the taste of the rich, while they leave the poor to starve; while others once more afford sustenance to the needy and guidance and help to the rich. The Life of Lord Lawrence belongs to the last class. Mr. Bosworth Smith has fulfilled the conditions laid down by the poet for complete success in literary art:--
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulce
Leotorem delectando pariterque monendo.[18]
Footnotes:
18 Horace, ‘Epistola ad Pisones.’
18 Horace, ‘Epistola ad Pisones.’
The atmosphere of the book is refreshing and uplifting. It will bear protracted reading aloud in any thoughtful circle. Its moral and intellectual tone throws a brightness over virtue and benevolence, and makes vice and brutality seem darker. It brings to mind the experience one has in a tropical tornado when it is just approaching. The quarter of the heavens whence it proceeds looks blacker from the clearness of the sky in the opposite direction. The storm clouds deepen in their density and gloom, while the sun appears to shine with increased intensity in the opposite quarter. So the unsparing vindictiveness, savage brutality and insatiable avarice of Hodson, the stern and calculating cruelty of Cooper, the fierce and distorted temperament of Nicholson, seem more repulsive in the light of the exalted heroism, the generosity and love of the Lawrences, and other noble characters, who have been made to pass before us. The light gives a greater depth to the shadow.
Taking into consideration the moral influence of this work, it is, we venture to think, far more important to humanity than any of the productions of the fine arts—of sculpture, painting, or music. So far as their effect upon human progress is concerned, what are the frescoes of the Vatican, the exquisite grace of Raphael, or the sublimity and energy of Michael Angelo, compared to the practical and philanthropic influence of such a book? Viewing its effect upon the welfare of humanity, we would not exchange it for all the awful and beautiful things in the Sistine Chapel. Its triumphs are not æsthetic, but humanitarian. The high problems of political and social economy and ethics, of race, education, religion and diplomacy, are all dealt with in a truly Christian spirit. Not taste but righteousness is consulted, and the great law is enforced, by precept and living examples, of doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us.
We sincerely hope that this work may not remain an isolated phenomenon in the biographical literature of England. We trust that the successors of Lord Lawrence may find biographers who may be not only disciples but successors in spirit, of Mr. Bosworth Smith. In one sense, Lord Lawrence will have no successor. There are some qualities which are individual and belong to a particular time—and only to that time—neither communicable nor transmissible. Lord Lawrence could not form a Lawrence school any more than Shakespeare could train a Shakespeare. A doctrine, a principle, a method, a discovery, may be communicated or transmitted. But how shall a spirit be embodied? Who shall give to others that “ heroic simplicity,” that rapid penetration into the obscurities of a question, that prompt intuition into peculiar cases, which cannot be judged by general rules, and which distinguished Lord Lawrence? These gifts are personal and peculiar.
But non omnis moriar.
The essential principles underlying all that Lord Lawrence wrote and thought and did will be as true a hundred years hence as they are to-day; and from those principles, as from a mine of wealth, many generations of Indian statesmen may gather treasures new and old, bearing alike what is the practical ideal at which Indian rulers ought to aim, and what are the dangers which it most behoves them to avoid.[19]
It has been a joy and a profit to us to study these volumes, and we lay them down with regret that wo could not deal with more of the important questions they suggest. We should be puzzled to say which has given us the greater pleasure, the beauty and the skill with which the story has been told, or the sentiments of justice and love which permeate the record. The two chapters on ‘John Lawrence as Conqueror’ and ‘John Lawrence as Pacificator’ ought to be published separately in tract form, and scattered over not only the British Empire, but the world. We have been able to deal with but one side of the work—that side which makes it so encouraging to non- European races, and so instructive to Englishmen who have to deal with them, either as rulers, missionaries or traders, and that side, probably, which will give to the work its most permanent influence and value.
We congratulate Mr. Bosworth Smith on his great achievement. He has erected a monumentum ære perennius, which will ever be an honour to his country.
It will be a delight to remember both the hero and his biographer. The country which is proud to have produced John Lawrence must be proud to have produced Bosworth Smith. The land of Achilles is also the land of Homer. We look for immediate and direct results from the influence of this book; and we look for remote and far-reaching results. It will make itself felt in existing society, and in the thinking and actions of generations yet unborn.
Taking into consideration the moral influence of this work, it is, we venture to think, far more important to humanity than any of the productions of the fine arts—of sculpture, painting, or music. So far as their effect upon human progress is concerned, what are the frescoes of the Vatican, the exquisite grace of Raphael, or the sublimity and energy of Michael Angelo, compared to the practical and philanthropic influence of such a book? Viewing its effect upon the welfare of humanity, we would not exchange it for all the awful and beautiful things in the Sistine Chapel. Its triumphs are not æsthetic, but humanitarian. The high problems of political and social economy and ethics, of race, education, religion and diplomacy, are all dealt with in a truly Christian spirit. Not taste but righteousness is consulted, and the great law is enforced, by precept and living examples, of doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us.
We sincerely hope that this work may not remain an isolated phenomenon in the biographical literature of England. We trust that the successors of Lord Lawrence may find biographers who may be not only disciples but successors in spirit, of Mr. Bosworth Smith. In one sense, Lord Lawrence will have no successor. There are some qualities which are individual and belong to a particular time—and only to that time—neither communicable nor transmissible. Lord Lawrence could not form a Lawrence school any more than Shakespeare could train a Shakespeare. A doctrine, a principle, a method, a discovery, may be communicated or transmitted. But how shall a spirit be embodied? Who shall give to others that “ heroic simplicity,” that rapid penetration into the obscurities of a question, that prompt intuition into peculiar cases, which cannot be judged by general rules, and which distinguished Lord Lawrence? These gifts are personal and peculiar.
But non omnis moriar.
The essential principles underlying all that Lord Lawrence wrote and thought and did will be as true a hundred years hence as they are to-day; and from those principles, as from a mine of wealth, many generations of Indian statesmen may gather treasures new and old, bearing alike what is the practical ideal at which Indian rulers ought to aim, and what are the dangers which it most behoves them to avoid.[19]
It has been a joy and a profit to us to study these volumes, and we lay them down with regret that wo could not deal with more of the important questions they suggest. We should be puzzled to say which has given us the greater pleasure, the beauty and the skill with which the story has been told, or the sentiments of justice and love which permeate the record. The two chapters on ‘John Lawrence as Conqueror’ and ‘John Lawrence as Pacificator’ ought to be published separately in tract form, and scattered over not only the British Empire, but the world. We have been able to deal with but one side of the work—that side which makes it so encouraging to non- European races, and so instructive to Englishmen who have to deal with them, either as rulers, missionaries or traders, and that side, probably, which will give to the work its most permanent influence and value.
We congratulate Mr. Bosworth Smith on his great achievement. He has erected a monumentum ære perennius, which will ever be an honour to his country.
It will be a delight to remember both the hero and his biographer. The country which is proud to have produced John Lawrence must be proud to have produced Bosworth Smith. The land of Achilles is also the land of Homer. We look for immediate and direct results from the influence of this book; and we look for remote and far-reaching results. It will make itself felt in existing society, and in the thinking and actions of generations yet unborn.
Footnotes:
19 Life of Lord Lawrence; vol i, p. 309.
19 Life of Lord Lawrence; vol i, p. 309.
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